The Tikvah Podcast

This week, Jews around the world will begin reading from the Book of Deuteronomy each Shabbat. Sefer Devarim, as it is known in Hebrew, is a remarkable work; consisting almost entirely of an address Moses delivered to the Israelites in his final weeks of life, it touches on history, politics, prophecy, and much more. Two years ago, Jonathan Silver sat down with Israeli thinker and scholar Micah Goodman to uncover meaning of Moses's final speech. As we begin again this last book of the Torah, we are pleased to rebroadcast that conversation. -- The book of Deuteronomy, which Jews around the globe read in synagogue in the period leading up to the High Holy Days, consists primarily of Moses's final oration to the people of Israel. With the nation on the cusp of conquering Canaan and establishing its own sovereign government, the prophet presents Israel with a set of laws and regulations surrounding power and kingship—what some scholars call the "Mosaic Constitution." In his best-selling Hebrew book, ha-N'um ha-Aharon shel Moshe (Moses's Last Speech), the Israeli writer and philosopher Micah Goodman offers a thought-provoking and original interpretation of Deuteronomy, presenting profound insights about the Torah's revolutionary political teachings. Though the book has not yet been translated into English, Dr. Goodman recently taught an eight-episode online course for the Tikvah Fund on "Deuteronomy: The Last Speech of Moses," in which he explores and expands upon the themes and ideas of his earlier work. In this podcast, he speaks with Mosaic's editor Jonathan Silver about Deuteronomy's laws regarding the monarchy and what political and philosophical wisdom they hold for us today. If you enjoy this podcast, you can enroll in Dr. Goodman's free Tikvah online course at Courses.TikvahFund.org. Musical selections in this podcast are drawn from the Quintet for Clarinet and Strings, op. 31a, composed by Paul Ben-Haim and performed by the ARC Ensemble.

More than half a million Jewish men and women served in the U.S. Armed Forces in World War II. They fought in every theater of the war, from North Africa and Italy to France and Belgium to the Philippines and Japan. In the process, many of them fell in service to their country. In the fog of war, some of them were buried in military cemeteries under Christian gravestones in the shape of the Latin Cross. Decades later, there's now an organization dedicated to working with the families of the fallen and the American military to replace the crosses with stars of David to honor more properly the heritage of the Jewish war dead. This week our podcast is joined by the president of that organization's board of directors, Rabbi Jacob J. Schacter, a historian at Yeshiva University who previously joined the podcast to discuss Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveichik's essay "Kol Dodi Dofek." This week, he speaks with Mosaic's editor Jonathan Silver about the work of Operation Benjamin—and shares his belief that the organization's mission is an expression of devotion to the memory of these fallen Jewish heroes and to the nation they died to defend.

In October 2013, Robert Nicholson wrote a defining essay in Mosaic, "Evangelicals and Israel: What American Jews Don't Want to Know (but Need to)." It in he outlined the wide and deep support that millions of Christian evangelicals had for Israel. He also sounded a note of caution: that support could diminish over time. Nearly ten years later, that warning may be coming to fruition. At the very least, the communities of American Christian evangelicals who formed the basis of Christian Zionism have decreased in numbers and influence. But there's some countervailing news: in other places around the world, from Brazil to Nigeria to Guatemala, evangelical Christianity has expanded, and with it, the possibility of support for Zionism. On this week's podcast, Nicholson, the president of the Philos Project, joins us to explain what's driving the changing face of evangelical Zionism in America and the rest of the world. Musical selections in this podcast are drawn from the Quintet for Clarinet and Strings, op. 31a, composed by Paul Ben-Haim and performed by the ARC Ensemble.

Before the state of Israel was founded, some early Zionists argued not only for the recovery of Jewish political sovereignty, but also for the emergence of a new type of Jew. This "New Jew," as they called it, would be free of Judaism's bookish habits and the weight of diaspora Jewish history and be able to take the reigns of the newly independent Jewish polity. Three-quarters of a century after Israel's founding, what is the state of the New Jew? Last month, the Mosaic columnist Eli Spitzer contended that Israel's 21st-century success made it outmoded. Looking around Israel today, he sees the fascinating reemergence of older, diasporic forms of Jewish life rather than the triumph of the New Jew. On the same day that Spitzer published his short reflection, the Mosaic contributor Daniel Gordis published a newsletter in which he came to the opposite conclusion: the state of Israel, he thinks, is "not the end of the Jewish people, just the end of a certain kind of Jewish people." To him, the New Jew is alive and well. What could we do but convene a conversation on the matter? In this conversation, Gordis spoke with the Israeli historian Asael Abelman and Mosaic's editor Jonathan Silver about the the New Jew, the Old Jew, and the types of human personalities that the state of Israel tends to cultivate. This discussion took place live on Tuesday, July 12, in front of Mosaic subscribers. Musical selections in this podcast are drawn from the Quintet for Clarinet and Strings, op. 31a, composed by Paul Ben-Haim and performed by the ARC Ensemble.

In his 2022 book The War on the West, the British journalist Douglas Murray argues that many now prominent cultural ideas unfairly single out Western sins, discounting the good that Western civilization has brought about and sowing discord in America and Europe. On this week's podcast, he joins Mosaic editor Jonathan Silver to explain why Western civilization should be defended, to discuss the role that Israel and the Jewish people play in that defense, and to reflect on two of his friends who recently passed away, the philosopher Roger Scruton and the rabbi Jonathan Sacks, each of whom embodied strands of the Western tradition that deserve to be defended and perpetuated. Musical selections in this podcast are drawn from the Quintet for Clarinet and Strings, op. 31a, composed by Paul Ben-Haim and performed by the ARC Ensemble.

The Temple Mount in the Old City of Jerusalem is the holiest physical site in all of Judaism. Religiously observant Jews ask God to restore the Temple and its services each and every day in the traditional liturgy. For thousands of years, Jews had no access to the site on which that Temple stood, until 1967, when Israeli forces reunited Jerusalem. Since then, Israel has by special arrangement ceded some forms of control of the Temple Mount to religious Muslim stewards supported by the government of Jordan. Under this arrangement, Jews may go up to the site—and many more have been doing so in recent years—but they are not allowed to pray there. Why does Israel allow Muslims to pray on the Temple Mount, but not Jews? Why are more and more Jews venturing there? On this week's podcast, the rabbi and professor Jeffrey Woolf surveys the history of the Temple Mount, and explains why, despite its roots in the very distant Jewish past, the site remains a fixture in the religious imagination of the Jewish people. In conversation with Mosaic's editor Jonathan Silver, Woolf also explores some of the political dilemmas the site represents, both in domestic Israeli politics and in the Jewish state's relations with its Muslim neighbors. Musical selections in this podcast are drawn from the Quintet for Clarinet and Strings, op. 31a, composed by Paul Ben-Haim and performed by the ARC Ensemble.

