Reflecting on the current “politics of anger” and “culture of competitive victimhood,” Jonathan Sacks calls on Americans to renew their social covenant—which, as Sacks draws on the Bible to explain, is distinct and prior to the political contract that brings government into being. Doing so involves rebuilding such institutions as marriage, religion, and community and replacing narrow identity politics with reinvigorated patriotic feeling. Fortunately, through its stories of such leaders as Joseph, Josiah, and Ezra, the Bible shows how the social covenant can indeed be renewed. (Video, 40 minutes. A complete transcript is available at the link below.)

Under the leadership of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Ankara has become increasingly authoritarian, Islamist, and hostile toward Israel and the West more generally. The Turkish government has also indicated that it aspires to alter its maritime border with Greece, and even its border with Syria. Analyzing these changes, and what they term the country’s “bellicose foreign policy,” Efraim Inbar, Eran Lerman, and Hay Eytan Cohen Yanarocak examine the implications for Israel, and how the Jewish state might best respond: