God’s Supersessionism David Novak (“Supersessionism Hard and Soft,” February) clearly demonstrates the negative consequences of the “hard” supersessionism and the positive benefits of the “soft.” I consider myself a soft supersessionist, meaning that the covenant God made with the Jews . . . . Continue Reading »
Early in April, with the publication of the May issue of First Things, I stepped out from behind the pseudonym Spengler to begin arguing my more considered ideas under my own name. The experience has been an interesting one: constricting in some ways and yet freeing in others. My Spengler columns actually began as a joke. In 1997 the Asia Times asked me to write a humor column, and the name Spengler seemed a funny touch: the author of The Decline of the West as a comic writer for an Asian daily. The print edition of the newspaper soon went under, but I revived the persona for the online-only edition in 1999. Contrary to my expectations, it won an audience and became a vehicle for more than I had originally imagined it would be. Continue Reading »
The Vanishing American Jew: in Search of Jewish Identity for the Next Century by Alan M. Dershowitz Little, Brown, 395 pages, $24.95 In Chutzpah, his 1991 best-seller, Alan Dershowitz made the wildly implausible claim that American Jews still don’t feel fully at home in this country and, as a . . . . Continue Reading »
In November 1969, Hillel Levine, a graduate of the Jewish Theological Seminary and a doctoral candidate in sociology at Harvard, addressed the annual conference of the Council of Jewish Federations and Welfare Funds in Boston. Published later that year in the Jewish magazine Response under . . . . Continue Reading »
At a conference last fall on “Christians, Jews, and the Free Exercise of Religion” sponsored by the Institute on Religion and Public Life, one of the Jewish participants accused the major Jewish agencies of being anti-religious. After being sharply challenged, he retracted this grave accusation . . . . Continue Reading »
Subscribe
Latest Issue
Support First Things