The idea of equality has a long and intricate history, one that this week the philosopher, rabbi, and writer Zohar Atkins joins the podcast to discuss. In conversation with Mosaic's editor Jonathan Silver, he looks at how various thinkers in the Western intellectual tradition have thought about equality. Together, they discuss thinkers of equality as various as Plato and Aristotle, Augustine and Luther, and Hobbes and Rousseau and Hayek. Through it all, their point of departure is the foundation of the Western canon: the Hebrew Bible. Musical selections in this podcast are drawn from the Quintet for Clarinet and Strings, op. 31a, composed by Paul Ben-Haim and performed by the ARC Ensemble.

There is the argument and there is the context in which that argument is made. It's easy to sing the praises of American life when you're sitting in the United States, but you'd likely to express yourself differently if you were explaining your views in Soviet Russia. The context of the argument does not, of course, determine its truth or falsehood, but it does help clarify what's being said and why. This is true for all arguments, from those made by Socrates and the rabbis of the Talmud to philosophers and politicians today. On this week's podcast, to understand the distinction between argument and context and how it relates to political and religious communities of ideological homogeneity, we turn to one of the 20th century's greatest thinkers, the German Jewish philosopher Leo Strauss and his 1952 essay "Persecution and the Art of Writing." Our guide to the essay, and this week's podcast guest, is the Yale professor of political science Steven Smith, the author of several books about Strauss's thought. In conversation with Mosaic's editor Jonathan Silver, Smith explains how, in the view of Strauss, writers like Plato and Maimonides used esoteric writing—writing that expressed true beliefs in a careful and guarded way so as to protect themselves from backlash—to get their ideas across, and he ponders the implications that such an interpretive approach can have for writers ancient and modern. Musical selections in this podcast are drawn from the Quintet for Clarinet and Strings, op. 31a, composed by Paul Ben-Haim and performed by the ARC Ensemble.

Beginning Saturday night, the Jewish people will celebrate the holiday of Shavuot. During the festival, Jews traditionally study the book of Ruth, the biblical text that tells the story of a non-Jewish widow who becomes the great-grandmother of King David. To help uncover why the book of Ruth is so beloved, and to make sense of the intertextual references and literary allusions at work in it, the Harvard professor Jon Levenson joins this week's podcast. In conversation with Mosaic's editor Jonathan Silver, he explains how the narrative drive of Ruth moves from death to life, and reveals how its principal figures manifest the virtue of ḥesed, traditionally translated as loving-kindness, and meaning loyal devotion. Musical selections in this podcast are drawn from the Quintet for Clarinet and Strings, op. 31a, composed by Paul Ben-Haim and performed by the ARC Ensemble.

Since initiating a war against Israel in 2006, the Shiite revolutionary movement Hizballah has built a massive arsenal of rockets that continues to threaten Israel's northern cities and towns. Hizballah is able to sustain this military posture because it also holds decisive sway in Lebanese politics. Some observers think its political control is waning. In the Lebanese national elections on May 15, Hizballah lost its parliamentary majority, and Reuters reports that there are now "more than a dozen reform-minded newcomers" in the Lebanese parliament. This week's podcast guest takes a different view. Tony Badran is a research fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, where he writes about the eastern Mediterranean and the Levant. To his eye, the idea of a weakening Hizballah is not only wrong, it's exactly what Hizballah wants outsiders to think. In conversation with Mosaic's editor Jonathan Silver, he explains why it serves Hizballah's interests for Westerners to think that it's weak when it's not—and how even when Hizballah loses seats in Lebanon's parliament, it doesn't lose governing authority. Musical selections in this podcast are drawn from the Quintet for Clarinet and Strings, op. 31a, composed by Paul Ben-Haim and performed by the ARC Ensemble.

On May 9, the cultural commentator Midge Decter passed away. The author of essays and books, an editor of magazines, and a mentor to generations of writers, Decter was subtle, clear, and courageous in her thinking. Though a member of the Democratic party for most of her life, Decter was an anti-Communist liberal who gradually became more conservative over time, becoming, along with her husband, Norman Podhoretz, a leading neoconservative. On this week's podcast, her son, John Podhoretz, the editor of Commentary magazine, joins us to reflect on her life. He recently published a eulogy for her in which he wondered what in her background could explain her style, force, and view of the world. Decter wasn't born into a family of ideas and argument, yet that was where she made her indelible mark. In conversation with Mosaic editor Jonathan Silver, Podhoretz thinks about his late mother's life and work. Musical selections in this podcast are drawn from the Quintet for Clarinet and Strings, op. 31a, composed by Paul Ben-Haim and performed by the ARC Ensemble.

In the late 1940s and early 1950s, thousands of Middle Eastern Jews left their countries of origin and moved to Israel. Among them were the Jews of Yemen. There is a myth, believed by some in Israel and around the world, that upon the arrival of the Jews of Yemen in Israel, hundreds of their children were taken from them by government officials without their consent and placed for adoption in the homes of Ashkenazi Israelis. If that were true, it would be a grave injustice. But according to this week's podcast guest, it isn't. Motti Inbari is a professor of religion who specializes in unusual Israeli social and religious movements. In a new essay, he reviews several recent Hebrew-language books that look at the history, the evidence, and the surprising mutations of the so-called Yemenite Children Affair. In conversation with Mosaic's editor Jonathan Silver, he explains what really happened and charts how the myth has evolved over time. Musical selections in this podcast are drawn from the Quintet for Clarinet and Strings, op. 31a, composed by Paul Ben-Haim and performed by the ARC Ensemble.

