Shows
The Tikvah PodcastOur Favorite Episodes of 2025In 2025, we convened about 40 new conversations, taking up the great questions of modern Jewish life—questions of war and peace, providence and civilization, memory and meaning. This year, Mosaic's editor Jonathan Silver spoke to military strategists, scholars of religion, writers, historians, rabbis, one Catholic priest and two Catholic theologians, and professors whose students have become soldiers. The conversations ranged from urgent tactical questions facing Israeli commanders to the enduring theological debates that have shaped Western civilization. The most dramatic event of 2025 came in June, when American B-2 bombers struck three nuclear sites in Iran, neutralizing the Islamic Rep...
2026-01-021h 02The Tikvah PodcastRuth Wisse on Norman PodhoretzNorman Podhoretz, z"l, died on December 16 at the age of ninety-five. For more than three decades, he served as editor of Commentary, transforming it into what Irving Kristol deemed the most influential magazine in Jewish history. He was a literary critic, a political essayist, and one of the fathers of the orientation toward public affairs that came to be known as neoconservatism. In 2004, President George W. Bush awarded him the Presidential Medal of Freedom. What fueled these accomplishments —his books, his essays, his editing —was a commitment to tell the truth, however unpopular, and to defend the th...
2025-12-261h 00The Tikvah PodcastRabbi Meir Soloveichik on the Enduring Power of the PsalmsOn October 6, 2023, Rabbi Meir Soloveichik sat at his desk facing a deadline for his monthly column. Israel's citizens were then furiously debating judicial reform, but he'd already had his say on that matter. He decided to write about something else instead: a Jeopardy episode where three educated contestants stared blankly when asked to identify the source of this line: "Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death." This, among the most famous images in all of Western literature, comes of course from Psalm 23. And none of the contestants knew it. Rabbi Soloveichik submitted the piece on Oct...
2025-12-1247 minThe Tikvah PodcastRabbi J.J. Schacter on the Jewish Meaning of MemoryWe are now in a period in the liturgical calendar of the Jewish people known as the Three Weeks, which begins on the seventeenth day of the Hebrew month of Tammuz, and continues through the ninth day of the month of Av. It is a period of mourning and commemoration of many experiences of tragedy and sorrow in the Jewish past, and it culminates on the Ninth of Av, or Tisha b'Av, because on that day, in the year 586 BCE, Nebuchadnezzar's forces destroyed the First Temple in Jerusalem. It was also on that day, in the year 70 CE, that...
2025-07-1835 minThe Tikvah PodcastMichael Doran on Donald Trump's Middle East PolicyPresident Trump and his team came into the White House determined to reverse the course of American foreign policy. Most every president does. It's what President Obama wished to do vis-à-vis President Bush, President Trump vis-à-vis President Obama, and President Biden vis-à-vis President Trump. Where Biden was for, Trump would be against; where Biden was left, Trump would be right; where Biden was blue; Trump would be red. Every question of foreign policy with any relevance whatsoever to the cut and thrust of domestic American politics would henceforth be set in the opposite direction. In t...
2025-05-0239 minThe Tikvah PodcastMicah Goodman on What He's Learned about Israel in the Past Year-and-a-HalfIn the months leading up to the October 7 attacks, Israel was bitterly divided along the tribal lines that had been hardened by the government's effort to reform the country's judiciary. There were major protests, acts of civil disobedience, and boycotts, coupled with enormous frustration, distrust, anger, and resentment among Israelis. Then, as you might expect after suffering so grievous and unprovoked an attack as Israelis suffered on October 7, the country responded by unifying, displaying great civic strength. The invisible filaments that hold a society together were pulled taut by the war. Most everyone was a part of it and...
2025-03-2741 minThe Tikvah PodcastMark Gottlieb and Anna Moreland on Judaism, Christianity, and ForgivenessTo expect women and men of flesh and blood to live lives of ethical perfection is to expect too much. Lapses in judgment, ignorance, vice, and sin are inescapable parts of the human condition. Each year, on Yom Kippur, the Jewish Day of Atonement, we recite the Al Het prayer, enumerating over 40 sins that we have committed. Sinning is natural, or, as the poet Alexander Pope famously put it, "to err is human, to forgive divine." And there's a deep truth to that, for while error and vice are natural to the human condition, religion has introduced in...
2025-03-2041 minThe Tikvah PodcastReihan Salam on Rebuilding Urban ConservatismNew York City in the 1970s and 1980s was, to put it lightly, not a very safe or nice place to live. Drugs, crime, and public-sector mismanagement made it dangerous and unpleasant, and even the very wealthy were not entirely immune from the disorder. In the 1990s and early 2000s, the city rebounded in an incredible way, and a great deal of that civic revitalization found its roots in the policy research of a small think tank focused on urban affairs, the Manhattan Institute. Utilizing new approaches to law enforcement and other governance matters that scholars at the Manhattan...
2025-03-0742 minThe Tikvah PodcastRoss Douthat and Meir Soloveichik on the State of American BeliefRoss Douthat occupies one of the most fascinating roles in the religious life of the American public. He is a serious Christian, a devout Catholic, a learned student of American religious history, and a perspicacious observer of the spiritual drives that are an inescapable aspect of the human condition. But what makes his role so fascinating is that he is also an opinion columnist at the New York Times. And readers of the New York Times tend to be considerably less religious, and if religious, then considerably less traditional in their religious habits and beliefs, than Douthat. So there...
2025-01-241h 13The Tikvah PodcastMichael Doran on Jimmy Carter and the Middle EastJimmy Carter was born in Plains, Georgia on October 1, 1924. After graduating from the U.S. Naval Academy and serving in the Navy, he returned to his home state, where in 1971 he was elected governor. He became president of the United States in 1977 and remained in office until 1981. His legacy on matters relating to the U.S.-Israel relationship is ambiguous and contested. He famously presided over the Camp David Accords, signed by the Egyptian president Anwar Sadat and the Israeli prime minister Menachem Begin in 1978 and 1979. This peace agreement with the very country that had been Israel's...
2025-01-1741 minThe Tikvah PodcastOur Favorite Conversations of 2024In 2024, we convened 42 new conversations, taking up some of the great questions of modern Jewish life, questions of war and peace, of Israel's security and Israel on the global stage, and of Jewish survival and flourishing in the diaspora. This year Mosaic's editor and the podcast's host, Jonathan Silver, spoke with military officials, activists, scholars, reporters, rabbis, theologians, institution builders, students, and in one poignant conversation a father grieving for his son who fell in battle defending Israel and the Jewish people. Because 2024 marks 820 years since the death of the great medieval sage Moses Maimonides, the Tikvah...
2024-12-271h 03The Tikvah PodcastBella Brannon and Benjie Katz on Anti-Semitic Employment Discrimination at UCLAOver 33,000 undergraduates are enrolled at the University of California, Los Angeles, known universally by its acronym, UCLA. It's one of the most competitive schools in the country, accepting less than 9 percent of its applicants. Among the current undergraduate student body, Hillel International estimates that there are about 2,500 Jewish students. The story of informal discrimination against Jewish students on prestigious campuses is, by now, a sad and familiar story. And in fact, that story is not foreign to Jewish students at UCLA. Worse still, an undergraduate Jewish leader on campus, Bella Brannon, has recently filed a motion with...
