The Tikvah Podcast
The Tikvah Podcast presents conversations and lectures from the Tikvah Fund, a philanthropic foundation dedicated to advancing Jewish intellectual, religious, and political leadership. Each episode explores themes of Jewish thought, Zionism, free-market economics, and Western civilization, often featuring prominent thinkers and leaders. The show aims to bring Jewish ideas into dialogue with broader political, moral, and economic questions, reflecting Tikvah's commitment to vigorous debate about the Jewish future.
Episodes
Rachel Fish on the Corruption of Jewish Studies
Friends of Israel and enemies of Israel both commit the same mistake when they assume that, in American colleges and universities, the faculty hired to teach Jewish subjects are, in their own way, supportive of the Jewish state. The assumption is a reasonable one, and each side's error mirrors the other. The friends of Israel naturally suppose that academic scholars of Jewish history, Jewish thou
Rabbi Mark Dratch on Jews' Obligations to Christians in Israel
Visitors to Jerusalem's Old City see a marvelous religious diversity that is unique in the contemporary Middle East, and made possible by Israeli sovereignty. For most of Jewish history, the Jewish people have lived at the mercy of other nations, and the security of Jewish communities depended on the Christian or Muslim rulers in whose lands Jews lived. But in the Old City of Jerusalem, one walks
John Bursch on the Freedom to Pray at Home
Traditional Jews pray in a minyan, a quorum of ten men who form the communal setting in which an individual Jew prays as a part of the Jewish people. In January of 2021, a man named Daniel Grand sent an email to some of his friends, seeing if he could organize a minyan at his home. He lives in University Heights, Ohio, just outside Cleveland, too far from his synagogue to walk on Shabbat and holi
Dan Schueftan on Israel's Doctrine of Preventive Violence
For half a century, Israel treated its adversaries as if their intentions could be tracked and might change according to circumstances. With the states surrounding it, that assumption largely held: Egypt, for instance, signed a peace treaty and kept it, whatever else occurred in the region. But with the radical forces that Iran built around Israel in the years before October 7, that same assumpti
Rabbi Mitchell Rocklin on the Legacy of Masada
In the spring of the year 73, after Jerusalem had already fallen to Roman forces, 960 Jews atop a desert fortress chose death by their own hand rather than surrender. We know the story because of Josephus, the 1st-century Jewish historian and former rebel commander who turned chronicler of the very revolt he had once been a part of. Yesterday was Tisha b'Av, which commemorates the destruction of
Ari Lamm on Chosenness
This week, Rabbi Ari Lamm joins Mosaic's editor Jonathan Silver to discuss the biblical idea of election or chosenness. Rabbi Lamm has argued that Genesis itself is a long sequence of choosing and rejection—Adam over the animals, Abel over Cain, Isaac over Ishmael, Jacob over Esau—and that the Bible never once tells us why. We learn how God assesses a life after the fact; we are never shown the r
George Deek on Israel's Relationship with the Christian World
In April of this year, Israel's Foreign Ministry created a position that had never before existed: special envoy to the Christian world. The appointment came after a string of incidents that have strained Israel's standing with Christian communities: an IDF soldier destroyed a statue of Jesus in Lebanon; during the war with Iran, the Latin patriarch of Jerusalem, Cardinal Pizzaballa, was barred f
Michael Doran and Hussein Aboubakr Mansour on Power, Ideology, and Understanding the Middle East
When students begin to study international politics, they meet some very old and well-established schools of thought. These approaches disagree about a fundamental question: what is the most important kind of information to acquire? One school of thought recommends studying power: who holds the weapons, and who fears whom. From that, the thinking goes, you'll be able to map the hierarchies and re
David Arnovitz on the Tanakh of the Land of Israel
Today's conversation is about a publishing project: the Koren Tanakh of the Land of Israel. The concept of the series is that it takes the books of the Hebrew Bible and sets them back down in the world that produced them—in the Land of Israel, and in the economic, political, theological, and cultural setting of the ancient Near East. Around each verse it gathers what is known about that world: its
Mike Pence and Eric Cohen on What It Means to Be Endowed with Natural Rights
