Shopping cart (0 items) |
RSS

No Thanks for the Memories

Gordon S. Wood

America’s Founding Fathers have a special significance for the American public. People want to know what Thomas Jefferson would think of affirmative action, or how George Washington would regard the invasion of Iraq. No other major nation honors its historical characters in quite the way we do. The British don’t have to check in periodically with, say, either of the two William Pitts to find out what a historical figure of two centuries ago might think of David Cameron’s government in the way we seem to have to check in with Jefferson or Washington about our current policies and predicaments.

More »
Newsletter Sign Up
News of upcoming issues, contributors, special events, online features, more.
From the Archive: June 10, 2010

The Failure of the American Jewish Establishment

Peter Beinart

Among American Jews today, there are a great many Zionists, especially in the Orthodox world, people deeply devoted to the State of Israel. And there are a great many liberals, especially in the secular Jewish world, people deeply devoted to human rights for all people, Palestinians included. But the two groups are increasingly distinct. Particularly in the younger generations, fewer and fewer American Jewish liberals are Zionists; fewer and fewer American Jewish Zionists are liberal. One reason is that the leading institutions of American Jewry have refused to foster—indeed, have actively opposed—a Zionism that challenges Israel’s behavior in the West Bank and Gaza Strip and toward its own Arab citizens. For several decades, the Jewish establishment has asked American Jews to check their liberalism at Zionism’s door, and now, to their horror, they are finding that many young Jews have checked their Zionism instead.

More »
Exchange

A ‘Digital Public Library of America’?

Tony Simpson, reply by Robert Darnton

To the Editors:

In your October 28 issue, Robert Darnton makes a plea for a national digital library. I endorse this. We in the New Zealand Society of Authors have made a similar plea to our own government although to date this has fallen on deaf ears. But Mr. Darnton does himself no favors by declining to raise what he describes as “the vexed question of copyright.” This is the elephant in the room that is going to bedevil any such proposal anywhere until it is resolved.

More »