2024-12-0548 minThe Tikvah PodcastMeir Soloveichik on the Meaning of the Jewish CalendarThe Zionist writer Ahad Ha'am famously remarked that more than the Jewish people kept Shabbat, Shabbat has kept the Jewish people. There is a deep truth that is embedded in the organization of time, the ritualization of communal ceremonies of remembrance and praise, and the recapitulation of the traumas and triumphs of the past: that the calendar can function as a source of national solidarity. Living in rhythm with the Jewish calendar and all that entails is what makes Jews, Jews. The calendar is the instrument that the Jewish people developed to teach our children Jewish history and the...
2024-10-1646 minThe Tikvah PodcastElliott Abrams on Whether American Jewry Can Restore Its Sense of PeoplehoodThat the Jews have survived is one of the great mysteries of history, and for some theologians, Jewish survival is even an indication of God's providence. The stronger the force against the Jews, the more miraculous their resilience and endurance. But that mystery has another dimension to it–because in America, the Jewish community is not doing well at all. And that's not because America is like Egypt or Spain or Germany–in fact it's precisely because America is so decent, so good, and so welcoming that the Jewish community finds itself contracting and growing shallower. T...
2024-10-1155 minThe Tikvah PodcastAbe Unger on America's First Jewish Classical SchoolA few weeks ago on Manhattan's Upper East Side, a new school opened its doors and welcomed its inaugural classes of students. Emet Classical Academy is America's first Jewish classical school and a project of Tikvah. It's designed for 5th- to 12th-grade students, and is an animated by a vision of the importance of Western civilization, the responsibilities of American citizenship, high standards of excellence in classical languages, math and science, and the power of music, poetry, and the visual arts. Joining that is a full curriculum in the Hebrew language, the Hebrew Bible and rabbinic literature, and the...
2024-09-2036 minThe Tikvah PodcastJeffrey Saks on the Genius of S.Y. Agnon Shmuel Yosef Agnon is one of the masters of modern Hebrew fiction, who helped to spark the revival of modern Hebrew literature in Israel and around the world. His work is not only beloved, but also profound, laden with many allusions to the vast canon of traditional Jewish text that shaped his literary imagination: one hears in Agnon's work echoes of the siddur, the Hebrew Bible, and an astonishing array of rabbinic literature. He was awarded the Nobel Prize in literature in 1966. Yesterday, Tikvah released a five-part, online video course introducing students to S.Y. Ag...
2024-06-2854 minThe Tikvah PodcastElliott Abrams on American Jewish Anti-ZionistsSince the attacks of October 7 and since the Gaza war began, a small but vocal segment of American Jews have joined in with the anti-Israel protests convulsing American cities and campuses. What are their ideas and where do they come from? Elliott Abrams is the author of If You Will It, a book coming this fall on Jewish peoplehood. Also the chairman of Tikvah and a regular Mosaic writer, he's been an observer of American Jewish life for a long time. In his view, the Jewish turn against Israel in America today is vastly different than the usual...
2024-06-0738 minThe Tikvah PodcastVance Serchuk on Ten Years of the Russia-Ukraine WarOne day after this phase of the war began, on February 25, 2022, the writer, former Senate staff member, Navy reservist, and executive director of the KKR Global Institute Vance Serchuk joined Mosaic's editor Jonathan Silver to discuss what was happening in real time. Two years later, he joins the Tikvah Podcast again to step back and ask some basic questions, and to offer his considered judgment on the state of the war. What are its causes? On what basis can one decipher the truth from the conflicting narratives about the war in Europe, in Ukraine, in Russia, and in...
2024-03-011h 06The Tikvah PodcastYehuda Halper on Guiding Readers to "The Guide of the Perplexed"This week, the Tikvah Podcast at Mosaic returns to the towering intellectual and religious sage of medieval Judaism, Moses Maimonides, the Rambam. In two previous conversations about his work, the professor of Judaism Yehuda Halper and podcast host Jonathan Silver focused on Maimonides's Mishneh Torah, his code of law. This week, the two turn from the Mishneh Torah to Maimonides's philosophical magnum opus, Moreh ha Nevukhim, known in English as The Guide of the Perplexed. Whereas the Mishneh Torah leaves one with the impression that philosophy and law can be reconciled within the covenantal structure of an observant...
2024-02-0949 minThe Tikvah PodcastAlexandra Orbuch, Gabriel Diamond, and Zach Kessel on the Situation for Jews on American CampusesThis week, Mosaic editor and podcast host Jonathan Silver steps into the arena of campus conflict. Alexandra Orbuch is a junior at Princeton, while Gabriel Diamond is a senior at Yale and the co-author of an essay in the New York Times entitled "What is Happening on College Campuses is Not Free Speech." Zach Kessel recently graduated from Northwest and is a fellow at National Review as well as at Tikvah. The three come from different places in the country, have different kinds of religious practices, study different subjects, and none intended to become college activists. Yet all three have...
2023-12-151h 10The Tikvah PodcastShany Mor, Hussein Aboubakr, and Haviv Rettig Gur on the Palestinian PredicamentOn October 7, Hamas terrorists recorded themselves in a state of joyous excitement to document their murder of so many Jews. But over the ensuing weeks, that emotion has given way to another emotion: pity for the Palestinians as passive victims of Israeli aggression. The men instigated this war are now seen as victims of this war, occupied, displaced, not murderers but among the murdered. That transformation is our focus of this episode of the Tikvah Podcast. As it happens, that transformation is not unique to the Hamas attacks of October 2023. It is a pattern of Palestinian transformation...
2023-11-231h 30The Tikvah PodcastMichael Doran on Israel's Wars: 1973 and 2023On October 6, 1973, on Yom Kippur, the forces of Egypt and Syria invaded Israel and launched the Yom Kippur War. Fifty years and one day later, Hamas terrorists invaded southwest Israel, killed some 1400 Israelis, took some 200 hostages, and, in so doing, opened up a new front in the simmering conflict that pits Iran and its supporters—China and Russia among them—against Israel and its chief supporter, the United States. After the Yom Kippur War of 1973, an Israeli board, known as the Agranat Commission, issued a report investigating the failings of the IDF leading up to the war...
2023-10-271h 15The Tikvah PodcastEric Cohen on the Questions Graduating Jews and Their Parents Must Confront This week, the Tikvah Podcast offers up not a conversation but a speech. It's a speech that was offered up to American Jewish high school and college graduates by Tikvah's CEO, Eric Cohen. In the fall of 2021, four Jewish women—Carolyn Rowan, Liz Lange, Nina Davidson, and Rebecca Sugar—came together to create an organization for parents grappling with the challenges of raising committed Jewish children in today's confusing and contentious cultural environment. The Jewish Parents Forum organizes events for parents to get to know one another and to learn how to address the practical challenges facing Jewis...
