Accelerating OPEC’s Demise: The Economic Consequences of the Persian Gulf War
Can Israel Ever Trust Europe?
The New Geo-Demographics of American Jewry
The New Geo-Demographics of American Jewry
American Jewry is on the verge of an organizational upheaval of an extent that it has not seen for nearly a hundred years since the present structure of the American Jewish community took form between 1890 and 1940. Only a few years ago, many American Jews were congratulating themselves on the very successful effort at self-organization.
The Cairo Conference on Middle East Arms Control
Italy: Present and Future
Quiet Diplomat: Max Fisher
When Muslim Fundamentalists Use Western Words
Changing U.S. Interests in the Middle East
Communal Democracy and Liberal Democracy in the Jewish Political Tradition
This article describes the emergence ofliberal democracy, then compares and contrasts liberal democracy with communal democracy, showing the latter to be a prior form of
democratic self-government. It then discusses the two in the perspective of self-government and rights, the two dimensions of democracy. Having given the United States as the best example of liberal democracy and Switzerland as the best modern example of communal democracy, it then goes on to explore the Jewish political tradition and how it is also an example of communal democracy. The article then turns to the crisis of modernity and the Jewish polity and how the modern commitment to liberal democracy
won over a majority of Jews even as it posed problems for the Jewish polity, examining classical Judaism and pluralism, looking for accommodations between the two in the contemporary Jewish polity.
Communal Democracy, Modernity, and the Jewish Political Tradition
This article describes the emergence of liberal democracy, then compares and contrasts liberal democracy with communal democracy, showing the latter to be a prior form of democratic self-government. It then discusses the two in the perspective of self-government and rights, the two dimensions of democracy. Having given the United States as the best example of liberal democracy and Switzerland as the best modern example of communal democracy, it then goes on to explore the Jewish political tradition and how it is also an example of communal democracy. The article then turns to the crisis of modernity and the Jewish polity and how the modern commitment to liberal democracy
won over a majority of Jews even as it posed problems for the Jewish polity, examining classical Judaism and pluralism, looking for accommodations between the two in the contemporary Jewish polity.
From Private Rights to Public Good: The Communitarian Critique of Liberalism in Judaic Perspective
Contemporary communitarian thought critiques liberalism for the latter’s anemic conception of community. Liberalism requires a doctrine of community and common good in order to ground its predilection for distributive justice. For communitarians, liberalism here tries to square a circle. Mishnah, Talmud, and Maimonides anticipate this contemporary debate by conceiving of community and common good in a way thick enough to allow for distributive justice, yet limited enough to preserve individual rights.
Democracy and Judaism: The Question of Equality
This essay considers the place of democratic ideas within the context of Judaic political thought, with special reference to the idea of equality. The views of Louis Finkelstein, Simon Federbusch, and Sol Roth on this question are considered. Distinctions are drawn between descriptive and prescriptive concepts of equality, as well as between absolute equality and the uniquely Judaic concept of infinite human value. Also discussed is the conflict between complete equality and absolute liberty and its resolution in the prescriptive concept of equality of negative liberty. The essay concludes that although there are fundamental ideological differences between democracy and the religious and ethical system of Judaism, the democratic form of government has the greatest current potential for accommodating the Judaic search for higher values.
The Attitude Towards Democracy in Medieval Jewish Philosophy
Medieval Jewish thought, following Platonic and Muslim political philosophy, on the one hand, and halakhic concepts, on the other, was basically, although reluctantly, monarchist, and inherently anti democratic. It rejected outright what we term here as the ancient Greek variety of liberal democracy, which went against its basic philosophical and theological assumptions.
