Events Detail

                      Norman Podhoretz

Norman Podhoretz — Editor at Large for Commentary magazine, New York Times bestselling author of World War IV, and Hudson Institute Adjunct Fellow — discussed his latest book, Why Are Jews Liberals? (Doubleday). Hudson CEO Kenneth Weinstein introduced Podhoretz.

With Why Are Jews Liberals? Podhoretz proposes an answer to this question. He assesses the political inclinations of his fellow Jews, and in the process confounds conventional wisdom with his overview and examination of Jewish history and the political preferences it has produced.

Podhoretz examines the history of anti-Semitism in the West to show why, for most of that time, Jews quite sensibly concluded that they had more to fear from the Right than the Left. He then argues that since the Six-Day War of 1967 this position has no longer made sense, and yet most Jews go on supporting a liberal agenda. Reviewing the history of Jewish political attitudes and thoroughly examining the available evidence, he demonstrates that all the usual explanations — such as a passion for justice allegedly deriving from the prophets of the Hebrew Bible — are either inadequate or flat-out false. Finally, he proposes his own answer to the great enigma of why most Jews remain as committed to liberalism as ever.

Betsy and Walter Stern Conference Center
Hudson Institute
1015 15th St, NW, 6th Floor
Washington, DC 20005