2023-06-1511 minThe Tikvah PodcastElliott Abrams on American Jews and the New Israeli GovernmentAs 2023 began, Israeli opponents of the new government have been organizing protests and demonstrations. Manifest there, and in the newspapers and magazines and television programs of the center and left, is the fevered and frustrated political rhetoric that one expects to hear from politicians who've just lost an election and want back into the game. Rhetoric on the subject outside of Israel—expressed by a great many American Jews—is just as heated, and has led some to withdraw their support for Israel altogether. What's behind the Jewish hysteria? Joining the podcast this week to discuss the matt...
2023-01-2036 minThe Tikvah PodcastMichael Doran on Iran's Growing Military Dominance in the Middle EastBy developing an impressive arsenal of attack drones, rockets, and cruise and ballistic missiles, Iran—a nation that struggles to provide clean drinking water to its populace—has achieved a decisive advantage over its neighbors, including Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. Most importantly, the Iranians have learned how to use these weapons in concert, in ways that can overwhelm even the most sophisticated American and Israeli defensive systems. The U.S., for its part, has shown itself reluctant to respond to Iranian aggression against its Gulf allies, or even against its own soldiers. The result has...
2022-11-1145 minThe Tikvah PodcastMicah Goodman on Deuteronomy—Moses's Final Speech (Rebroadcast)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...
2022-08-0434 minThe Tikvah PodcastAbraham Socher on His Life in Jewish Letters and the Liberal ArtsSince 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 l...
2022-04-2138 minThe Tikvah PodcastRuth Wisse on the Stories Jews TellBy 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 wr...
2022-02-1830 minThe Tikvah PodcastAllan Arkush on Ahad Ha'am and "The Jewish State and Jewish Problem" (Rebroadcast)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 an...
2021-08-1946 min
TikvahS2: E6: TimeIn this episode, we talk a bit about time from the perspective of a child. For children, time seems to work differently than for adults. Perhaps it is because it stretches out so far ahead of them or perhaps it is for another reason altogether, but children seem able to stop and enjoy moments without feeling the need to plan or rush about on a schedule.
Our goal at Tikvah is to find hope by exploring the Lord's heart for his people and his world. New episodes are posted biweekly on Sundays at 2 p.m. Be sure t...
2021-07-2520 min
TikvahS2: Ep 5: MysteryIn this episode, we talk about mystery. Mystery has been something we, as a culture, have shied away from since the Enlightenment. However, mystery in the world is unavoidable. We simply can't understand everything. We argue that it's worthwhile and good to embrace the mystery around us, and rest in our trust of the Lord, who stands above and outside of the mystery. Children seem often to have an easier time rejoicing in mystery and pursuing a joyous curiosity. We want to approach the world in the same way.
Our goal at Tikvah is to find hope...
2021-05-2415 min
TikvahS2: Ep 4: FriendshipIn this episode, we talk about friendship! We ask why friendship exists and is a good thing, what true friendship looks like (especially through the eyes of a child), and how friendship is intricately tied to hope. Friendship isn't easy, but it's a beautiful and incredible gift that floods our life with value, purpose, challenge, joy, and hope!
Our goal at Tikvah is to find hope by exploring the Lord's heart for his people and his world. New episodes are posted biweekly on Sundays at 2 p.m. Be sure to follow along and reach out to us...
2021-05-0934 min
TikvahS2: Ep 3: ImaginationIn this episode, we talk about imagination. What is it? Why is it so important? How is it related to hope? If we struggle to imagine, how can we learn to imagine again? We know that children generally seem to have no lack of imagination, but adults often struggle to imagine. We, however, believe imagination is a crucial for a hopeful life.
Our goal at Tikvah is to find hope by exploring the Lord's heart for his people and his world. New episodes are posted biweekly on Sundays at 2 p.m. Be sure to follow along and...
2021-04-2631 min
TikvahS2: Ep 2: NatureIn this episode, we talk about nature and hope. Nature is a beautiful and wondrous thing, and it points us back in joy and delight to the Creator. The flowers, plants, streams, and mountains all praise their Maker with their own joyous song, and that, we believe, gives us hope as well. Ultimately, looking at nature through the eyes of a child is to delight in it, get dirty in it, and embark on an adventure to explore it to its fullest.
Our goal at Tikvah is to find hope by exploring the Lord's heart for his...
2021-04-1129 min
TikvahWhat is True Hope?We talk about hope a lot here, especially when it comes to the hope we have in the resurrection. But, we wanted to pause and talk about what genuine hope looks like, not just for the future, but in the here and now. Living a life of hope means living a life of action. It doesn’t mean we twiddle our thumbs just wishing for things to get better...it means we put our faith and trust in our King and do something.
Our goal at Tikvah is to find hope by exploring the Lord's heart for his...
2021-02-2844 minTikvahA Life of Childlike WonderIn this episode, we explore what it looks like to live a life of childlike wonder. We delve into what wonder is, how we cultivate it, and why it's so crucial for a hope-filled life. This world and everything in it (including our very lives) are gifts from God. When we live out of a mindset then of abundance and not scarcity, we can't help but wonder at all the mystery and beauty around us. How can we not wonder then at God himself? We believe that living a life of wonder is intricately tied with having hope in...
2021-02-1442 minTikvahNew Year, New Me?In this episode, we talk about what it means to be new. Our culture in general is obsessed with the new year, as if a new number on the calendar will change everything. We place our hope in fulfilling our new year's resolutions and end up trying to find our identity in how we can improve ourselves. But this effort is hopeless. New years don't magically change everything. New Year's resolution usually fall by the wayside in just a few short weeks. We can never make ourselves perfect. But God. Our hope rest in the fact that Jesus makes...
2021-01-3120 minThe Tikvah PodcastMichael Oren on Writing Fiction and Serving IsraelVery few contemporary public figures have had as many successes in as many fields as Michael Oren. A writer-statesman in the model of Thucydides, Oren was Israel's ambassador to the United States during the Obama years, and was before that a historian of the Jewish state, the author of perhaps the best single book on the Six-Day War. He's also worked in think tanks, been a professor at Ivy League institutions, and served as an MK in the Israeli parliament. Now, with the recent publication of The Night Archer, a collection of short stories, Oren returns to the genre of...
2021-01-2133 minTikvahRemembranceIn this episode, we talk about remembering and forgetting. We often find ourselves discouraged or fearful, even though we're in the hands of the living God, the Creator of everything. Why then do we lose hope? We believe it is because we, like the Israelites before us, forget about God. We forget about who He is and what He has done. We want to find hope by reminding ourselves of God's nature and his many great and glorious deeds that have spanned from the beginning of it all to this very moment in each of our individual lives.
2021-01-1733 minTikvahGratitudeIn this episode, we talk all about gratitude. What is the difference between it and thankfulness? Why ought we to have gratitude? Where does it come from? To whom ought we to be grateful? Why? And ultimately, how does this affect our lives? The Lord didn't have to create this world, but He did. He didn't have to make beautiful flowers or stunning mountains, but He did. He didn't have to make loving dogs or (for you cat people) cats. He didn't have to create us, but He did. He didn't have to save us, but He did. He...