This week we bring you a conversation between Eric Cohen, president and CEO of Tikvah, and the former vice-president of the United States, Mike Pence. The conversation was recorded before a live audience at the Fund for American Studies, and we are grateful to our friends at TFAS for the invitation and for the work they do: forming young leaders in the principles of individual liberty, free marke
Mark Gottlieb and Shilo Brooks on Why Reading Matters
In 2024, the Atlantic ran a splashy feature titled "The Elite College Students Who Can't Read Books." Professors at the Ivy League and at other elite universities reported that their students, among the most credentialed young people in the country, could no longer make their way through a whole book. One Columbia professor described his bewilderment when a student told him she had never once bee
Ryan McBeth on Why the U.S. Doesn't (Yet) Have a Munitions Crisis
From the phone that sits in his pocket, a person can now order almost anything online and have it delivered to his door the next morning. For all of human history, no one on earth had that kind of power, and now, within a single lifetime, every middle-class American has it. Walmart or Amazon or other major e-commerce platforms will bring you whatever you want: a vintage edition of a particular bo
Ayaan Hirsi Ali on Religion, the Defense of Western Civilization, and the Assault on the Jews
Ayaan Hirsi Ali was born in Somalia, grew up in Saudi Arabia, Ethiopia, and Kenya, fled to the Netherlands in 1992 to escape an arranged marriage, became a member of the Dutch parliament, and collaborated with the filmmaker Theo van Gogh on a short film about the treatment of women under Islam. Ever since Van Gogh was murdered by a Dutch Islamist on an Amsterdam street in 2004, with a death threa
Tevi Troy on America's National Shabbat
On May 4, President Trump issued a proclamation which reads: In special honor of 250 glorious years of American independence and on the weekend of Rededicate 250—a national jubilee of prayer, praise, and thanksgiving—Jewish Americans are encouraged to observe a national Sabbath. From sundown on May 15 to nightfall on May 16, friends, families, and communities of all backgrounds may come together i
Kassy Akiva on Conversion after October 7
Every year on Shavuot, many Jews have the custom of reading the book of Ruth. The holiday commemorates the giving of the Torah at Sinai—the moment when the Jewish people gathered at the foot of the mountain and declared, "we will do and we will listen." The rabbis paired Sinai with Ruth for a reason. Sinai is the national conversion story, in which the whole people, swept up in thunder and fire, a
Dr. Raphael BenLevi on Ending U.S. Aid to Israel
In the spring of 2026, Israel and the United States conducted joint offensive military operations against Iran: coordinating targets, dividing airspace, and operating with a degree of integration that has no precedent in the history of the alliance. The operation significantly degraded Iran's military capabilities, and it marked what many analysts regard as a genuine turning point, not just in th
Jesse Arm on Michigan Democrats' Islamism Problem
Something has been happening in Michigan politics that deserves the attention of everyone who cares about the health of American democracy. And, as they so often are, the Jews are at the center of events. Taking root in Michigan is a specific and serious ideological threat—Islamism—that is gaining influence inside the Democratic party. This is a story about what happens when that influence is unna
Roy Altman on Why Educated Young People Believe Lies about Israel
Roy Altman came to America as a little boy. He came from Venezuela, where his own grandparents had fled to during the Holocaust. Altman and his family arrived in the U.S. with very little and knowing almost no one. Some three decades later, the president of the United States nominated him to serve as a federal judge for the Southern District of Florida, where he became the youngest person ever to
Joshua Berman on How the Exodus Story Turns Egyptian Imagery on Its Head
There is an irony set at the cornerstone of Jewish memory. The very texts that proclaim the Jewish people's liberation from Egypt—the Song of the Sea, the Haggadah that we recite at the Passover seder—borrow their most evocative imagery from the propaganda of our Egyptian oppressors. For instance: the phrase "mighty hand and outstretched arm," which the Torah uses to describe God's miraculous dee
Hussain Abdul-Hussain on the Arab Case for Israel
From the moment of its founding, and, in truth, before its founding, the State of Israel has faced the determined opposition of the Arab world. The armies of five Arab nations invaded Israel the day after it declared independence in 1948. In 1967, after a similar attempt again failed, the Arab League met at Khartoum and issued the famous three no's: no peace with Israel, no recognition of Israel
Yonah Jeremy Bob on the Mossad's Secret War on Iran
On February 28, 2026, Ali Khamenei was assassinated. He was killed in a joint American and Israeli airstrike, in a bunker so deep the elevator took five minutes to reach it, at a meeting with senior advisers whose location intelligence services had tracked for months. The infrastructure that made this targeted assassination possible—the human networks engaged in the patient penetration of one of t
Mike Pompeo and Michael Doran on the Iran War
At 1:15 in the morning on February 28, more than 200 Israeli Air Force jets took off from bases across the region, bound for Iran. They were soon joined by American B-2 and B-1 bombers and the full weight of U.S. air and naval power in the Middle East. Not long after in Tehran, the Iranian supreme leader was dead, along with dozens of the seniormost figures in his government. Operations Epic Fury
Bill Drexel on Narendra Modi's Visit to Israel
On February 25th, 2026, Prime Minister Narendra Modi of India became the first Indian head of government to address the Knesset. It was a moment that, years ago, would have been difficult to imagine. India and Israel established full diplomatic relations only in 1992. For most of the preceding decades, India had been among Israel's harshest critics—a reflexive supporter of the Palestinian cause,
Yehoshua Pfeffer on the Causes of the Bnei Brak Draft Riot
Israel has operated in the skies above Tehran. It has struck nuclear facilities near Baghdad and dominated the airspace of its enemies across the region. But according to a newsletter that the Israeli journalist Amit Segal sent out earlier this week, there is one city in the Middle East where the IDF cannot move freely. That city is a fifteen-minute drive from Tel Aviv, and is called Bnei Brak. On
Meir Soloveichik and Carlos Campo on Strengthening Religious Freedom in America
Recently, Rabbi Meir Soloveichik and Carlos Campo, president of the Museum of the Bible, joined the CEO of Tikvah, Eric Cohen, for a conversation about cherishing and strengthening America's heritage of religious freedom. They were convened by the Levy Forum for Open Discourse, now in its fourth season, an initiative that is sponsored by the American Council of Trustees and Alumni, generously fund
Rod Dreher on the American Right's Anti-Semitism Problem
In November 2025, Rod Dreher published an essay in the Free Press, based on an earlier Substack post he'd written, about anti-Semitism on the American right. Dreher had just returned from Washington, where he'd spent several days speaking with young conservatives working in think tanks and in government. What he discovered was that a significant portion of young men on the right, perhaps as many a
Russ Roberts on the Return of Ran Gvili
On January 26, 2026, after 844 days, the body of Ran Gvili was brought home to Israel for burial. Of the hostages taken on October 7, his remains were the last still kept in Gaza. And when you factor in the hostages taken to Gaza before October 7, Gvili's return marked the first time since 2014 that no Israeli hostage or hostage remains are being held captive, to torture and torment Israelis, in t
Johnnie Moore and Meir Soloveichik on Jews, Evangelicals, and Israel
Tikvah has campus chapters at many colleges and universities throughout the United States, and earlier this week we welcomed over 100 delegates from over 40 chapters to our annual college conference, the Redstone Leadership Forum. The closing session at that conference brought Reverend Johnnie Moore together with Rabbi Meir Soloveichik to discuss evangelical Christians, Israel, and the Jews. Moder
Hussein Aboubakr Mansour on Why Saudi Arabia Is Moving Away from Israel
On June 22, 2025, the U.S. air force sent B2 bombers to destroy Iran's nuclear sites. Five days before that, on June 17, Hussein Aboubakr Mansour, observing the extent of Israel's military operations inside of Iran and its destruction of Iran's proxy network, published an essay in Mosaic with a counterintuitive argument: Israel's devastating strikes on the Islamic Republic would not lead to an Ara
Aaron Rothstein on the Medical Aid in Dying Act
In December 2025, Governor Kathy Hochul reached an agreement with the New York state legislature to pass the Medical Aid in Dying Act, which would legalize what proponents call "death with dignity" and what critics call physician-assisted suicide. About a dozen other states already permit doctors to prescribe lethal medication to terminally ill patients who request it. The state of Oregon pioneere
Our Favorite Episodes of 2025
In 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 soldi
Ruth Wisse on Norman Podhoretz
Norman 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, Presid
