Everyone is talking about Michael Chabon’s new novel, and good for him, he’s good. But let’s be clear, The Yiddish Policemen’s Union is a fantasy set in Alaska. It’s not about the here and now. Chabon began in a different…
A year ago I turned on C-SPAN and found myself transfixed for an hour by Roscoe Bartlett, the octogenarian congressman/engineer from Western Maryland who has made a cause out of lecturing Americans about their dependence on petroleum. Well it happened…
Keith Olbermann last night issued another of his signature condemnations of the political establishment, where he addresses Bush witheringly as “Sir.” Last night he said the Democrats are not following the mandate of the people from last November, to get…
Three months ago Commentary Magazine called Jimmy Carter “our worst ex-president” (because of his position on Israel, of course). Now Carter is calling Bush “our worst president ever,” and the press is attacking him for violating some unspoken ethic of…
The latest Jewish Currents traces the history of the blackmail “self-hating Jew” to describe Jews who have not drunk the Israel koolaid. It quotes Noam Chomsky on the subject: Chomsky attributes the promiscuous use of the accusation of Jewish self-hatred…
I see it as part of my function to document instances of dual loyalty–in which American Jews are called upon to show loyalty to Israel. These appeals are problematic: 1, they define Jewish identity in a narrow and dubious way,…
A few weeks back, I landed on Michael Walzer for his parochialism in a speech about Jewish identity at the Center for Jewish History. The speech was complacent: it celebrated the American Jewish religious revival and American Jews’ connection to…
Last night I was reading a biography of Walter Benjamin that described the excitement over Zionism in Berlin intellectual circles 90 years ago. Socialists and dreamers adopted Zionist ideas. In the U.S., too, many eastern European Jews who had lately…
Conservatives are obsessing over Hillary Clinton even more than Democrats are. She’s all they see when they look at the Democratic smorgasbord, they dismiss Obama. Conservatives secretly want Hillary to become President because that will fulfill their worldview, that p.c….