2012

When American Jews Were Divided and Weak

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It’s extraordinary to see how different the contemporary American political climate is for Jews than it was seventy years ago. Today, the “Israel lobby” is widely regarded as all-powerful, and all but one of the 2012 Republican Presidential contenders—along with the Democratic incumbent—have eagerly sought Jewish support. In the 1930s and early ’40s, Jewish lives were barely worth a mention for most Americans. The authors of Millions of Jews to Rescue and Irgun Zvai Leumi address this subject from opposite vantage points on the political spectrum.

Articles

Hannah Arendt: From Iconoclast to Icon

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Hannah Arendt, the renowned German-Jewish political philosopher and liberal polemicist, has obtained icon status since her death in 1975. Arendt was a sharp dissenter against the Zionist majority from 1942 on, but to regard her as anti-Zionist is an oversimplification. This famous gadfly sharply criticized Zionism, but from within.

2011

Israel and the Lessons of History

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I grew up without grandparents. Both of my parents escaped the Holocaust by the skin of their teeth, losing their parents back in the same shtetl in Eastern Galicia; all of my father’s siblings and their children were also murdered.