Rabbi Ben Elton on Australian Jewry after Bondi Beach
On the evening of December 14, 2025—the first night of Hanukkah—Rabbi Benjamin Elton was driving home from performing a wedding, looking forward to lighting candles with his family. Then his phone began to explode with messages. There were gunmen at Bondi Beach. His wife and children were in lockdown at a nearby event. Names of the dead were coming through—colleagues, community members. For severa
Rabbi Meir Soloveichik on the Enduring Power of the Psalms
On 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 throu
Walter Russel Mead and Elliott Abrams on Navigating the New Middle East
It's now December, and thus a natural time to look back and think about all that's changed in 2025. What did the Middle East and the world look like at this time a year ago? President Biden was in the Oval Office and President Trump was both the former president and the president-elect. Hamas still held hostages taken on October 7. Iran's regional proxies, though weakened, still threatened both Is
Josh Tolle on the State of Hillel on Campus
For many Jewish parents and grandparents, Hillel holds a special place in their memories of college life. Founded in 1923 above a barbershop at the University of Illinois, Hillel grew into a leading Jewish campus organization, now present at hundreds of colleges. For generations, it was where Jewish students found community, celebrated Shabbat, and felt at home as Jews while navigating the challen
R.J. Snell on Modern Expressions of the Marcionite Heresy
This episode of the Tikvah Podcast might be the first dedicated entirely to Christian theology. Why would a Jewish podcast devote so much attention to a theological debate that took place among Christians in the 2nd century? First, because it contributed to the canonization of Christian scripture and defined forever the Christian attitude toward the Hebrew Bible. But more importantly, because we a
Ambassador Ron Dermer Looks Back on His Years in Washington (Rebroadcast)
This week, Ron Dermer resigned from the Israeli cabinet, stepping down as minister of strategic affairs after years of working closely with Prime Minister Netanyahu to guide Israel through this last harrowing chapter of the country's history. It's a moment of transition—and it brings to mind another such moment, five years ago, when Dermer prepared to leave his post as Israel's ambassador to the U
Jonathan Leaf on What New Research about Men and Apes Says about Human Nature
Every schoolboy has been told that, to understand human nature, we must look to our closest genetic relatives—the chimpanzees. Jane Goodall's pioneering research revealed that chimps use tools, hunt cooperatively, and engage in violent activity that looks like warfare. And from these observations, she and generations of scientists who followed in her wake have concluded that humans are essentiall
Samuel Kassow on the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising
Last week, Michael Smuss died at age ninety-nine. Born in 1926, he was the last surviving fighter of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising. His passing marks the end of an era, and brings to a close a chapter of living memory. Now the responsibility to tell this story passes fully to us. In the spring of 1943, against impossible odds and with almost no weapons, a small group of young Jews in Nazi-occupied Wa
John Spencer on the Fate of Gaza's Tunnels
Now that there is a fragile cease-fire in place, it's time to ask what to do with Gaza's intricate system of tunnels. There is, of course, nothing new about the use of tunnels in war. From ancient Jerusalem to Vietnam to Islamic State in Mosul, militaries have dealt with underground warfare for millennia. But the scale, purpose, and strategic role of Hamas's tunnel network is fundamentally differe
Tomer Persico on the Image of God: How Genesis gave rise to modern secularism
"God created man in His image: in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them." Thus reads verse 27 of the first chapter of Genesis, one of the most important lines ever written in history. The Hebrew phrase rendered as "in God's image" is b'tselem Elohim, and that is the title of a new book that traces the extraordinary career of this concept, known in Latin as imago Dei, th
Yaakov Katz on Israel's New Laser Defenses
On September 17, 2025, Israel announced that the world's first laser defense system was ready for deployment, and was being integrated into its multitiered missile-defense shield. Iron Beam may be the most significant advance in missile defense since Israel pioneered the concept of intercepting missiles with missiles back in the 1980s. That's because Iron Beam promises to solve one of modern warfa
Andrew Roberts and Meir Soloveichik on Winston Churchill and His Detractors