2021-01-0323 minTikvahDisappointment and DiscouragementIn this episode, we talk about the differences between disappointment and discouragement, namely, how disappointment is at times inevitable, but discouragement is always a choice. We discuss proper responses to disappointment and ways to avoid becoming discouraged and bitter. Above all, we can find hope in the fact that Jesus will never let us down for he is always better.
Our goal at Tikvah is to find hope by exploring the Lord's heart for his people and his world. New episodes are posted biweekly on Sundays at 2 p.m. Be sure to follow along and reach out...
2020-12-2024 minThe Tikvah PodcastMark Gottlieb on Rabbi Soloveitchik's "Everlasting Hanukkah"When the Jewish people celebrate Hanukkah each winter, what are we celebrating? The story of the holiday is the tale of rededicating the Temple in Jerusalem after it had been occupied and defiled by the Seleucid Greeks, who—with the aid of Hellenizing Jews—were not content only to have conquered the land, but also demanded that the Jews living there relinquish their religious way of life. And with that tradition so close to being snuffed out, monotheism itself was nearly snuffed out. The stakes were great, and each and every believing Muslim, Christian, and Jew who walk...
2020-12-1735 minThe Tikvah PodcastAmbassador Ron Dermer Looks Back on His Years in WashingtonFrom the Iran Deal to the rise of and fall of ISIS, from Israel's year of inconclusive elections to a pandemic that has ravaged globe, the second decade of the 21st century has been history-making for both the United States and Israel. And for the better part of these last 10 years, Ron Dermer has served as the Jewish state's ambassador in Washington, D.C. He is not the first native-born American who emigrated to Israel, rose to political prominence, and was then sent back here on behalf of his chosen nation. But his intimate understanding of America and the...
2020-12-1042 minTikvahAslan & the Power of StoryIn this episode, we talk about the power of story to reach into our hearts and radically change us, for good or for evil. We talk about how they can encourage us and give us hope, or how they can leave us feeling empty and hopeless. All good stories in some way tell the truth about the world, but there are countless stories that convince us to believe a lie. We, as believers, want to fill ourselves with stories that tell the truth and fuel our hope. The character of Aslan in C. S. Lewis' "Chronicles of Narnia" is...
2020-12-0628 minTikvahResurrection and the New EarthIn this episode, we talk about the promise of a future resurrection and new earth where we will live with God himself for all of eternity. While many Christians seem stuck in the idea of a bodiless eternity "in the clouds," the Bible talks about a physical reality with risen bodies, where we will see Jesus face to face. This is a hopeful promise! When we live out of a hopeful expectation of the fulfillment of these promises, it changes what we prioritize and how we act in the world here and now.
Our goal at Tikvah...
2020-11-2226 minTikvahA Kingdom MindsetIn this episode, we explore what it looks like to live with a kingdom mindset. As followers of Jesus, we have been called to seek first the Kingdom of God. Pursuing anything but the kingdom is at its core a hopeless endeavor, for nothing else is eternal. Thankfully, we can find hope in the promise that God welcomes us into a kingdom that can never be shaken.
Our goal at Tikvah is to find hope by exploring the Lord's heart for his people and his world. New episodes are posted biweekly on Sundays at 2 p.m. Be s...
2020-11-0828 minTikvahWhy "Loving Yourself" Isn't LovingIn this episode, we talk about how the “love yourself” movement isn’t actually loving at all. We can never love ourselves enough to be satisfied, but thankfully we can find hope in the fact that the God who knows both our good and our bad already loves us fully and deeply. We are commanded then, in light of his love, to love him and love others.
Our goal at Tikvah is to find hope by exploring the Lord's heart for his people and his world. New episodes are posted biweekly on Sundays at 2 p.m. Be sure t...
2020-10-2525 minTikvahEmpathy and JesusIn this episode, we talk about what empathy is, why it's important, and how we can practically implement it. Since Jesus is an empathetic God, we, as his people, are likewise called to love our neighbors by rejoicing with them when they rejoice and weeping with them when they weep.
Our goal at Tikvah is to find hope by exploring the Lord's heart for his people and his world. New episodes are posted biweekly on Sundays at 2 p.m. Be sure to follow along and reach out to us with your own thoughts, comments, and ideas! Follow us...
2020-10-1122 minTikvahThe Little PrinceIn this episode, we talk about the classic children's story, "The Little Prince," written by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry. We explore how this simple story teaches us to look at the world like children, fill our hearts with wonder, utilize our imaginations, and pour ourselves out into beautiful relationships with the people we encounter. Since our God is a wonderful, imaginative, and relational God, we believe this story helps us to better understand his heart for all his creation.
Our goal at Tikvah is to find hope by exploring the Lord's heart for his people and his wo...
2020-09-2730 minTikvahIntro to TikvahWelcome to Tikvah! As friends, we (Annie & Sophie) have had the opportunity to have lots of cool conversations about the Lord, the world, people, and everything else in between. While we enjoyed our discussions, we felt like there weren't many similar, honest conversations happening between people. So, we started Tikvah, where we're inviting you to join in challenging and fruitful discussions about the world we live in. Our desire is to find hope by exploring the Lord's heart for his people and his world. New episodes will be posted biweekly on Sundays at 2 p.m. Be sure to follow...
2020-09-1303 minThe Tikvah PodcastMicah Goodman on Politics, Power, and Kingship in DeuteronomyThe 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, pr...
2020-08-1334 minThe Tikvah PodcastYehoshua Pfeffer on Haredi Society and the COVID-19 CrisisLike so many nations around the world, Israel has been hard hit by the COVID-19 pandemic. As of today, the Jewish state has over 14,000 confirmed cases of the virus, and over 180 deaths. Among those who have suffered most from the pandemic are Israel's ultra-Orthodox. The haredi public was slow to recognize the threat of the disease—keeping its synagogues and houses of study open even as the rest of the country closed down. Many haredim initially failed to observe the "social-distancing" protocols that have helped to slow the virus's spread, and the results are clear: confirmed coronavirus cases in th...
2020-04-2251 minThe Tikvah PodcastMoshe Koppel on How Israel's Perpetual Election Came to an EndWith the recent agreement between Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his chief political rival, Benny Gantz, a governing coalition is at long last beginning to emerge in Israel. After three national elections in a single year, the Jewish state will soon have a regular cabinet and resume the work of government. It couldn't have happened at a better time. The coronavirus pandemic will have significant effects on Israel's politics and economy, while Israel's citizens continue to live under threat of attack from enemies in the Gaza Strip, Syria, Lebanon, and Iran. And questions remain about what will...
2020-04-0337 minThe Tikvah PodcastMichael Doran on Coronavirus in IranIn the past two months, the Coronavirus has spread rapidly around the globe, affecting nearly every nation in the world. As disruptive and damaging as this pandemic has been in the United States, Israel, and Europe, it has been far more devastating in Iran, where mass graves have been dug to bury its victims. Official statistics paint a dreadful picture of the situation there, but Iranian citizens have taken to social media to tell that world that the reality on the ground is even worse than these statistics suggest. After refusing for weeks to heed the advice of its...