For most young men and women today, sexual ethics have been collapsed into one idea: consent. Consent, whereby two responsible, conscientious, free people agree to enter into a sexual relationship, has become a shorthand way to describe ethical sex. And of course consent in sex is important, especially since it was so often absent in human history. But is consent, and consent alone, sufficient for modern sexual ethics? That's the question the Washington Post writer Christine Emba, this week's podcast guest, takes up in her fascinating new book Rethinking Sex. In the book, she takes readers on a tour of the sexual practices of young Americans and finds that for many sex has become diminished, casual, and rote. In conversation with Mosaic editor Jonathan Silver, she explains why that is, how consent became so central to the conversation, and how American culture might need to change in order to restore meaning and responsibility to sex. Musical selections in this podcast are drawn from the Quintet for Clarinet and Strings, op. 31a, composed by Paul Ben-Haim and performed by the ARC Ensemble.

Since the end of the Second Intifada nearly twenty years ago, during which Israel endured attacks constantly, terrorism has been comparatively rare. There have been knifings, and many rockets fired from Gaza and from Lebanon in the years since, but shootings and rammings have been few and far between. At least until now—over the last month, 13 Israelis have been murdered in terror attacks.To unpack what's happened and to provide context for this new terror wave, the Israeli analyst and frequent Mosaic writer Shany Mor joins this week's podcast. In conversation with Mosaic editor Jonathan Silver, he details each attack, thinks about the motivations of the terrorists, and explains how terrorism of this kind influences the relationship that Israel's Jewish majority has with its Arab minority. Musical selections in this podcast are drawn from the Quintet for Clarinet and Strings, op. 31a, composed by Paul Ben-Haim and performed by the ARC Ensemble.

Since its first issue twelve years ago, the Jewish Review of Books, a beautifully designed quarterly that was founded and supported by the Tikvah Fund, has produced now 49 issues of high-level Jewish discourse. Much of that success can be attributed to its founding editor, Abraham Socher, the Oberlin College professor emeritus of Jewish studies. On this week's podcast, Socher joins Mosaic editor Jonathan Silver to discuss his educational formation, his intellectual preoccupations, and his new book of essays, Liberal and Illiberal Arts: Essays (Mostly Jewish), which contains meditations on Jewish texts and Jewish communal affairs, portraits of life at Oberlin, and examinations of the religious and literary traditions of the West. Musical selections in this podcast are drawn from the Quintet for Clarinet and Strings, op. 31a, composed by Paul Ben-Haim and performed by the ARC Ensemble.

One of the alternative names for the Passover holiday that the Jewish people begin to celebrate this weekend is zman ḥeruteinu—the time of our freedom. Freedom is at the center of the holiday and of the Exodus narrative it redescribes. Yet the holiday's conception of freedom is laden with constraint, and ritual, and forms. It is a conception that would seem to be at least as much about memory, transmission, and consecration as it is about a moment of liberation. In a 2014 essay for First Things, Yuval Levin—editor of National Affairs—traced ancient notions of freedom through Israel's exodus. To Levin, contemporary American ideas of freedom–ideas belonging as much to the left as to the right–can best be understood and diagnosed through the lens of the Hebrew Bible. Levin joined Mosaic's editor Jonathan Silver to talk about this essay in March 2017. Today, we rebroadcast that discussion from just over five years ago. Musical selections in this podcast are drawn from the Quintet for Clarinet and Strings, op. 31a, composed by Paul Ben-Haim and performed by the ARC Ensemble.

Why do some American children do better in school than others? Social scientists tend to look to family structure, race, class, and gender in an effort to find factors that correlate to better or worse performance at school. But there are other significant variables that affect the education of America's children. A recent book finds that religion plays a substantial role too. Its author, Tulane University professor Ilana Horwitz, joins this week's podcast episode to discuss her findings, which suggest that children who hold religious beliefs and are members of religious communities tend to perform, on average, better in school than their nonreligious counterparts. In conversation with Jonathan Silver, she explains how she found her results, and what they say about religious children and American education. Musical selections in this podcast are drawn from the Quintet for Clarinet and Strings, op. 31a, composed by Paul Ben-Haim and performed by the ARC Ensemble.

When Donald Trump improbably became president in 2016, few knew what his foreign-policy agenda would look like. Having spent little time on such issues during his campaign and having no previous electoral experience, Trump's inclinations were mysterious. But despite this, it's clear now, looking back, that some of his administration's greatest successes were in the Middle East. This week's podcast guest, the former U.S. ambassador to Israel David Friedman, was at the center of it all, a story that he tells in a new memoir. In this conversation with Mosaic editor Jonathan Silver, Friedman brings listeners inside his tenure, which included the Abraham Accords, the move of the U.S. embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, and America's recognition of Israel's sovereignty over the Golan Heights. Friedman also reflects on his Jewish formation, and his assessment of American Jewry today. Musical selections in this podcast are drawn from the Quintet for Clarinet and Strings, op. 31a, composed by Paul Ben-Haim and performed by the ARC Ensemble.

In recent years, family policy—what the government can do to strengthen the formation of American families—has come to occupy the minds of many political and cultural figures. That's a good thing, since the family is the first and most important human institution, and children who are born into healthy families generally turn out far better than those who aren't. It makes sense, then, that government should try to help families flourish, or at least make sure it doesn't make it harder for them to do so. This week, the policy researcher Andy Smarick joins the podcast to explain what's behind the many new proposals to help the American family, drawing on a recent essay he published in Mosaic. In conversation with Mosaic editor Jonathan Silver, he explains that few of the ideas being discussed in Washington lately have actually bolstered families in other countries, and that the left and the right have different conceptions of what the family actually is and what it's for, which makes coming up with policy ideas they can agree upon very difficult. Musical selections in this podcast are drawn from the Quintet for Clarinet and Strings, op. 31a, composed by Paul Ben-Haim and performed by the ARC Ensemble.

The United States of America is the most powerful nation in the world. But it is facing tests of its credibility in multiple theaters of conflict. What do America's adversaries believe about the capacity and will of the United States to respond with force? Has America's deterrent power diminished? If so, can it be built up again? On this week's podcast, the security expert and former Marine officer Aaron MacLean walks through the history of American power in the 21st century, showing how the decisions of political leaders have affected America's ability to deter belligerent actors, from George W. Bush's decision to invade Afghanistan and Iraq to Barack Obama's decision to refrain from striking Syria. And, in conversation with Mosaic editor Jonathan Silver, MacLean explains why effective deterrence is so important and what can be done to restore it. Musical selections in this podcast are drawn from the Quintet for Clarinet and Strings, op. 31a, composed by Paul Ben-Haim and performed by the ARC Ensemble.