What mattered most for survivors of the Holocaust, indeed, what made their survival possible, was not only that the Allies had better ideas about democracy and civilization, though of course Britain, America, and the other Western Allies did. It was that they actually won the war. They defeated the Germans on the field of battle—on sea, land, and air, in the hills and in the streets. It's not enou
Daniel Samet on the U.S.-Israel Relationship and the American National Interest
The relationship between the United States and Israel has long been the subject of intense scrutiny, very often distorted by polemic and conspiracy. One of the most influential articulations of these distortions came in 2007, when the political scientists John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt argued that American foreign policy had been hijacked by a powerful Israel lobby—an argument that, despite its
Richard Goldberg on How American Energy Dominance Is Reshaping the Middle East
In the span of just twelve days, the strategic balance of the Middle East was fundamentally altered. Israel systematically dismantled Iran's drones, missiles, and air defenses, while American strikes turned its most important nuclear facilities into dust. But for all of that, another aspect of the war may not yet have gotten enough attention, and that is the demonstration of what American energy d
Ido Hevroni on Teaching Homer in Wartime
This week, as students in North America are returning to campus and settling into the rhythms of the fall semester, some of them are going to open their copies of Homer's epic poems of the Trojan War, the Iliad and Odyssey. They will read of the Trojan commander Hector's poignant farewell to his wife Andromache, of the Greek warrior Achilles' terrible rage, of Odysseus' long journey home, and of h
David Myers and Andrew Koss on Whether Jewish Studies Has Turned against the Jews
In "A College Guide for the Perplexed," our feature essay this month at Mosaic, our focus is on higher-education reform, the future and fate of the humanities, and helping parents of Jewish students figure out the best places to pursue university studies. This is not the first time that Mosaic has dealt with these and related issues. In May 2024, my Mosaic colleague Andrew Koss wrote a searching,
Barry Strauss on the Jewish Conflict with Ancient Rome: Two Centuries of Rebellion
Between the year 63 before the Common Era, and the year 136 of the Common Era, the Jewish people waged three revolts against the mightiest empire in the world. In retrospect, we can see that these were not only local uprisings, but civilizational confrontations that would echo through history—struggles that pitted the Jewish people's fierce determination to live as a free nation in their ancestral
Michael Doran on Israel and the American Right
On July 29, Gallup published a new poll showing American support for Israel's military action in Gaza at a historic low. But a strong majority (71 percent) of Republicans say they approve of Israel's conduct in Gaza, and that is up from 66 percent in September. Of Israel's military action in Iran, 78 percent of Republicans approve. And 67 percent of Republicans have a favorable opinion of Israel's
How Islamism Took Over the Middle East
This month at Mosaic, we hosted a very important set of conversations, spurred on by a very important essay: "The Enchantment of the Arab Mind," by the Egyptian-American writer Hussein Aboubakr Mansour. Mansour traces the roots of jihadism to European, and especially German, philosophy, transmitted through 20th-century Arab radicalism. Earlier this week, we broadcast a conversation about the essay
Tal Fortgang and David E. Bernstein on Defending Jewish Civil Right on Campus
This week, Columbia University reached a $200 million settlement with the Trump administration to resolve multiple federal civil-rights investigations. The deal—which the White House characterized as the largest anti-Semitism-related settlement in U.S. history—will also release hundreds of millions of dollars in suspended federal grants that had been withheld from Columbia as the administration so
Rabbi J.J. Schacter on the Jewish Meaning of Memory
We 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,
Robert Satloff on Revitalizing Middle East Studies
October 7th exposed to everyone what many in and around the academy have known for years: American universities—not all, but many—are failing catastrophically to educate the next generation about the history, cultures, and politics of the Middle East. Instead of producing students versed in the region's complexities, these institutions have become factories for ideological activism. And nowhere is
Yuval Levin on American Renewal
