Published on Tablet I’m conservative by most measures, and I’ve long known that the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) is markedly progressive on most policy issues. But I wasn’t looking for a brawl. I was simply searching for friendship. Relatively new to the Detroit metropolitan area, I was hoping to become more involved in the Jewish community and…
Why We Couldn’t Solve the Jewish Liberalism Puzzle [NRO] Certain sociocultural causes of Jewish political behavior have been neglected.
Published on National Review Online Given the attention lavished on American Jewish liberalism, one could sensibly conclude that it ranks alongside Stonehenge and Bigfoot as one of the world’s greatest mysteries. Indeed, the “phenomenon” has inspired countless theses, lectures, surveys, and symposia, not to mention innumerable familial quarrels. Norman Podhoretz, the former longtime editor of Commentary,…
How is Obama Not a Jew? [DAILY CALLER] There isn’t much daylight between the Oval Office’s resident and the Chosen People.
Published on The Daily Caller So the right-wing is steaming mad because President Obama – allegedly – once pondered aloud how it could be that he’s viewed as anything less than Zionist when he’s practically a member of the tribe. “You know, I think I am the closest thing to a Jew that has ever…
Review: “Locus of Authority,” by William G. Bowen and Eugene M. Tobin [KEY REPORTER] The function of academic faculty has evolved due to a myriad of social, cultural, and economic tribulations.
Published on The Key Reporter In early-February, Governor Scott Walker unveiled his state’s 2015-17 executive budget of which the most divisive element has been a $300 million cut to the 26-campus University of Wisconsin system. (Typical with any landmark political issue, numbers have become the pliable playthings of polemicists and pundits. The right-leaning insist that $300…
Prophet of Hope [NATIONAL AFFAIRS] Few public intellectuals have shaped America's self-understanding as profoundly as Ben Wattenberg.
Published in National Affairs In Washington, “neoconservative” is fired off as a pejorative so frequently and haphazardly that even the wariest of hawks have been wounded by its stigma. That is why it is so ironic that the Washingtonian who has most unabashedly championed the ideology remains virtually unscathed. “I am a paleoliberal, a supply-side infrastructuralist,…
The Failure of the European Experiment [TIMES OF ISRAEL] Continental anti-Semitism is the product of Enlightenment values.
Published on The Times of Israel Ideologies, “isms,” are holistic expositions of the universe. That’s why they’re so appealing. They cause scales to fall from eyes, revealing – apparently – how the engine of history truly operates. The catch, of course, is that ideologies are rigid, inflexible, deterministic. In turn, their adherents, in order to safeguard…
Jihadi John: How Do You Say Déjà Vu in Cockney? [WEEKLY STANDARD] The biographies of the individuals responsible for the beheadings of James Foley and Daniel Pearl are eerily similar.
Published on The Weekly Standard The biographies of the individuals responsible for the beheadings of James Foley and Daniel Pearl are eerily similar. Foley’s killer, “Jihadi John” — recently revealed to be one Mohammed Emwazi — moved to London when he was young, was raised in a middle-class neighborhood, and attended the University of Westminster. The mastermind…
‘Glee’ and the Balkanization of the Left [DAILY CALLER] The show rammed progressivism down its audience’s throat, and now nobody’s watching.
Published on The Daily Caller Interested in an exemplification of the identity crisis that’s tearing American liberalism into disjointed bits? Look no further than Fox’s (once popular) television show about high school misfits — pardon me, courageous “nonconformists” — united by song and dance: Glee, which recently entered its sixth and, revealingly, final season. The…
The Enemy Within [FEDERALIST] The West’s self-hatred and guilt complex leaves it too weak to defend itself against radical Islam.
Published on The Federalist Last week, bullets from jihadists’ AK-47s pulverized the European Union’s hopelessly — and, indeed, dangerously — naïve vision for society. Moving forward, we must dedicate as much of our attention to radical Islam as to the Western culture that bred and allows radical Islam to flourish. To do otherwise would only…
Will Diversity Destroy the Left? [FEDERALIST] Insisting that diversity depends on race and identity instead of class will cost the Left its political power.
Published on The Federalist For the proud liberal, a quick thought experiment — or, rather, litmus test. Is the following group diverse? Four college students: one white, one black, one Asian, and one Hispanic. “Yes, of course,” you reply. But what if I were to also note that these young adults hail from Bloomfield Hills,…