Next week, when Jews celebrate the holiday of Purim, they'll also study the book of Esther, named for the young queen whose Jewish identity was unknown to her husband—Persia's king—and his court. The book of Esther tells the story of how she and her cousin Mordechai outwitted the king's second-in-command, the vizier Haman, who sought to destroy the Persian Jews. Beloved among children, the story has also often been read as a manual for Jewish political survival in the diaspora. Ronna Burger of Tulane University, a professor of philosophy, also sees in Esther a commentary on the sources of human success: do humans accomplish their aims through sheer luck, divine help, or careful decision-making? In conversation with Mosaic editor Jonathan Silver, she walks through Esther, demonstrating how each of these elements—chance, providence, and prudence—emerge from the biblical text. Musical selections in this podcast are drawn from the Quintet for Clarinet and Strings, op. 31a, composed by Paul Ben-Haim and performed by the ARC Ensemble.

Since Russia's invasion of Ukraine began, most of the news coverage has understandably focused on the war's military, political, and economic dimensions. But there's another dimension of the war: the religious dimension. How does being in the midst of a war change prayer, or, for Ukraine's Jews, the operations of a synagogue? What does a rabbi do when his congregation is under attack? Dovid Margolin, a senior editor at Chabad.org, joins the podcast this week to help answer those questions. In conversation with Mosaic editor Jonathan Silver, Margolin talks about the history of the Jews in Ukraine and how Jewish leaders there have helped their fellow Ukrainians during the war, from sheltering those with nowhere to go to moving entire orphanages out of the country. Musical selections in this podcast are drawn from the Quintet for Clarinet and Strings, op. 31a, composed by Paul Ben-Haim and performed by the ARC Ensemble. Dovid Margolin, a senior editor at Chabad.org., joins the podcast this week to discuss this in the context of Ukraine. In conversation with Mosaic editor Jonathan Silver, Margolin talks about the history of the Jews in Ukraine and how Jewish leaders there have helped their fellow Ukrainians during the war, from sheltering those with nowhere to go to moving entire orphanages out of the country. Musical selections in this podcast are drawn from the Quintet for Clarinet and Strings, op. 31a, composed by Paul Ben-Haim and performed by the ARC Ensemble.

This week, Russia began a full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Russian airstrikes are now hitting Ukrainian military installations and Russian tanks are now rolling into Ukrainian cities. This invasion is an inflection point in Russian-Western relations, the largest since the end of the cold war. To help us understand the full historical and political context behind it, we invited the foreign-policy scholar Vance Serchuk to join our podcast. In conversation with Mosaic editor Jonathan Silver, he explains the history behind Russia's relations with its East European neighbors, what is motivating Russia's aggression now, and what options the United States and its allies, including Israel, have for aiding Ukraine. Musical selections in this podcast are drawn from the Quintet for Clarinet and Strings, op. 31a, composed by Paul Ben-Haim and performed by the ARC Ensemble.

By reading literature, one can experience what it's like to be, say, a king, or a soldier, or a mother, or a stranger, or a tyrant, or for that matter a slave, not to mention far more. What of modern Jewish literature? How did its story-tellers speak not only to individual readers, but also to a nation—a nation which until recently was dispersed through many lands and spoke to itself in many languages? How did fiction become one of the primary ways that modern Jewish culture was created and conveyed? And how have the greatest Jewish writers confronted the Jewish people's enduring dilemmas? Those are some of the questions that Ruth Wisse, professor emerita at Harvard, Mosaic columnist, and senior distinguished fellow at the Tikvah Fund, asks of herself and her students in her courses on Jewish literature. And they animate her new podcast series "The Stories Jews Tell." On this week's podcast, in conversation with Mosaic editor Jonathan Silver, she orients listeners to the questions of Jewish literature. Musical selections in this podcast are drawn from the Quintet for Clarinet and Strings, op. 31a, composed by Paul Ben-Haim and performed by the ARC Ensemble.

The reestablishment of Jewish sovereignty in the land of Israel changed the Jewish people, giving them a place to live in their historic home, if they wanted it. But what about the Jews who remained and remain in the Diaspora: did Israel change their condition, and, if so, how? Yossi Shain, a professor of political science at Tel Aviv University and a member of Knesset, is the author of the new book The Israeli Century: How the Zionist Revolution Changed History and Reinvented Judaism. In conversation here with Mosaic editor Jonathan Silver, he argues that Israel is now the most important point of reference in the consciousness of the Jewish people, no matter where they live Musical selections in this podcast are drawn from the Quintet for Clarinet and Strings, op. 31a, composed by Paul Ben-Haim and performed by the ARC Ensemble.

The Republic of Azerbaijan scrambles the assumptions of even the most veteran foreign-policy hands. Sitting at the nexus of Europe and Asia, Azerbaijan is the only nation that borders both Iran and Russia; it is at the center of global energy; and, despite being a Muslim-majority nation, it has had a formal relationship with Israel for almost 30 years. By looking at Azerbaijan, this week's podcast guest suggests that one can reimagine America's approach to Europe, Asia, and the Middle East. Michael Doran, the foreign-policy analyst and long-time Mosaic writer, argues in a recent essay that Azerbaijan is uniquely positioned to work with America in pursuit of geopolitical goals that serve both nations. In conversation with Mosaic editor Jonathan Silver, Doran explains what makes Azerbaijan such a unique country, how it relates to Russia, Israel, Iran, and Turkey, and how it can help the United States recover the geostrategic discipline it needs to strengthen its friends and counter its adversaries. Musical selections in this podcast are drawn from the Quintet for Clarinet and Strings, op. 31a, composed by Paul Ben-Haim and performed by the ARC Ensemble.