2020-03-3131 minThe Tikvah PodcastRichard Goldberg on the Future of Iran PolicyOver the past two decades, the Islamic Republic of Iran has financed terrorism, civil war, and repression throughout the Middle East—and even in Europe and Latin America—while working to develop nuclear weapons. What can the U.S. do to pressure Iran to stop? And how can it do so without involving American forces in a costly and dangerous military confrontation? In this episode of the Tikvah Podcast, we are joined by Richard Goldberg, a senior advisor to the Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD). He looks at the future America's Iran policy, and focuses in part...
2020-03-1840 minThe Tikvah PodcastEugene Kontorovich on the Trump Peace PlanSince the administration of President Jimmy Carter, nearly every American president has sought to attain the holy grail of diplomacy: a solution to the conflict between Israel and her Arab neighbors. In some ways, the Trump Administration's new peace initiative, "Peace to Prosperity: A Vision to Improve the Lives of the Palestinian and Israeli People," is merely another proposal for an American-brokered arrangement, the next plan in a line of many. But its vision is based on political premises that reveal a fundamentally different understanding of American interests in the region. From its approach to Israeli settlements...
2020-03-0438 minThe Tikvah PodcastDaniel Cox on Millennials, Religion, and the FamilyThat the young are less religious than the old is not news. But the alienation of today's millennials from religious faith may indeed be something new, and far more permanent than many have thought. That's one of the ominous implications of a new report published by the American Enterprise Institute, titled, "The Decline of Religion in American Family Life." The report found that young people often leave faith at an early age and that the proportion of young people involved in regular religious activities and being raised in religious homes is declining. In this week's...
2020-01-2924 minThe Tikvah PodcastYuval Levin on Rebuilding American InstitutionsTraditional Jewish communities are countercultural in a great many ways. But in our age of expressive individualism, one of the characteristics that most sets observant Jews apart is their rich communal life. From crowded Shabbat tables to volunteer ambulance and community watch groups to the close-knit communities that form around synagogues and day schools, the life of a committed Jew is usually embedded within a thick network of formative institutions. Of course, American Jewish life is far from perfect, and Jewish communities must contend with the same forces of radical individualism that have done damage to a...
2020-01-2235 minThe Tikvah PodcastBest of 2019 at the Tikvah PodcastIn 2019, 40 different guests came on the Tikvah Podcast to engage in serious conversations about Jewish ideas, Jewish texts, and Jewish public affairs. This year we covered everything from diplomacy to defense, from Jewish philosophy to Jewish food, from anti-Semitism to Jewish heroism. On this retrospective episode, you'll hear highlighted selections from our conversations with Israel's U.N. Ambassador, Danny Danon, Hudson Institute foreign-policy analyst Michael Doran, Swedish journalist Annika Hernroth-Rothstein, author Matti Friedman, philosopher Micah Goodman, professor Jacob Howland, Rabbi Meir Soloveichik, commentator Jonah Goldberg, editors Avital Chizik-Goldschmidt and Batya Ungar-Sargon, and Secretary Pompeo's special envoy to...
2020-01-0156 minThe Tikvah PodcastWalter Russell Mead on Israel and American Foreign PolicyThree years into the Trump Administration, how is America doing? What does Israel's current political instability mean for its foreign policy? How should the rise of China affect how the U.S. thinks about projecting global power? It can be hard to penetrate the news cycle and think deeply about the many facets of politics and world affairs from a strategic point of view. But that's exactly what Walter Russell Mead does week after week in the Wall Street Journal and as a scholar at the Hudson Institute and Bard College. This week, Walter Russell Mead joins...
2019-12-1839 minThe Tikvah PodcastChristine Rosen on Thinking Religiously about FacebookFacebook is now a central fact of world politics, commerce, and affairs. With more than 2.3 billion users worldwide, it has more users than there are Christians or Muslims, not to mention Jews. Industry analysts project that by 2020 more marketing dollars will be spent on Facebook alone than on the entire TV ad market. It is, in sum, a global presence that hovers above the world declaring that it desires nothing but to connect us with each other, to convene community. Its understanding of itself, its understanding of us, and its understanding of human nature, therefore, invite serious...
2019-11-1344 minThe Tikvah Podcast2019 Herzl Prize Winner Norman Podhoretz on Jerusalem and Jewish ParticularityOn November 10, 2019, Norman Podhoretz—longtime editor of Commentary and one of the founding fathers of neoconservatism—will receive the Tikvah Fund's 2019 Herzl Prize at the 3rd Annual Conference on Jews and Conservatism. Podhoretz is a true renaissance man, whose has written on everything from culture to politics to Jewish affairs. In one of the earliest episodes of the Tikvah Podcast, we were privileged to have him join our executive director, Eric Cohen, for a conversation on his 2007 essay, "Jerusalem: The Scandal of Particularity." Originally delivered as a lecture in Jerusalem, the piece is a reflection on the meani...
2019-11-0636 minThe Tikvah PodcastDru Johnson, Jonathan Silver, and Robert Nicholson on Reviving Hebraic ThoughtThe English Catholic writer G.K. Chesterton famously described the United States as "a nation with the soul of a church." Americans, even now, are a uniquely religious people, and it is impossible truly to understand the American Founding and the American story without reference to Scripture in general, and the Hebrew Bible in particular. And yet, while one can sometimes undertake the academic study of the Bible in our universities—uncovering the text's strands of composition, its dating, and its relation to ancient Near Eastern culture—less easily available in our institutions of higher learning is the...
2019-10-2444 minThe Tikvah PodcastRuth Wisse on Tevye the Dairyman (Rebroadcast)There is probably no character in Jewish fiction more well known than Tevye the Dairyman. Fiddler on the Roof is one of the best known and most widely performed musicals of all time, and the film adaptation is the quintessential portrayal of shtetl life in American cinema. But long before he sang his way into the hearts of theatergoers around the globe, Tevye was the protagonist of the great Yiddish writer Sholem Aleichem's most important short stories. At turns comedic, tragic, and wise, Tevye was the character in whom Sholem Aleichem poured the most of himself, and...
2019-08-1446 minThe Tikvah PodcastYehoshua Pfeffer on Haredi Politics and CultureSince 1949, every election in Israel's history has yielded a governing majority...until now. Though the bloc of right-wing parties emerged from the April 2019 Knesset elections with a clear majority, coalition negotiations fell apart when Avigdor Lieberman, head of the secular rightist Yisrael Beytenu party, made demands regarding the conscription of haredim into the Israel Defense Forces that were unacceptable to the ultra-Orthodox. Israelis will head back to the polls in September, but the key conflicts surrounding the place of the haredim within Israeli society are not going away any time soon. What are the beliefs driving Lieberman...
