A Conversation with Leon Wieseltier
In December 2014, at the annual Association for Jewish Studies conference, Abraham Socher sat down for a public conversation with Leon Wieseltier. It was, as it happens, just after the much-discussed New Republic debacle, and Wieseltier, who had served as TNR’s literary editor for the last 31 years, was characteristically witty and reflective. They talked about his teacher the great historian Yosef Yerushalmi, David Ben-Gurion’s grammatical precision, the cultural responsibilities of intellectuals, and much else. Please enjoy the video, below.
Suggested Reading
The Home Front
Eating very long breakfasts, lunches, and dinners with dozens of aging members of the Greatest Generation was the best part of Arkush's teaching experience.
Books vs. Children
"Apparently it is very troubling for children to see their parents working, at least doing the kind of work that does not make itself visibly obvious."
Yiddish Heroism, Hebrew Tears
For Avraham Sutzkever, life and work were not even slightly separate, since his was a life not merely shaped by poetry in a metaphorical sense but literally saved by it, when a poem of his produced an airplane.
Chaim of Arabia: The First Arab-Zionist Alliance
Chaim Weizmann regarded his 1919 agreement with Emir Faisal as an epoch-making treaty. That didn’t turn out to be the case, but a century later an Arab-Zionist alliance may be reemerging.
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