Last week, a British jihadist entered a synagogue in Colleyville, Texas and held four of its members hostage. In mid-October of last year, a woman emptied a container of gasoline and set it on fire in front of the Yeshiva of Flatbush in Brooklyn while shouting anti-Semitic obscenities. That followed an attack on Shlomo Noginsky, a rabbi in Boston who this past July was stabbed eight times outside of a Jewish day school. Roughly five weeks before that, someone emptied a bag of feces in front of the Chabad of South Broward in Florida while shouting "Jews should die." Whether individuals or institutions are being targeted, whether they're in New York or Texas, anti-Semitism is on the rise in America, and Jews are called to be more vigilant than in years past. This week's podcast guest knows a thing or two about vigilance. Mitch Silber is the former director of intelligence analysis at the New York Police Department, where he oversaw research, collection, and analysis for the department's Intelligence Division. Now, he's the executive director of the Community Security Initiative, a small team dedicated to securing the Jewish institutions of New York from anti-Semitic violence. In conversation with Mosaic editor Jonathan Silver, he explains why this initiative came about and what it takes to protect Jews, in New York and around the country, from the anti-Semitic threats that have become all too common in America. Musical selections in this podcast are drawn from the Quintet for Clarinet and Strings, op. 31a, composed by Paul Ben-Haim and performed by the ARC Ensemble.

What can religious families do to foster a deep religious life in children, and help them mature into adults who live meaningfully religious lives? Some families join congregations and institutions that appreciate the power of modernity and the hold that modern ideas have on the young, and so make themselves into modern religious communities, adapting to the beliefs and practices of contemporary life. At the other extreme, other families will join communities that seek to isolate themselves from the impulses and ideas of modernity. But when it comes to generational transmission, a young social scientist has recently published empirical findings that point in a different direction altogether. Jesse Smith of Pennsylvania State University contends that more important than these general communal environments are the particular family environments in which children are raised. Moreover, the specific kind of religious family environment correlates with the kind of religious person children grow into. He finds that families that identified themselves as religiously conservative when the study's subjects were adolescents were better able to transmit that religious devotion over the course of the next 10 years. But even they—who are transmitting more than other families—still are not transmitting very much. Fewer than 30% of young adults who were raised in conservative religious households feel that religion remains extremely important in their lives. In this podcast, Smith joins Mosaic's editor, Jonathan Silver, to discuss his findings and what they might mean for religious parents and communities.

This past fall, Israel's international shipping port in Haifa completed renovations, and it recently went operational. Almost all of Israel's international trade comes and goes by sea, and Haifa's is the busiest of the country's ports. The Haifa port is also where the U.S. Navy's Sixth Fleet—based in Naples, Italy—comes to call when it needs fuel, and when it seeks to project power in the Eastern Mediterranean. Thus, it sits at the very center of Israeli trade and industry and is a vital part of its military and diplomatic relationship with the United States. The company that won the tender to operate the port for the next 25 years is the Shanghai International Port Group—the state-owned corporation responsible for the public terminals at the Shanghai harbor. And Chinese cranes, Chinese software, and Chinese managers are now responsible for roughly half of Israel's freight. To get Israelis more used to working so closely with China, and to introduce China in the right way to the Israeli public, China Radio International—also a government enterprise—has dispatched the man who runs its Hebrew desk to mount a charm campaign. Widely known as "Iztik ha-Sini," "Chinese Itzik," he runs a popular, funny, and captivating YouTube channel, where he has produced hundreds of online videos that Israelis love. In this podcast we are joined by the Israel journalist Matti Friedman to learn more about the port in Haifa, its executives in Shanghai, and the propaganda mission that is dazzling Israeli citizens.

According to Hillel International, there were 244 anti-Semitic incidents at American campuses reported during the 2020-2021 school year. That's up from 181 incidents the year before, perhaps an especially significant increase given that many students did not convene in person, but instead attended classes online in 2020. In light of such a trend, one might hope that the ballooning number of academic administrators hired by colleges and universities to foster a welcoming atmosphere for students of diverse backgrounds would be sensitive to anti-Semitic attitudes. But, according to a new report, a great many university officers seemingly hired to combat anti-Semitic discrimination sympathize with anti-Semitism themselves. The author of that report, Jay Greene, joins this week's podcast. He analyzed the public Twitter feeds of hundreds of DEI (diversity, equity, and inclusion) professionals at 65 different universities and found that, of their over 600 tweets about Israel, 96% of them were critical. That in itself might not constitute anti-Semitism. But, as Greene explains in conversation with Mosaic editor Jonathan Silver, neither does it inspire confidence in how those who are charged with handling anti-Semitic concerns on campus might approach them. Musical selections in this podcast are drawn from the Quintet for Clarinet and Strings, op. 31a, composed by Paul Ben-Haim and performed by the ARC Ensemble.

In 2021, 49 different guests appeared on the podcast over the course of 44 new episodes. Our conversations touched on some of the most important and interesting subjects in Jewish life, including discussions with leaders of Israel's ḥaredi community, a course developer who is deploying technology to teach people Yiddish, diplomats and strategists shaping foreign-policy debates in Israel, Europe, and America, elected officials and diplomats, historians and social scientists, theologians and rabbis, academics and authors, reporters and entrepreneurs. Each guest, in conversation with Mosaic editor Jonathan Silver, trained his or her unique perspective on some timely or enduring question that stands before the Jewish people and the Jewish state. In this episode, we present some of our favorite conversations this year. Guests featured in this year-end episode include the Israeli rabbi Yehoshua Pfeffer, the foreign-policy analysts Benjamin Haddad and Michael Doran, Wall Street Journal editor Elliot Kaufman, social scientist Nicholas Eberstadt, Jewish educational leader David Rozenson, Yiddish expert Meena Viswanath, tech CEO Sean Clifford, novelist Dara Horn, and the eminent writer Cynthia Ozick. Musical selections in this podcast are drawn from the Quintet for Clarinet and Strings, op. 31a, composed by Paul Ben-Haim and performed by the ARC Ensemble.

In a previous podcast, the professors Benjamin and Jenna Storey explored a habit of mind that frustrated their very best students, a sentiment they called restlessness. As the Storeys saw it, their exceptional students had countless life and career options open to them, and yet they had so little cultural and vocational formation that they couldn't discern what path to take, or the purposes to which they should dedicate their talents. This week's podcast features three young people who are beginning to rise in their professions with confidence. Smart, personable, they could have launched themselves into any number of fields. Instead they chose to dedicate themselves to serving America, the Jews, and Israel. Just a couple of years ago, Tamara Berens, Talia Katz, and Dovid Schwartz were all fellows at the Beren Summer Fellowship, an experience that helped guide each of them. On this week's podcast, in conversation with Mosaic editor Jonathan Silver, they give us an inside look at the fellowship, and at how it helped them clarify―to themselves and to one another―the Jewish purposes they're meant to serve. Musical selections in this podcast are drawn from the Quintet for Clarinet and Strings, op. 31a, composed by Paul Ben-Haim and performed by the ARC Ensemble.