2019-07-2433 minThe Tikvah PodcastYaakov Katz on "Shadow Strike"On September 6, 2007, shortly after midnight, Israeli fighters advanced on Deir ez-Zour in Syria. Israel often flew into Syria as a warning to President Bashar al-Assad, but this time, there was no warning and no explanation. This was a covert operation, with one goal: to destroy a nuclear reactor being built by North Korea under a tight veil of secrecy in the Syrian desert. In his latest book, Shadow Strike: Inside Israel's Secret Mission to Eliminate Syrian Nuclear Power, Jerusalem Post Editor-in-Chief Yaakov Katz tells the inside story of how Israel stopped Syria from becoming a global nuclear...
2019-06-1244 minThe Tikvah PodcastJonathan Neumann on the Left, the Right, and the JewsPresident Donald Trump has moved the United States Embassy in Israel to Jerusalem; he has recognized Israeli sovereignty over the Golan Heights; members of his own family are Jewish and he has forcefully spoken out against anti-Semitic comments by some elected Democrats. So of course, the American Jewish community has embraced him... Not quite. Regardless of whether or not this administration has worked on behalf of traditional Jewish interests, many Jews feel strongly that its actions are antithetical to Jewish values. And what are the values of many American Jews? Any answer to that question...
2019-05-1537 minThe Tikvah PodcastA New Year at the Tikvah PodcastThe Tikvah Podcast is back and better than ever. We went back to the drawing board, and are excited to let you know that in the coming weeks, we'll be bringing you interviews with Israel's U.N. Ambassador Danny Danon, National Review's Jonah Goldberg, the Hudson Institute's Michael Doran, Temple Sinai's Rabbi David Wolpe, and many more incredible guests. We are also pleased to announce a brand new partnership with the best publication of Jewish ideas anywhere, Mosaic. If you enjoy the Tikvah Podcast, we hope you'll subscribe on iTunes, Stitcher, or Google Play, and that you...
2019-01-3106 minThe Tikvah PodcastThe Meaning of Jewish Nationalism - Lecture 1: The Politics of the BibleRecent years have seen a nationalist revival sweep across the globe. Is this a cause for celebration or a reason to worry? In the Tikvah Fund's upcoming online course, "The Meaning of Jewish Nationalism," we invite you to join Israeli political philosopher Yoram Hazony for an exploration of the idea of nationalism from its biblical roots to its modern rebirth. Dr. Hazony, author of the widely-acclaimed book "The Virtue of Nationalism," is one of our age's pre-eminent defenders of a world governed by independent nations. Today, Tikvah is pleased to bring you the first episode...
2019-01-0750 minThe Tikvah PodcastChaim Saiman on the Rabbinic Idea of Law"Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you tithe mint, dill, and cumin, and have neglected the weightier matters of the law: justice and mercy and faith." Thus speaks Jesus in the Book of Matthew, condemning the forerunners of Judaism's great rabbis for neglecting the spirit of the law, even while upholding its letter. Such condemnations are found throughout the New Testament, and this classic Christian critique of halakhah, Jewish law, has been repeated throughout the millennia by Jewish and Gentile critics of traditional Judaism. Yet, Judaism's sages have long maintained that halakhah represents the will...
2018-12-0746 minThe Tikvah PodcastDaniel Polisar on Herzl's "The Menorah"Falling out annually during the American holiday season, Hanukkah in the United States can feel like little more than a Jewish version of Christmas, subsumed by America's cultural melting pot. But the story of Hanukkah couldn't be more countercultural: it is an affirmation of Jewish particularism and pride that celebrates the triumph of Jewish nationalism and the reclamation of Jewish sovereignty. So it is not surprising that this holiday and its most prominent symbol, the menorah, took on a special importance to Zionism's early visionaries, and especially to Theodor Herzl. In his beautiful essay, "The Menorah," published...
2018-11-2847 minThe Tikvah PodcastYehoshua Pfeffer on Haredi ConservatismWith men clad in the hats and dark coats of old Eastern European Jewry and women walking with covered heads and modest attire, it can appear at first glance like the haredim—often called the "ultra-Orthodox"—are as conservative as Jews come. But though much haredi thought certainly arises from a conservative disposition, the haredi outlook has rarely been defended in self-consciously conservative terms. And there are many things about the haredi model of isolation from the secular world that are in fact quite radical. But even ultra-Orthodox society is not static. Facing new realities and new chal...
2018-11-0935 minThe Tikvah PodcastLeon Kass on His Life and the Worthy LifeWhat is the good? How can wisdom-seeking men and women discover it? And how can knowing it help us live worthy lives? These are the questions Professor Leon Kass has been pursuing for over half a century. Born into a secular, Yiddish-speaking home, Dr. Kass earned his medical degree and a doctorate in biochemistry before turning his attention to the world of the humanities and the wisdom of Athens. Thus began a decades-long career of teaching and public service that has taken him from the University of Chicago to the President's Council on Bioethics, from Washington think...
2018-09-0748 minThe Tikvah PodcastJohn Podhoretz on the Best and Worst of Jewish CinemaThe great thinkers of Athens sought to understand man's place in the world through the medium of philosophy. But the prophets of Jerusalem explored man's role and obligations through the art of storytelling. In the Hebrew Bible and the Midrashic tradition, in modern Yiddish literature and contemporary Jewish cinema, Jews have used powerful stories as the medium through which they explore and convey the rhythms, history, and wisdom of the Jewish condition. In the 20th century, Jewish artists produced a plethora of films that captured the American Jewish experience at key moments in modern history. And there...
2018-06-2944 minThe Tikvah PodcastJon Levenson on the Danger and Opportunity of Jewish-Christian DialogueNostra Aetate, the Catholic Church's 1965 Declaration on the Relation of the Church to Non-Christian Religions, was a watershed in the history of Jewish-Christian relations. It repudiated the slander of deicide and took a stand against anti-Semitism, and in so doing, opened the door to dialogue between Jews, Catholics, and Christians of many other denominations. Several decades later, a group of over 170 Jewish scholars offered what some saw as a kind of Jewish response to the titanic shift brought about by Nostra Aetate. Dabru Emet, "Speak the Truth," set out a set of principles regarding how Jews and...
2018-01-1630 minThe Tikvah PodcastLeora Batnitzky on the Legacy of Leo StraussFriends and critics alike agree that the late political philosopher Leo Strauss is one of the most important thinkers of the twentieth century. He inspired many in the academy to return to the classics in search of enduring wisdom, and there are now courses all over the world that present the thought of Plato, Aristotle, Maimonides, and Spinoza as thinkers just as relevant today as they were in their own times. And the great light that Strauss's thought shone on political philosophy has illuminated the path for men and women whose business is statecraft, alongside those whose business is...
2018-01-0536 minThe Tikvah PodcastRobert Nicholson on Evangelicals, Israel, and the JewsAt a time when the State of Israel lives under the threat of jihadist Islam and faces the scorn of Western elites, it continues to find friends among the Evangelical Christians of America. Yet, while Evangelicals have been among the most ardent friends of the Jewish people and Jewish state, significant numbers of Jews view their friendship with suspicion. Not only that, but Evangelical attitudes toward Israel and the Palestinians could be changing. In 2013, Robert Nicholson analyzed the state of Evangelical Zionism in "Evangelicals and Israel," published in Mosaic. Nicholson acknowledged that Jewish suspicion of Christian goodwill...
