Selected Essays

What America Owes the Jews, What Jews Owe America

Dara Horn, Norman Podhoretz, Rick Richman, Jonathan Sarna and Meir Soloveichik

  • To what extent was the American Revolution an achievement of Judaism?
  • How did Zionism win over American Jews?
  • Is there an American Jewish equivalent to Yiddish?
  • Why did Abraham Lincoln feel such a close connection to the Jews?
  • Why are many American Jews so often reluctant to admit what they owe to America?

These are but some of the questions asked—and answered—in this new collection of never-before-published essays from five of Jewish America’s leading thinkers. Out in time for the Fourth of July, What America Owes the Jews, What Jews Owe America is an essential text for lovers and observers of American and Jewish life.

Available now from Mosaic Books in all major ebook formats. Click the Kindle and iBooks links above to order now!

Release date

July 4, 2016

 
 
 
About the Authors
 
 
 

Dara Horn is the author of five novels, most recently Eternal Life.

 
 
 

Norman Podhoretz served as editor-in-chief of Commentary from 1960 until his retirement in 1995. He is the author of twelve books, including My Love Affair with America (2000) and Why Jews are Liberals (2009). In 2004 he was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom.

 
 
 

Rick Richman is the author of Racing Against History: The 1940 Campaign for a Jewish Army to Fight Hitler and And None Shall Make Them Afraid: Eight Stories of the Modern State of Israel, which was a finalist for the National Jewish Book Award in Biography.

 

 
 
 

Jonathan Sarna is the Joseph H. & Belle R. Braun professsor of American Jewish history at Brandeis University and chief historian of the National Museum of American Jewish History. He has written, edited, or co-edited more than 30 books. The most recent, co-authored with Benjamin Shapell, is Lincoln and the Jews: a History.

 
 
 

Meir Soloveichik is the rabbi of Congregation Shearith Israel and the director of the Straus Center for Torah and Western Thought at Yeshiva University. His new website, containing all of his media appearances, podcasts, and writing, can be found at meirsoloveichik.com.