According to a new report, in 2020 2,400 U.S.-based healthcare facilities, local governments, schools, and other institutions were victims of ransomware—a form of cyber-attack in which a hacker holds a person's data hostage and demands a ransom to permit them to access it again. Ransomware has become such a problem that in October the U.S. State Department formed a new office to confront it, and in November the Treasury Department announced that it will partner with its Israeli counterpart on a joint task force to address this and other cybersecurity issues. Israel, like America, is also confronted with problems in cyberspace. On this week's podcast, Annie Fixler, the deputy director of the Center on Cyber Technology and Innovation at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, joins Mosaic editor Jonathan Silver to explain the threats that cyber warfare poses to American life, and the role that Israel could play in helping secure both countries from malicious attacks, whether they come from lone-wolf hackers or enemy nation-states. Musical selections in this podcast are drawn from the Quintet for Clarinet and Strings, op. 31a, composed by Paul Ben-Haim and performed by the ARC Ensemble.

On Saturday, December 4, 2021, an explosion occurred near Iran's nuclear facility outside the city of Natanz. Afterwards, two nearby villages were evacuated. Was the explosion the result of a weapons test? An accident? Sabotage? No one yet knows what took place in the mountains of northern Iran that day. And whereas civilians and observers can afford to wait for more information, national-security professionals are forced to act and react to events like this in real time without a lot of information. If there's an explosion near the nuclear compound of an adversarial nation, what do you do? Natanz and its uncertainty is the point of departure for this week's podcast. Victoria Coates, the former deputy national security adviser for Middle Eastern and North African affairs, shares her experience making decisions under pressure and with imperfect information. Musical selections in this podcast are drawn from the Quintet for Clarinet and Strings, op. 31a, composed by Paul Ben-Haim and performed by the ARC Ensemble.

Last week, the Israeli defense minister Benny Gantz visited Morocco, where for the first time he was accompanied by uniformed Israeli military personnel. Gantz's visit comes on the heels of visits in the last year by Israeli national-security advisor Meir Ben-Shabbat and Israeli foreign minister Yair Lapid, both of whom prepared the way for full diplomatic relations between the two countries. Building on Israel and Morocco's burgeoning diplomatic relations, the purpose of Gantz's recent visit was to negotiate a memorandum of understanding focused on their security cooperation. Judah Ari Gross, the military correspondent for the Times of Israel and this week's podcast guest, accompanied Gantz on his trip. In conversation with Mosaic editor Jonathan Silver, he explains here how this historic agreement happened, what it means, and how it serves each nation's interests. Musical selections in this podcast are drawn from the Quintet for Clarinet and Strings, op. 31a, composed by Paul Ben-Haim and performed by the ARC Ensemble.

There aren't enough public schools in Maine. By some estimates, about half of Maine's school districts don't have the facilities or faculty to educate students who live in them. The state's solution is to give families who live in such districts money to send their children to another school—either a different public school further away, or a private school. But Maine doesn't make that funding available to families who choose to send their children to religious schools. In just a few weeks, the U.S. Supreme Court will hear oral arguments in the case of Carson v. Makin, a case that could affect the way that Maine, and the greater United States, deals with the funding of religious schools. On this week's podcast, the legal academic Avi Helfand joins Mosaic editor Jonathan Silver to discuss the amicus brief that he filed for this case, and to explore whether Maine is acting in a way that is consistent with the First Amendment's religious freedom protections. This particular case also allows for Helfand to question more fundamental legal heuristics, such as the supposed distinction in American case-law between a legal entity's religious "status," and its "use" of religion. Musical selections in this podcast are drawn from the Quintet for Clarinet and Strings, op. 31a, composed by Paul Ben-Haim and performed by the ARC Ensemble.

Until recently, America was an outlier: despite rising affluence, its birthrate remained high, unlike in other countries where more riches have brought fewer children. That's no longer the case today. America is now in demographic decline. Writing in National Review, the political economist and demographer Nicholas Eberstadt observes that U.S. fertility levels have never before fallen as low as they are today. In 2019—before the coronavirus pandemic—America's total fertility rate (TFR—a measure of births per woman per lifetime) was 1.71, roughly 18 percent lower than the roughly 2.1 births per woman required for long-term population stability. By then, U.S. fertility levels were so low that even Mormon Utah had gone sub-replacement. And U.S. fertility levels were even lower in 2020. With a TFR of 1.64, America was well over 20 percent below replacement. Eberstadt goes on to note that there's reason to believe that the U.S. fertility rate may drop even further in the coming years. He joins this week's podcast to discuss why this is happening, what it means for American society, whether it can be reversed, and, if it can't, how America can cope with it. Musical selections in this podcast are drawn from the Quintet for Clarinet and Strings, op. 31a, composed by Paul Ben-Haim and performed by the ARC Ensemble.

Today, a number of young American women are pursuing the stuff of dystopian novels: the prospect of a childless future. These young women don't just choose to avoid motherhood—they actively embrace that choice as a marker of their identity. Some embrace the label "child-free," with the implication that they don't want to have children themselves but are okay with other people doing so, while others are positively "anti-natalist"—they don't want to have children and they also think that it's immoral for anyone else to do so. Many of these women have even turned to surgical procedures to ensure they will never become mothers. It's difficult to estimate how large this group is, but it's likely quite small. Nevertheless, despite its small size, it reveals something about American culture and its attitude toward the tradeoffs of family. What is it like to see the world as someone who is ideologically committed to not having children? This week, the writer Suzy Weiss joins the show to discuss a recent article of hers that tries to answer that question. In conversation with Mosaic editor Jonathan Silver, she explains how the child-free think, what motivates them, and what their existence says about mainstream American society. Musical selections in this podcast are drawn from the Quintet for Clarinet and Strings, op. 31a, composed by Paul Ben-Haim and performed by the ARC Ensemble.