2017-12-1538 minThe Tikvah PodcastDaniel Mark on Judaism and Our Postmodern AgeAre we living at the end of modernity? Is the liberation of the individual that has characterized the modern age giving way to identity politics, ethno-nationalism, and other forces that call into question liberalism's optimism about the individual? According to the late Professor Peter Lawler, it is this realization of individualism's limits that characterizes our "postmodern" age. His "Conservative Postmodernism, Postmodern Conservatism," published in the 2008 in the Intercollegiate Review, puts forward a conservative, postmodern vision that stands in stark contrast to the relativistic and liberationist philosophy that typically travels under the postmodern banner. In this...
2017-11-2841 minThe Tikvah PodcastRuth Wisse on the Perversity of Brilliance"Murderers with the power to murder descended upon a defenseless people and murdered a large part of it. What else is there to say?" So wrote Norman Podhoretz in his scathing 1963 essay on Hannah Arendt's Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil. Arendt, a German Jewish refugee and the world's foremost theorist of totalitarianism, had travelled to Israel to witness the historic trial of Nazi war criminal Adolf Eichmann. But rather than writing a fair-minded report on the Jewish people's first opportunity in millennia to try one of their oppressors, Arendt used the occasion...
2017-11-1743 minThe Tikvah PodcastJay Lefkowitz on His Life in the ArenaHas support for Israel become a partisan issue in the United States? What role can a commitment to Jewish culture play in ensuring the Jewish future? And how does an observant Jew say grace? These are just some of the questions Tikvah Executive Director Eric Cohen discusses with Jay Lefkowitz in this unique podcast. Lefkowitz is veteran of the administrations of George H.W. and George W. Bush as well as a keen analyst of American politics and the American Jewish community. In this conversation, Lefkowitz discusses some of the most memorable moments from his long career...
2017-09-2838 minThe Tikvah PodcastElliott Abrams on His Calling and Career"The proper method for the study of politics," said the late political scientist Walter Berns, "is biography." And while analysis and disquisition can impart wisdom about politics and much else, living examples can also provide unique insight into what is required of us as human beings, as Jews, and as responsible citizens. In this special podcast, Tikvah Senior Director Jonathan Silver is joined by Elliott Abrams, one of the American Jewish community's most accomplished public servants. A prolific author, Abrams is a veteran of the Reagan and George W. Bush Administrations and is currently Senior Fellow for...
2017-09-0148 minThe Tikvah PodcastA Theology of Rejection: The Haredi Struggle with Zionism and with ModernityThe establishment of the State of Israel is one of the most remarkable achievements of the modern era. Never before had a people dispersed throughout the world, deprived of sovereignty for millennia, returned to its ancient homeland to build a thriving country. Who were the leaders and thinkers that helped craft a modern Jewish nationalism for a people so long deprived of self-determination? What moved them? What were their political teachings and key disagreements? The Tikvah Fund invites you to join Dr. Micah Goodman, Research Fellow at the Shalom Hartman Institute in Jerusalem and CEO and Rosh...
2017-08-1156 minThe Tikvah PodcastIs Zionism Messianic? The Debate over the Soul of Religious ZionismThe establishment of the State of Israel is one of the most remarkable achievements of the modern era. Never before had a people dispersed throughout the world, deprived of sovereignty for millennia, returned to its ancient homeland to build a thriving country. Who were the leaders and thinkers that helped craft a modern Jewish nationalism for a people so long deprived of self-determination? What moved them? What were their political teachings and key disagreements? The Tikvah Fund invites you to join Dr. Micah Goodman, Research Fellow at the Shalom Hartman Institute in Jerusalem and CEO and Rosh...
2017-08-031h 09The Tikvah PodcastZionism as the Liberation of Judaism: The Debate over the Soul of Secular ZionismThe establishment of the State of Israel is one of the most remarkable achievements of the modern era. Never before had a people dispersed throughout the world, deprived of sovereignty for millennia, returned to its ancient homeland to build a thriving country. Who were the leaders and thinkers that helped craft a modern Jewish nationalism for a people so long deprived of self-determination? What moved them? What were their political teachings and key disagreements? The Tikvah Fund invites you to join Dr. Micah Goodman, Research Fellow at the Shalom Hartman Institute in Jerusalem and CEO and Rosh...
2017-07-2553 minThe Tikvah PodcastMark Gottlieb on Jewish EducationAs he looked out at the Western world of the 1960s and '70s, Rabbi Eliezer Berkovits saw a society whose value system had collapsed. Relativism, boredom, and permissiveness were all around him. But this void could be filled, argued Rabbi Berkovits, by a sophisticated Judaism that sought to rear the next generation in the best of the Jewish ethical tradition. "Jewish Education in a World Adrift" is a clarion call for a morally confident Judaism that can speak to the human soul in a nihilistic age. In this podcast, Jonathan Silver is joined by veteran educator...
2017-07-1335 minThe Tikvah PodcastThe Future of Religious Liberty Religious liberty is on trial in America, both in legislative debates at the state and federal level and in court cases now working their way through the judicial system. As the environment for religious traditionalists becomes more hostile, observant Jews will increasingly confront some difficult questions: Will American society continue to respect the religious freedom of traditional communities? Will the moral teachings and ritual practices of Orthodox schools and synagogues get restricted, and will leaders of these institutions be kept out of the public square? What can Jewish leaders and activists do to help protect and preserve religious freedom...
2017-07-0543 minThe Tikvah PodcastRuth Wisse on Tevye the DairymanThrough its countless runs on the Broadway stage and in an award-winning film, Fiddler on the Roof made Tevye the dairyman the most iconic Old World Jew in the American imagination. But before he burst into song on stage and screen, Tevye was the Sholem Aleichem's comedic protagonist whose triumphs and tragedies showed readers how the rural Jewish fathers of Eastern Europe could deal with poverty, inequality, religious doubt, and, most of all, daughters. In this podcast, former Harvard Professor and Tikvah Distinguished Senior Fellow Ruth Wisse joins Eric Cohen to discuss Sholem Aleichem's most famous character...
2017-06-1544 minThe Tikvah PodcastThe Big StickAs Jews, as Americans, as thoughtful citizens and friends of the decent order of the West, we face great challenges to our security. Those challenges are posed by authoritarian and expansionist powers like China and Russia, by dangerous states like Iran and North Korea, by radical Islamist movements like ISIS, and by new dangers like cyberwarfare and the weaponization of space. To help us think a little more clearly about the strategy of American security and the political order it helps to underwrite, Tikvah Fund Executive Director Eric Cohen hosted Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS) Professor...
2017-03-241h 24The Tikvah Podcast"Nationalism and the Future of Western Freedom" Episode 3On Wednesday, September 14, 2016, alumni of Tikvah's advanced programs and friends of Mosaic came to an intimate discussion between the Israeli philosopher Yoram Hazony and the American author and historian Walter Russell Mead. The subject of their conversation was the same as the title of Yoram Hazony's essay in Mosaic: "Nationalism and the Future of Western Freedom." Hazony argues that the political battle over the fate of the nation is the most consequential struggle of our time—one whose roots extend all the way back to the struggle between the ancient Israelites and the overweening imperial powers of their...