This week, America celebrates 249 years of independence. As the countdown begins to our 250th birthday, our semiquincentennial, it is natural to ask what citizenship means to us as Americans, and as American Jews. How do we fulfill our obligations not just to preserve what we've inherited, but to renew it for future generations? These aren't just political questions—they're moral ones, rooted in
What the War Reveals about Providence and Jewish History with Meir Soloveichik
On June 22, American B-2 bombers dropped hundreds of tons of explosives on three nuclear sites in Iran—Fordow, Natanz, and Isfahan. Right after President Trump announced that the pilots were out of Iranian air space, the world started to learn the details of Operation Midnight Hammer, the extraordinary American mission to neutralize Iran's nuclear-weapons program. News coverage started immediately
Jay Lefkowitz on New York City's Democratic Primary
On June 24, members of New York City's Democratic party will select their nominee for the mayoral election that is scheduled to take place in November of this year. As of last year, 56 percent of registered voters in New York were Democrats, but even that number doesn't fully express the extent of the Democratic party's hold over the city's affairs. Democrats hold a supermajority on the city counc
Sadanand Dhume on Israeli Arms and the India-Pakistan Conflict
On April 22, 2025, Islamist terrorists struck Indian civilians in Kashmir. Twenty-six people were killed, most of them Hindu tourists. This attack would trigger what analysts now call the "88-Hour War"—a brief but intense conflict between India and Pakistan that ended only after American diplomatic intervention. This four-day war revealed a shift in the strategic landscape that only decades ago wo
Jeffrey Herf on the Transformation of Radical Speech into Violence
On April 13, 2025, an arsonist set fire to the residence of the governor of Pennsylvania. When apprehended, he told law-enforcement officers that he did so using Molotov cocktails. The attack took place just hours after the governor, an American Jew, and his Jewish family, had concluded their Passover seder. The next month, a far-left activist murdered two members of the Israeli embassy staff in t
Judge Matthew Solomson on Orthodox Judaism and American Public Service
It's not uncommon, to put the matter lightly, to find Jewish Americans well represented in the legal field. But the conventional storybook narrative of how Jews rise to occupy positions of promise and prestige in the law tends to emphasize the gradual softening or quieting of religious observance in favor of a broader, more secular American identity. I remember back in 2010 when Elena Kagan had
Yossi Melman on Israel's Most Famous Spy
In 2019, Netflix released a six-episode miniseries starring the English comedian and actor Sacha Baron Cohen. Cohen played an Israeli spy, Eli Cohen. The latter Cohen was a Jewish immigrant from Egypt who, once in Israel, was recruited and trained by the Mossad. He then assumed the identity of Kamel Amin Thaabet, a wealthy Arab businessman who, having eventually moved to Damascus, became a backer
J.J. Kimche on Paul Johnson's Legacy of Philo-Semitism
Born in 1928 in Manchester, Paul Johnson was a British Catholic who while at the helm of the New Statesman liked to boast that he had met every British prime minister from Churchill to Blair and every American president from Eisenhower to George W. Bush—the latter of whom awarded Paul Johnson with the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2006. After publishing a fascinating, spanning history of Christ
Ari Heistein on the American War on the Houthis, and the Israeli One
On May 4, 2025, a ballistic missile traveling up to sixteen times faster than the speed of sound struck ground close to the terminal at Ben-Gurion airport, halting flight traffic and leaving a crater at the point of impact. It was the first time that the airport buildings themselves have been so close to a successful missile attack. This particular missile was fired from a distance of 1,300 miles,
Michael Doran on Donald Trump's Middle East Policy
President 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 w
Benedict Kiely on Pope Francis and the State of Jewish-Catholic Relations
The Catholic cardinal Jorge Mario Bergolio ascended to the papacy in 2013. In honor of Saint Francis of Assisi, he chose as his papal name Francis. For a dozen years he was the head of the Catholic Church and a major figure in the moral and cultural life of the West. After a prolonged illness, Pope Francis died on April 21 of this year. There are over 1.4 billion Catholics in the world, and they p
Leon Kass on How Exodus Created the Jewish National Narrative
