*Agenda is subject to change.

 

Sessions

Moral Stamina Under Pressure
Ruth Wisse

Jewish history is governed by a law of nature: The greater the pressure on the Jews, the more of them yield to antagonistic social forces. The present generation of American Jews was formed in a hopeful moment, and many of us assumed it would last. It has not. The pressure is mounting, and the temptations to accommodate, to soften, or simply to drift away are growing. What allows a people to stand its ground in the face of such pressures? Where does moral stamina come from, and how is it sustained across generations? Ruth Wisse will look to the Jewish past and the Jewish literary canon to take up these questions. Sholem Aleichem’s Tevye the Dairyman lived through the great upheavals of 19th- and early 20^th-century Jewish life and kept his footing. Returning to a book she has taught for decades, Professor Wisse will explore how it now speaks to our moment in unexpected ways.  

The West and Its Enemies
A conversation with Aaron MacLean, Andrew Roberts, and Michael Doran

The free societies of the West face threats from without and decay from within, and it is not always clear which is more dangerous. Islamism has found allies on the Western left, and the red-green alliance now operates openly on our campuses and in our streets. The Middle East remains the center of gravity, as Israel, America, and the Gulf states confront Iran and its proxies. Artificial intelligence promises to shift the balance of power in ways no one yet understands. Beneath all of it lies a question of will: Does the West still believe in itself enough to defend what it has inherited?

Andrew Roberts, historian and member of the House of Lords, will consider what Britain’s experience in confronting these questions may portend for the United States. He will be joined by Hudson Institute senior fellow Michael Doran—also a historian—and the CBS analyst, Free Press columnist, and School of War podcast host Aaron MacLean. They will ask which historical periods our current era of conflict most resembles, and discuss how history can shape the civilizational identity the nations of the West need to meet the challenges of our age.

Why Our Civilization Still Needs the Hebrew Bible
Micah Goodman

The West is divided against itself. One camp speaks the language of universal human equality and regards particularist loyalties with suspicion. The other speaks the language of nation, home, and patriotism, and is impatient with appeals to cosmopolitan, universalist ideals. Each sees in the other a threat to what it holds most dear. Must we choose? Can a civilization affirm the equal worth of every human being and also love its own people, its own land, and its own story? Micah Goodman will take up this question through the lens of the Hebrew Bible’s two great beginnings. In the story of creation, every human being is made in the image of God. In the story of the Exodus, a particular people is brought out of slavery and into nationhood. The ideas the West now sets against each other were born together in Hebrew Scripture. Goodman will ask what it would take to hold them together again, and why the idea of Israel at its best may still be the West’s surest guide. 

Jewish Formation and the Great Books: A Tikvah Student Symposium
Led by Dan Senor

At the center of Tikvah’s work is the conviction that great books, read closely and deeply, can shape the souls of the next generation of citizens . In this session, Call Me Back host Dan Senor will convene a conversation with Tikvah students and alumni who will speak about the texts that changed the way they understand themselves, America, the Jewish people, and the weighty responsibilities that lie ahead of them.

Lunch and Awarding of the Herzl Prize to Ambassador Mike Huckabee
Elliott Abrams and Ambassador Mike Huckabee

The Herzl Prize is Tikvah’s highest honor, and this year, we proudly award it to the United States ambassador to Israel, and former governor of Arkansas, Mike Huckabee. His love for the Jewish state is rooted in his Evangelical faith, and his tenure has coincided with a period of extraordinary cooperation between the two nations. At a moment when misguided and pernicious voices in the American public square seek to divide faithful Christians from committed Jews, he has stood firmly for the friendship between our communities. The chairman of Tikvah’s board of trustees, Elliott Abrams, will confer the prize, and Ambassador Huckabee will then deliver remarks. The two will close with a conversation about the alliance between our two countries, the bond between Christians and the Jewish people, and what it will take to rededicate America—in its 250th year—to the biblical vision on which it was founded.

Judaism Against Tyranny
Dara Horn

At the heart of every tyranny is a lie, sustained by manipulation and imposed by force. Lies about the Jews, about Israel, and about history itself now circulate with a speed and reach no earlier age could have imagined, and in many of our institutions, professing the lie has become a condition of acceptance.

Judaism has always stood against tyranny, from Pharaoh’s court to the refuseniks who resisted modern totalitarianism. What does that inheritance demand of us now? How do we raise young people in an age of lies? We want to stir their wonder at the majesty of the Jewish inheritance, but wonder cannot become a kind of innocence that leaves them defenseless. The young must understand the moment in which they are living, and we must help them prepare to meet it.

The Education Renaissance: A Jewish Vision for America
Led by Eric Coben

At the heart of Tikvah’s generational project is the belief that education is the key to a Jewish and American renaissance. In this session, we will highlight four new and expanding efforts to advance our vision in K-12 schools and universities—including a project to cultivate exceptional Jewish educators and school leaders, the expansion of our K-12 educational press, the creation of a growing network of university programs rooted in Jewish and Western ideals, and a new center devoted to strengthening how we understand the great American story.

Jews and the Future of American Conservatism
A conversation with Senator Ted Cruz

American conservatism is in the midst of an argument about what it is, and the principles that it aims to advance. For two generations, the conservative coalition has drawn strength from an alliance of religious Christians and Jews, bound together by a shared biblical inheritance, a commitment to defending religious liberty, the belief in free enterprise and meritocracy, and support for a strong U.S.-Israel relationship. That partnership can no longer be taken for granted. New voices on the right question whether America’s friendship with Israel serves American interests, and some go further, treating Jews themselves as alien to the nation’s story. What holds the conservative movement together, and what is it for? What place will Jews and Christians have in it in the years ahead? And what do members of each faith owe to each other? Senator Ted Cruz has been among the most forceful defenders of Israel and the Jewish people in American public life. In this conversation, he will consider the present and future of American conservatism, and the part Jews and Christians must play in shaping it.

How Storytelling Can Save Civilization
Rabbi Meir Soloveichik

From the earliest moments of Jewish history, storytelling has stood at the center of our ritual life. We are commanded to tell our children of the Exodus, and to dramatize our ancestors’ standing at Sinai. A people that tells its story knows who it is and what it is for; a people that forgets its story leaves the telling to others, including its enemies. Today, as the threats to the Jews and to the West grow more complex, what stories must we tell and how must we tell them? How can recalling and passing down the great drama of Jewish history help secure our future and answer those who would undo us? Rabbi Meir Soloveichik considers why one of the oldest of Jewish obligations may now be among the most urgent, and what it can teach Jews and Christians alike about the work of preserving a civilization.