2016-11-0955 minThe Tikvah Podcast"Nationalism and the Future of Western Freedom" Episode 2On Wednesday, September 14, 2016, alumni of Tikvah's advanced programs and friends of Mosaic came to an intimate discussion between the Israeli philosopher Yoram Hazony and the American author and historian Walter Russell Mead. The subject of their conversation was the same as the title of Yoram Hazony's essay in Mosaic: "Nationalism and the Future of Western Freedom." Hazony argues that the political battle over the fate of the nation is the most consequential struggle of our time—one whose roots extend all the way back to the struggle between the ancient Israelites and the overweening imperial powers of their...
2016-11-0918 minThe Tikvah Podcast"Nationalism and the Future of Western Freedom" Episode 1On Wednesday, September 14, 2016, alumni of Tikvah's advanced programs and friends of Mosaic came to an intimate discussion between the Israeli philosopher Yoram Hazony and the American author and historian Walter Russell Mead. The subject of their conversation was the same as the title of Yoram Hazony's essay in Mosaic: "Nationalism and the Future of Western Freedom." Hazony argues that the political battle over the fate of the nation is the most consequential struggle of our time—one whose roots extend all the way back to the struggle between the ancient Israelites and the overweening imperial powers of their...
2016-11-0932 minThe Tikvah PodcastJoshua Mitchell - Tocqueville in ArabiaJoshua Mitchell is a professor of political theory in the Department of Government at Georgetown University. After the terrorist attacks of 2001, he left the U.S. capital to teach the great books of Western political thought to university students in Qatar and Iraq. The students there, he found, differed in dramatic ways from those in the U.S. They were beset with anguish over the value of individualism, and they felt their allegiance to traditional roles in family and society strained in ways that made them question the promises of modernity. Professor Mitchell realized that the social forces at...
2016-04-061h 44The Tikvah PodcastRabbi Jacob J. Schacter on Family and FreedomRabbi Jacob J. Schacter has forged a long and dedicated career both as a pulpit rabbi and as a leading academic scholar of Jewish history. How does he negotiate situations in which love of Torah and tradition appear to be in tension with modern sensibilities or historical truth? What motivates his own spiritual practice?
In a moving conversation with students in the Tikvah Summer Fellowship for College Students and moderated by the Tikvah Fund’s Senior Director Mark Gottlieb, Rabbi Schacter works through these questions, and also shares how his own Jewish upbringing formed who he is toda...
2016-04-0650 minThe Tikvah PodcastRabbi David Stav on Uniting the Jewish PeopleThrough his leadership of the Tzohar Rabbinical Organization, Rabbi David Stav has been at the forefront of debates over the relationship between religion and state in Israel, pushing for reforms in the State's handling of marriage, conversion, and kashrut. Why is Tzohar focused on these issues? And how does he think about government's role in religious life?
Rabbi Stav discussed his vision for Tzohar and the relationship between religion and the public square with the Tikvah Fund’s Rabbi Mark Gottlieb during the 2015 Tikvah Summer Fellowship. In this wide-ranging conversation, Rabbi Stav explains how pivotal events in hi...
2015-09-101h 00The Tikvah PodcastDavid Stav and Seth Farber – Marriage and Conversion in the State of IsraelAs part of its ongoing series on “Jewish Ideals & Current Dilemmas in Contemporary Zionism,” the Tikvah Overseas Seminars hosted two of Israel’s leading rabbinic activists to discuss recent legislation regarding marriage and conversion in Israel. Rabbi David Stav, chairman of theTzohar Rabbinic Organization, and Rabbi Dr. Seth Farber, founding director of ITIM, have worked together to promote bills that will allow greater numbers of municipal rabbis to register couples for marriage and perform conversions under the auspices of Israel’s Chief Rabbinate. While heralded by some as an opportunity to prevent intermarriage by increasing the number of Israelis recognized...
2015-03-101h 31The Tikvah PodcastLeora Batnitzky and Micah Goodman - Modern JudaismWhat is the condition of modern Judaism? It is simultaneously rationalist and non-rationalist, Israeli and Diasporic, nationalist and individualist, powerful and fearful of rising anti-Semitism, particularist and universalist. To sort out modern Judaism's camps and contradictions and to offer some thoughts on Judaism's theological, sociological, and political future, Tikvah hosted a conversation between two very different thinkers who taught in Tikvah's summer fellowship and advanced institutes. Leora Batnitzky is an American scholar of modern Jewish philosophy, a professor at Princeton University, and the author, most recently, of How Judaism Become a Religion. Micah Goodman is an Israeli educator and...
2014-07-281h 48The Tikvah PodcastFrederick Kagan - War and StatesmanshipParticipants in Tikvah's advanced institute on "War and Human Nature" were treated to a conversation on the method and meaning of statesmanship with Frederick W. Kagan. Beginning in theory and ending in practice, Kagan, a man of reflection and action, a military historian and strategic advisor, detailed his approach to serious problems in global affairs. Together with Tikvah Fund executive director Eric Cohen, Kagan discussed the great books of history and statesmanship, the culture of West Point, what happened in the Iraq Surge he is so often given credit for, what to do with the rise of ISIS and...
2014-06-2057 minThe Tikvah PodcastNorman Podhoretz - Reflections of a Jewish NeoconservativeAs part of the advanced institute on "Liberalism, Conservatism, and the Jews," Tikvah hosted the legendary editor of Commentary, Norman Podhoretz. Podhoretz has been a partisan of the left, the right, and, most of all, the Jews. In an interview with Tikvah's executive director Eric Cohen, Podhoretz discussed his life's work and his ideological transformation. He reflects on his early education and the conflict between his low-brow immigrant Judaism and his high-brow training under Lionel Trilling. He discusses the early days of Commentary, when it was ambivalent about Zionism and part of the anti-communist left. He explains what turned...
2014-05-1957 minThe Tikvah PodcastElliott Abrams - Reconsidering America's Democracy AgendaWhat did the architects of American's democracy agenda get right, and what did they get wrong? What do more recent developments teach us about hopes for democracy in the Arab world and their place in American foreign policy?
Tikvah's Jonathan Silver hosted former deputy national security advisor and Council on Foreign Relations senior fellow Elliott Abrams for an in-depth reconsideration of America's democracy agenda. The event was recorded before a live audience on March 6, 2014 at the Tikvah Center in New York City.
2014-03-061h 24The Tikvah PodcastWilliam Kristol - American Foreign Policy and the State of IsraelThe United States has been a strong supporter of Israel. Is that likely to continue? How do changes over the last few years in the Middle East affect the US-Israel relationship? To what extent are different parts of the American public, the American Jewish community, and the American foreign policy establishment still inspired to stand with Israel? Indeed, what does it mean to "stand with Israel?"
Listen to William Kristol, editor of the Weekly Standard, in conversation with Tikvah's Director of Academic Programs Jonathan Silver, analyze Israel and the future of American foreign policy. The ev...
2014-01-271h 28