It's often thought that the Hebrew Bible focuses on the human capacity for good rather than on urging prosperity—that, in other words, trade and markets―areas where rational actors seek to maximize their self-interest―are distinct from ethical conduct and moral behavior. But that distinction, argues the author of a new commentary on the book of Genesis, is a false one. To the Israeli venture capitalist and author Michael Eisenberg, Genesis and the rest of the Hebrew Bible can shape, channel, and propel the natural desire humans have to create wealth. It can help them engage in business not for the sake of greed but to establish a society of opportunity, one that recognizes the human dignity of all. Here he joins Mosaic editor Jonathan Silver to discuss how his extensive investment experience and study of Hebrew scripture helped him think theologically about labor, wealth, credit, debt, and more. Musical selections in this podcast are drawn from the Quintet for Clarinet and Strings, op. 31a, composed by Paul Ben-Haim and performed by the ARC Ensemble.

When Elie Wiesel was fifteen years old, the Nazis murdered his mother and sister and enslaved him and his father in Buchenwald. After the U.S. Army liberated the camp in April 1945, Wiesel went to France, where he studied the humanities and worked as a writer, and then to New York, where he became a professor and an activist for human rights. Wiesel, who died in July 2016, wrote some 60 books, was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1986, and was counselor to presidents, senators, kings, and prime ministers. Recently, he and his family were honored by the installation of a sculpture of his likeness in the National Cathedral in Washington, DC. The manner of this honoring introduces some particularly vexing Jewish questions, which his son Elisha discussed in a recent Washington Post op-ed. Elie Wiesel was a moral hero, and a particularly Jewish one. His family worried that his memorialization in a church would emphasize the universalist elements of his legacy, and discard particular Jewish elements of his moral persona—including his Jewish observance and his Zionist commitments. Elisha joins Mosaic's editor Jonathan Silver to think about these questions, his father's legacy, and more on this week's podcast. Musical selections in this podcast are drawn from the Quintet for Clarinet and Strings, op. 31a, composed by Paul Ben-Haim and performed by the ARC Ensemble.

"We have arrived at a unique point in history," a recent essay argues, "where many Americans love nothing more than themselves, and the only functioning organization that touches their lives is a corporation." The author continues, "that's all good and well as a single striver sprinting along our treadmill of an economic system; the above realization takes on a more somber tone when confronted with the only form of immortality available to most of us: our children." That secular modernity functions perfectly fine until the biggest questions of life arise is just one notable observation among many made by the tech entrepreneur Antonio Garcia Martinez in his two-part essay "Why Judaism." In it, Martinez looks at how Judaism presented itself to him as the antidote to the problems he felt mainstream secular American life couldn't solve. Now, in conversation with Mosaic editor Jonathan Silver, he fleshes out his essay, explaining how he came to his conclusions and what made Judaism such a compelling alternative. Musical selections in this podcast are drawn from the Quintet for Clarinet and Strings, op. 31a, composed by Paul Ben-Haim and performed by the ARC Ensemble.

The Jewish Agency for Israel is the largest Jewish non-profit in the world. Founded in 1929, it incubated the state of Israel's proto-government, and, upon the state's declaration of independence, its officers became Israel's ministers. Since then, it has brought thousands of Jews to the land of Israel, and it has invested in agriculture, housing, social services, and other programs crucial to Israel's survival and prosperity. But that's all mostly in the past. Now that a state has been established, and that most diaspora communities are not in danger, what should the Jewish Agency do? What is its purpose? Haviv Rettig Gur, senior analyst for the Times of Israel, was a former communications director of the Jewish Agency, and so he has a few ideas about what it should be doing today. That question is especially pertinent now, as later this month a new agency chairman will be elected. In conversation with Mosaic editor Jonathan Silver, Gur tries to make sense of the history, governance, strategy, and future of the Jewish world's biggest non-profit. Musical selections in this podcast are drawn from the Quintet for Clarinet and Strings, op. 31a, composed by Paul Ben-Haim and performed by the ARC Ensemble.

Every week, on the seventh day—the Sabbath—observant Jews rest. They perform no labor and they dedicate the day to serving God. This idea, the Sabbath, has another application in the Hebrew Bible: God also commands the observance of a sabbatical year to be taken every seventh year and during which the land of Israel would lie fallow and debts would be remitted. For most of Jewish history, the laws of this year, known as shmitah, were abstract and remote. But with the growth of modern Zionism, and then the rebirth of the sovereign Jewish state, the laws of shmitah have acquired a renewed importance. Jewish farmers are obliged to let the land of Israel lie fallow every seven years, and religiously observant Jews are prohibited from consuming fruit grown on that land. Does this happen in Israel today, and if so, how? And what are the deeper ideas embedded in the practice of shmitah? The questions are not abstract; this new Jewish year, 5782, is a shmitah year. So on this week's podcast, the rabbi Yedidya (Julian) Sinclair joins Mosaic editor Jonathan Silver to explain why this biblical ordinance is so important, and how it's expressed in Israel today. Recently, Sinclair translated and authored a commentary on a famous rabbinical work about shmitah, Shabbat Ha'Aretz, The Sabbath of the Land, by the rabbi Abraham Isaac Kook, who is considered the father of religious Zionism and whose ideas about shmitah govern much of its application in Israel today. Musical selections in this podcast are drawn from the Quintet for Clarinet and Strings, op. 31a, composed by Paul Ben-Haim and performed by the ARC Ensemble.

This week, Jews celebrate the holiday of Sukkot, during which it is traditional to read one of the most philosophically interesting books of the Hebrew Bible, Ecclesiastes. The narrator of the book, known by Jewish tradition to be King Solomon, has spent his life exploring the many corners of human endeavor, from the responsible life of politics to the pleasures of body and mind, and he has come to say that each corner, no matter how satisfying to certain parts of us, cannot answer our deepest needs—or perhaps cannot answer anything at all. Everything is vanity, the book whispers famously, and nothing more. This week's podcast guest, the Catholic philosopher Peter Kreeft, admires Ecclesiastes not for its ultimate answers to the fundamental questions of life but for its honest look at human problems. As he writes in his own commentary, "honest hedonism is spiritually superior to dishonest self-delusion." In conversation with Mosaic editor Jonathan Silver, he mines the biblical book for the wisdom it may offer. Musical selections in this podcast are drawn from the Quintet for Clarinet and Strings, op. 31a, composed by Paul Ben-Haim and performed by the ARC Ensemble.

