A Conversation With Rabbi Marvin Hier, Trump’s Inauguration Rabbi
“It’s not a question of supporting [Trump]; Jews support Israel. And is he good for Israel? The answer is, he sure is.”
What Does Trump’s Visit Mean for Israel?
“As a political historian, I would say that most trips abroad are filled with great hopes and, while they rarely end up in disappointment, they also rarely end up in tremendous achievements.”
Timothy Snyder on Modern Tyranny
Modern tyranny can change things quickly by making us react slowly. You have an enormous amount of influence in the first weeks and months. If you spend that time saying, “This is not that big a deal,” or “The institutions will protect us,” or “This can’t happen here” or “I’m going to wait for someone to tell me what to do,” then it’s all over.
Alan Alda and His Scientific Universe
Alan Alda loves to dig to the root of things. He has no patience for jargon, for flimsy logic, for impenetrable lectures. He wants to know: What is time? How do clocks work? What are the processes that govern the universe?
Michael Chabon: A Life of Fact & Fiction
A conversation with novelist Michael Chabon can easily jump from Michael Jackson song lyrics to the history of spaceships. And while his love of all things quixotic can be a lot to digest, his intellectual openness and curiosity have resulted in a compelling and innovative body of work.
Is Democracy Broken?
28 years ago political philosopher Francis Fukuyama famously declared “the end of history,”meaning that there would be “the universalization of Western liberal democracy as the final form of human government.” It was a heady time. The Berlin Wall was poised to fall…
Meir Shalev: Israel’s Dictator-in-Writing
Although Americans may not immediately recognize his name, best-selling novelist Meir Shalev is one of Israel’s most beloved and celebrated authors. He is a man with deeply held convictions and opinions about both the art of writing and Israel.
Author Interview // Kati Marton
Kati Marton’s early life reads like the plot of a John le Carré spy novel. Marton was born in Budapest in the early years of the Cold War to journalists who, at the time, were among the most famous anti-communist dissidents in the world.
Alan Furst Will Always Have Paris
In each of Alan Furst’s 14 novels about spies—not spy novels, he insists there is a difference—characters inevitably end up dining at Brasserie Heininger in Paris. The fictional restaurant, based on the real Brasserie Bofinger, with its opulent marble staircase and shucked oysters, represents the glamour and the joie de vivre of 1930s Paris, a city he calls “the heart of civilization.”
David Grossman: The Dissenting Patriot
In 1987, the editors of the Israeli weekly newsmagazine Koteret Rashit marked the 20th year of Israeli control of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip by dispatching the young, up-and-coming novelist and journalist David Grossman to spend seven weeks among Palestinians and Israeli settlers living in the West Bank.
The Evolution of David Brooks
David Brooks, that rare New York Times columnist equally criticized by liberals and conservatives alike, was born in Toronto, Canada. His father’s college teaching jobs brought the family to New York City and Philadelphia before Brooks headed off to college at the University of Chicago, where he caught the attention of William F. Buckley. After graduation…
Bernard-Henri Lévy
France’s public intellectual no.1 has become its number-one defender of Jews—and democratic intervention around the world.