This week the Jewish people is not just celebrating, but reenacting the Exodus from Egypt that our ancestors undertook many generations ago. The complex, ritualized retelling of this story can be found in the Haggadah, the text that structures the Passover's ceremonial meal, or seder. But of course the defining telling of this story is to be found in the book of Exodus itself. In 2021, the great J
Dara Horn on Her New Graphic Novel
Later this week Jewish families all over the world will sit down at the seder table and, guided by the text of the Haggadah, recapitulate in a highly ornate and ritualized form the Israelite redemption from oppression in Egypt. The text of the Haggadah itself is fascinating, not only because of its sources and composition and what it emphasizes and how, but also because it references itself. There
Tevi Troy on How Republican Administrations Argue about Israel
Is the Trump administration pro-Israel? There's a great deal of evidence to believe it is. It's given Israel the armaments and rhetorical support it needs to fight on until total victory in Gaza. It has targeted the Houthis in Yemen. It has a record of taking action—economic, diplomatic, and military—against Iran and so has a degree of credibility in countering Israel's greatest external threat. T
Micah Goodman on What He's Learned about Israel in the Past Year-and-a-Half
In 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 unp
Mark Gottlieb and Anna Moreland on Judaism, Christianity, and Forgiveness
To 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 er
Ronna Burger on Reading Esther as a Philosopher (Rebroadcast)
Today, as 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 and adults, the st
Reihan Salam on Rebuilding Urban Conservatism
New 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 res
Hussein Aboubakr Mansour on Why the End of Palestinian Nationalism Can Bring Hope to Palestinians
Last February, the Egyptian-American intellectual Hussein Aboubakr Mansour wrote an article in which he considered the possibility of a new idea of Palestinian nationalism. The IDF was destroying Hamas. The remnant of the Palestinian Authority's legitimacy and trust among the frustrated Palestinians—already weak—was decaying at an accelerated rate. The grotesque complicity of UNRWA in Hamas's crim
David Bashevkin on Orthodox Jews and the American Religious Revival
A few weeks ago, this podcast featured a conversation between Rabbi Meir Soloveichik and the New York Times columnist Ross Douthat, moderated by Mosaic's editor Jonathan Silver. The subject was Douthat's new book, Believe, a work of monotheistic apologetics, which argues that everyone should be religious. Among the many topics discussed was the remarkable revival of spiritual energy in America. At
Diana Mara Henry and Gabriel Scheinmann on One Jew Who Fought Back against the Nazis
On February 8, 2025, three hostages ascended from the dungeons of Hamas and returned to freedom in Israel: Eli Sharabi, age fifty-two; Or Levy, age thirty-four; and Ohad Ben Ami, age fifty-six. They had been held captive for sixteen months. When the three men were first seen, and their images instantly projected onto social media and news sites and television sets across the world, many viewers ha
Cynthia Ozick on "The Conversion of the Jews" (Rebroadcast)
In July of the year 1263, the Dominican friar Pablo Christiani met to debate Rabbi Moses ben Nahman, sometimes known as Nahmanides, to discuss whether Jesus was the messiah, and thus whether Christianity or Judaism had a greater claim to truth. They conducted this debate in the court of King James of Aragon, who famously guaranteed the rabbi's freedom of speech, allowing Nahmanides to advance even
Amit Segal on Israel's 60-Year-Old Prisoner Dilemma
On January 15, Israel and Hamas agreed to a temporary cease-fire. About 30 Israeli hostages would be released, each one in exchange for some 30 to 50 convicted terrorists in Israeli prisons. Of course, this is a controversial arrangement that sets a terrible precedent to incentivize future hostage-taking. At the same time, imagine if your mother or father or daughter or friend were among the hosta
Ross Douthat and Meir Soloveichik on the State of American Belief
Ross 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
Michael Doran on Jimmy Carter and the Middle East
Jimmy 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 ove
Brad Wilcox on Americans without Families
The holidays are always times for Americans to come together with their families. Anyone can summon archetypal images of a dining table with three generations—grandparents, parents, and children—together with siblings and the extended family they bring with them—cousins, aunts, and uncles. But family formation has been growing less common in America over time, and at some point in the last decade
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