The celebrated novelist Dara Horn's new book People Love Dead Jews has an arresting title, one designed to make the reader feel uncomfortable. That's because Horn makes an argument that tries to change the way people think about the function of Jews in the conscience of the West. In the book, and in this podcast conversation with Mosaic editor Jonathan Silver, Horn suggests that Jewish communities, figures, and abstract symbols of "the Jews" have come to serve a moral role in the Western imagination that, when one takes a step back, is bizarre and grotesque. It's easy to acknowledge the darkness of the Holocaust and to marvel at the optimism of Anne Frank, but Horn detects in that acknowledgement something insidious that hasn't yet been fully revealed or explained. Musical selections in this podcast are drawn from the Quintet for Clarinet and Strings, op. 31a, composed by Paul Ben-Haim and performed by the ARC Ensemble.

Thirty years ago, in August 1991, riots broke out in the Brooklyn neighborhood of Crown Heights, a neighborhood shared by African Americans and Jews, the latter of whom were mostly members of the ḥasidic Chabad-Lubavitch movement. During the riot, which was sparked by a car accident that killed one young black child and injured another, local black residents attacked Jews on the streets, burned their businesses, and killed one of them, often while chanting anti-Semitic slogans. For three days, local authorities looked on passively. The episode is a sad one in the history of American Jewish-black relations. This week's podcast guest believes that if Jews and blacks are to enjoy a fruitful and mutually beneficial relationship in the future, as they have in the past, understanding how and why events like the Crown Heights riot came about is essential. Elliot Kaufman did just that in a recent essay for the Wall Street Journal. A Canadian who is too young to remember what happened, Kaufman—in the piece and in this conversation with Mosaic's editor, Jonathan Silver—forensically reconstructs what happened in Crown Heights, puts together what it meant at the time, looks at what it teaches us today, and suggests pitfalls that can be avoided so that the two communities can avoid such bitter antagonism. Musical selections in this podcast are drawn from the Quintet for Clarinet and Strings, op. 31a, composed by Paul Ben-Haim and performed by the ARC Ensemble.

In an 1897 essay called "The Jewish State and the Jewish Problem," the Zionist writer Aḥad Ha'am argued that "Judaism needs at present but little. It needs not an independent state, but only the creation in its native land of conditions favorable to its development: a good-sized settlement of Jews working without hindrance in every branch of culture, from agriculture and handicrafts to science and literature." Ha'am believed that the most powerful arguments for Zionism were not economic but moral, and in his many essays he stressed the importance of forming a modern Jewish identity from authentically Jewish culture and ideas. Culture first, sovereignty later, in other words. Ha'am was born in 1856 this week by the name Asher Ginsburg, and so we thought we'd mark the occasion by rebroadcasting a conversation about him between the Tikvah Fund's executive director Eric Cohen and Allan Arkush, a professor of Judaic studies at Binghamton University and the senior contributing editor at the Jewish Review of Books. The two discuss Ha'am's background, his ideas in this essay and elsewhere, and compare them to his more politically-minded Zionist rivals, namely Theodor Herzl. Musical selections in this podcast are drawn from the Quintet for Clarinet and Strings, op. 31a, composed by Paul Ben-Haim and performed by the ARC Ensemble.

In the year 1970, the distinguished American writer Cynthia Ozick published an essay arguing that Jewish literature might succeed if it embraced and conveyed the rich particularism of the Jewish experience. In a famous metaphor, she wrote that "If we blow into the narrow end of the shofar, we will be heard far. But if we choose to be mankind rather than Jewish and blow into the wider part, we will not be heard at all; for us America will have been in vain." Fifty years later the Jewish people's relation to the surrounding culture is a subject that still preoccupies Ozick. Her new novel, Antiquities, deals with the same themes. It depicts an elderly American man who, in the process of writing his memoirs, fixates on a friendship he developed with an outcast Jewish boy during the time they shared decades before in an exclusive private school. On our podcast today, in conversation with Jonathan Silver, Ozick explains how this relationship caused the man to question whether there was a more "significant thing" he could devote himself to, and she reveals some of the subtle wrinkles in the book that direct the reader toward monotheism and to the Jewish tradition. You can read a transcript of this conversation here. Musical selections in this podcast are drawn from the Quintet for Clarinet and Strings, op. 31a, composed by Paul Ben-Haim and performed by the ARC Ensemble.

Two liberal arts professors were intrigued by a habit of mind they detected in their students, especially their high-achieving ones. Despite material abundance and the freedom to pursue a profession or passion of their choosing, their students were unsettled. Even after making a decision about what to pursue, they remain plagued by the thought that perhaps they should have done something else. This habit of mind, not unique to democracy in America but perhaps especially common in democratic conditions, is what today's podcast guests call "restlessness." In their new book Why We Are Restless, Jenna and Benjamin Storey, both professors at Furman University, explain the cultural force that characterizes modern restlessness by looking back at an earlier tradition of French philosophy. In their interpretations of Michel de Montaigne, Blaise Pascal, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, and Alexis de Tocqueville, the Storeys reveal how restlessness was variously aimed at and criticized by earlier thinkers. And in conversation with Jonathan Silver, they speculate about what modern Americans, and modern American Jews, can do to understand it. Musical selections in this podcast are drawn from the Quintet for Clarinet and Strings, op. 31a, composed by Paul Ben-Haim and performed by the ARC Ensemble.

With anti-Semitism on the rise over the last few years, it is essential for institutions to be able to assess clearly whether an incident is anti-Semitic or not. For this purpose, over the last two decades many governments, companies, and international organizations have, as Joshua Muravchik discusses in this month's Mosaic essay, adopted the "working definition of anti-Semitism" from the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA). Today, the U.S. federal government uses the IHRA definition to assess federal claims of anti-Semitism under Title VI of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, and all government agencies also consider the IHRA definition in their own assessments of anti-Semitism. This week, Kenneth Marcus, who was instrumental in getting the federal government to adopt the IHRA definition of anti-Semitism, joins our podcast. Formerly the assistant secretary for civil rights in the Department of Education, Marcus has played a major role in protecting the civil rights of diverse groups, including Jews facing anti-Semitism; he's also the author of Jewish Identity and Civil Rights in America, and The Definition of Anti-Semitism. In conversation with Mosaic's editor Jonathan Silver, he explains how the IHRA definition helps American officials protect civil rights. Musical selections in this podcast are drawn from the Quintet for Clarinet and Strings, op. 31a, composed by Paul Ben-Haim and performed by the ARC Ensemble.