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Hebraism Redoubled

The blow to Christian egos may not be such a bad thing. Christians, particularly those in the West who are heirs to many centuries of political and cultural dominance, must learn to contend with shrinking influence and growing marginalization, even vilification, where they once enjoyed a high, even . . . . Continue Reading »

Sinai's Universalism

Rabbi Jonathan Sacks derives two messages from Jeremiah 29. One is that Jewish life may continue, even flourish, in the adverse soil of exile: “Build homes and dwell in them, take wives and have children.” For Jews, spiritual purpose survives the loss of power, when the prosperity and fullness . . . . Continue Reading »

Jacob and Esau

From Enemy to Brother: The Revolution in Catholic Teaching on the Jews, 1933–1965 by John Connelly Harvard, 384 pages, $35 The Jewish religion,” said John Paul II on the occasion of his historic visit to the Chief Synagogue of Rome, “is not ‘extrinsic’ to us, but in a certain way is . . . . Continue Reading »

The Biblical Case for Limited Government

The writings of Plato and Aristotle are often described as works of reason, as opposed to the Bible, which is said to be revelation—a text that bypasses our natural faculties to give us knowledge directly from God through a series of miracles. This assumption about the revealed character of . . . . Continue Reading »

The Trial of Jesus

For the last four years, I have been conducting, at New York University’s School of Law, a seminar on the trial of Jesus. The Wall Street Journal inveighed against it as educational inanity: if not exactly corrupting the youth, then at least leading them astray and squandering their tuition . . . . Continue Reading »

A King in Israel

Israel is a Jewish state but has not succeeded in defining just what that means in a national constitution. Although the 1948 Declaration of Independence called for the enactment of a constitution within months of the state’s inception, nothing has been achieved beyond a fragmentary “Basic . . . . Continue Reading »

Why Are the Jews Chosen?

One way anti-Jewish sentiment has been interpreted is simply as a quid pro quo. Gentile animosity, in this view, does to the Jews what the Jews have done, or at least would like to do, to Gentiles—because we Jews present ourselves as the chosen people. In the seventeenth century, Baruch . . . . Continue Reading »

A Kingdom of Priests; A Kingdom of Spirit

Rabbinical Judaism begins with three simple directives:  ”Be moderate in judgement, and raise up many students, and make a fence around the Torah.” The most difficult thing for a Christian to understand about Judaism is its concern with legal process, guided by a profound . . . . Continue Reading »

Jewish Survival in a Gentile World

There are only two possible strategies for Jewish survival in a gentile world. One is to be tolerated. The other is to be indispensable. The first strategy hopes that if every minority is tolerated, then perhaps even the Jews, the minority with the longest history of persecution, might also be . . . . Continue Reading »

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