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The Balcony by Ruth Calderon

Torah Commentaries:
Erica Brown
Nechama Leibowitz
Mekor Chaim

Past Issues

Upcoming: Visions from the Israeli “Cabinet” Ruth Calderon as Minister of Education Mishael Tzion as Minister of Defense Basmat Hazan as Minister of Arts & Culture Yedidia Stern as the Minister of Justice David Schechter as Minister of the Interior Daniel Gordis as the Minister of Foreign Affairs and much more Sponsorship opportunities available

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Jews & Neoconservatives

Benjamin Balint: In recent years, “neoconservative” has become a term of abuse referring to the supposed cabal that brought about the Iraq war... The term “neoconservative” used to be deployed more descriptively, to refer to liberal anticommunists who, having failed to halt the leftward drift of the Democratic Party, came in the 1970s to feel more at home on the right, where they took it upon themselves to battle Soviet expansionism abroad and anti-Americanism at home, and to fault the overreaching social programs of the Great Society.
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Peter Berkowitz: In recent years, more than a few angry critics have insinuated with malicious intent that neoconservatism is an intrinsically Jewish school of politics and ideas.  True, Jews are disproportionately represented in neoconservative ranks.  But the same might be said of the ranks of communism, socialism, and liberalism to say nothing of the ranks of lawyers, doctors, financiers, and comedians.
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Ruth Wisse & Seth Lipsky: Given the laws of Leviticus, the laws of kashrut, the boundaries of the Sabbath, the commands of humility before God, can anyone really think that Judaism itself is not conservative — that it doesn’t have a deeply conservative view of the human condition?
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David Teutsch: Neoconservative positions too often conflate spreading democracy with defeating America’s enemies. This undermines American moral resolve. Recent losses of civil rights, such as those embodied in the Patriot Act, are inimical to the cause of democracy, yet neoconservatives often defend these losses as part of the sacrifice Americans must pay for self-defense.
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Quote of the Month

“An awareness of the vicissitudes of modern Jewish history has, to some extent, reinforced the Jewish neoconservatives’ sense of the presence of evil in this world, and the need for what they see as the forces of good, led by America, to combat it.”

Allan Arkush, Israel and the Iraq War


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Sh'ma serves as a gathering place for independent dialogue -- rich conversation of differing positions presented in an honest, respectful, and sacred conversation. Our readers, like our authors, are intellectually sharp, seeking, concerned and literate. Sh'ma is a publication of Jewish Family & Life! JFLMedia.com