In February and March 2024, the Zahava and Moshael Straus Center for Torah and Western Thought has continued to make a significant impact across the media landscape, with multiple new publications, podcasts, and other contributions.
In The Wall Street Journal, Director Rabbi Dr. Meir Soloveichik offered a deeper understanding of the iconic painting Washington Crossing the Delaware, and on the 25th anniversary of The Matrix, he reflected on the meaning and relevance of the 1999 sci-fi classic for today’s world. In National Review, he argued that in the nation’s response to the explosion of antisemitism since October 7, nothing less than the future of the free world is at stake. And in Commentary Magazine, he explored how the president of Argentina captured, in a single moment, what the Western Wall is all about.
Deputy Director Rabbi Dr. Stuart Halpern co-authored The Promise of Liberty, a unique Haggada that collects primary sources and essays to highlight the impact of the Exodus story on American history. For Presidents’ Day, writing for Jewish Review of Books, he examined a Revolutionary-era Hebrew prayer for George Washington. And in Jewish Journal, he previewed videos the Straus Center produced with OpenDor Media on “The Hebraic Heroes of America.” For Purim, Dr. Halpern published timely articles in The Wall Street Journal (selected as a worthy read by Jewish Insider’s daily roundup), Tablet Magazine, and Jewish Journal, and he joined the new Jewish Review of Books podcast to discuss his edited volume Esther in America published by the Straus Center.
Senior Scholar Dr. Tevi Troy returned to Tablet’s Take One Daf Yomi podcast for Bava Kamma 104 to discuss agents in presidential administrations. In Mishpacha Magazine, he placed the looming rematch between Biden and Trump in the context of previous rematches in the history of presidential elections. And in the Washington Examiner, he reconsidered former VP Dan Quayle as model for the 2024 GOP running mate pick and discussed Quayle’s well-received speech at Yeshiva University in 1989. Dr. Troy also taught a class on “Jews and the American Presidency” for the Tikvah Fund.
Program Officer Yisroel Ben-Porat joined Tradition Podcast to discuss his fall 2023 article in Tradition on the enigmatic early eighteenth-century figure, “Rabbi” Judah Monis—the first known Jewish-born degree recipient and faculty member at Harvard.
Finally, Associate Director Dr. Neil Rogachevsky argued in City Journal that citizens of the Jewish state must recover the single-minded attention to security that typified their country’s early days. And Straus Scholar Rebecca Guzman (SCW ‘26) reflected in Jewish Journal on her trip to Israel in January as part of a Straus Center solidarity mission.
