When the United States entered the Second World War, it needed to fight against both the Nazis in Europe and the Middle East and the Japanese in the Pacific. To manage that gargantuan task, American military planners divided the regions of the earth into different areas of responsibility, within which a single authority would unify and command forces from every military branch and service. That structure has lasted through today, so that the United States now has eleven combatant commands.

Due to longstanding tension between Israel and its Arab neighbors, it had been included in the US military’s European Command, even though much of the rest of the Middle East was organized as a part of its Central Command, known as CENTCOM. That Israel was included in European Command for all those decades had some benefits, like greater interaction with NATO. But in recent years its presence there limited America and Israel’s ability to work together; as the cold war drew down, and the war on terror ramped up, European Command was no longer at the cutting edge of military strategy, attention, or resources.

The Abraham Accords surfaced a new public friendliness between Israel and many of the Arab neighbors. In recognition of this fact, Israel was officially transferred to CENTCOM in January 2021, making possible enhanced coordination among the US military, the IDF, and regional Arab forces.

This week, Richard Goldberg, a veteran Middle East observer and foreign-policy analyst, joins Mosaic editor Jonathan silver to look at the consequences and import of Israel’s move to CENTCOM. They use the recent joint exercises undertaken by the US military and the Israel Defense Forces, known as Juniper Oak 23. Operating together on sea, land, and air, the joint exercises were widely thought to have been designed to convey a signal to Iran.

Musical selections in this podcast are drawn from the Quintet for Clarinet and Strings, op. 31a, composed by Paul Ben-Haim and performed by the ARC Ensemble.

“Prayer is the language of the soul in conversation with God. It is the most intimate gesture of the religious life, and the most transformative.” Those lines are from an essay called “Understanding Jewish Prayer” by Jonathan Sacks, the late chief rabbi of the United Kingdom. “As the sea smooths the stone,” he writes, “as the repeated hammer-blows of the sculptor shape the marble, so prayer—cyclical, tracking the rhythms of time itself—gradually wears away the jagged edges of our character, turning it into a work of devotional art.” To pray, he says, is to be “brushed by the wings of eternity.”

Descriptions such as these are inspiring, and, based on them, one might expect prayer to be a powerful emotional experience. Sometimes it can be. But often it isn’t. The structures of prayer in the traditional Jewish liturgy sometimes impede the very sentiments that prayer promises to kindle. That tension is the subject of this week’s podcast conversation between Mosaic editor Jonathan Silver and the president of Shalem College Russ Roberts. Roberts recently published a short essay titled “The Agnostic’s Guide to Jewish Prayer” in which he confesses that “The words by themselves don’t work for me.” Still, he’s prayed three times a day for more than 30 years. Why? “I prayed to have prayed.”

Musical selections in this podcast are drawn from the Quintet for Clarinet and Strings, op. 31a, composed by Paul Ben-Haim and performed by the ARC Ensemble.

To understand the inner life of the biblical world, one must look to Egypt.

In the Hebrew Bible, it plays a role in the psyche of the Jews as the great other, the great alternative. Thus, when the land of Israel suffers from famine, Egypt is a land of plenty. While the land of Israel is subject to the limits and vicissitudes of nature, the Egyptian regime is dedicated to conquering nature and overcoming its cycles of plenty and poverty. And where the land of Israel is full of shepherds wandering in the wilderness encountering God, Egypt, by contrast, is a teeming, tight, narrow imperial capital.

It's in Egypt, that the children of Israel begin to assume a national identity (or, at least the Egyptians think they do). Once freed from Egyptian bondage, they are haunted by memories of Egypt. And as they build their own nation in Israel, they become the anti-Egypt—in moral sensibility, in legal and constitutional structures, in theology.

This week, the podcast is joined by Joshua Berman, a rabbi, academic Bible scholar, and the author of several books, including, most recently, Ani Maamin, about biblical criticism, historical truth, and faith. Over the last year, Berman has been leading groups on an Exodus in reverse—on tours back to Egypt to discover that country’s biblical sites. Together with Mosaic editor Jonathan Silver, he talks about his journeys and reflects on how his engagement with Egypt has deepened his understanding of the formative texts of the Jewish people.

Musical selections in this podcast are drawn from the Quintet for Clarinet and Strings, op. 31a, composed by Paul Ben-Haim and performed by the ARC Ensemble.

As 2023 began, Israeli opponents of the new government have been organizing protests and demonstrations. Manifest there, and in the newspapers and magazines and television programs of the center and left, is the fevered and frustrated political rhetoric that one expects to hear from politicians who’ve just lost an election and want back into the game. Rhetoric on the subject outside of Israel—expressed by a great many American Jews—is just as heated, and has led some to withdraw their support for Israel altogether.

What's behind the Jewish hysteria? Joining the podcast this week to discuss the matter is Elliott Abrams, a veteran observer of Israel and foreign policy who is also the chairman of Tikvah. For the February edition of Commentary, Abrams has written an essay called “Jewish Hysterics and Israel’s New Government.” Guided by his essay, Abrams and Mosaic editor Jonathan Silver look at why this government has provoked such passionate emotions in the hearts of American Jews.

Musical selections in this podcast are drawn from the Quintet for Clarinet and Strings, op. 31a, composed by Paul Ben-Haim and performed by the ARC Ensemble.

The Uighur people is an ethnic group historically located in central and east Asia; the bulk of its population lives western China. In recent years, the Chinese Communist Party has severely restricted Uighur religious life and has detained many Uighurs in mass re-education and work camps. On this week's podcast, inspired by a conversation he had with the Dalai Lama of Tibet, the democracy activist Carl Gershman joins us to think about whether the Jewish experience can offer anything to the Uighurs. Gershman, who founded the National Endowment for Democracy in 1984, talks with Mosaic editor Jonathan Silver about the plight of the Uighurs, how Jews have improbably survived throughout the ages, and what survival strategies the Uighurs might be able to apply to their own situation today.

Musical selections in this podcast are drawn from the Quintet for Clarinet and Strings, op. 31a, composed by Paul Ben-Haim and performed by the ARC Ensemble.

In 2022, we convened 46 new conversations, probing some of the most interesting and consequential subjects in modern Jewish life: the war-torn Jewish community in Ukraine, the nature of modern sexual ethics, the prospects of Israeli judicial reform, how to read the book of Esther, and the passing of one of the great Jewish critics of the 20th century. In conversation with Mosaic editor Jonathan Silver, each guest brought his or her unique expertise or viewpoint to some timely issue or enduring question that stands before the Jewish people.

In this episode, we present some of our favorite conversations from this year. Guests featured include the former U.S. Ambassador to Israel David Friedman, the Chabad writer Dovid Margolin, the Washington Post columnist Christine Emba, the British intellectual Douglas Murray, the Israeli MK and legal reformer Simcha Rothman, the rabbi Jacob J. Schacter, the journalist Matti Friedman, the professor Ronna Burger, the Christian leader Robert Nicholson, Commentary editor John Podhoretz, and the returning Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Musical selections in this podcast are drawn from the Quintet for Clarinet and Strings, op. 31a, composed by Paul Ben-Haim and performed by the ARC Ensemble.

Benjamin Netanyahu was Israel’s prime minister from 1996 to 1999, and then again from 2009 to 2021. Already Israel’s longest-tenured leader, he just won another electoral victory and is expected to take office again later this week.

Netanyahu has recently recounted his life in his new memoir Bibi: My Story. He was born not long after modern Israel was founded. In describing his military service, his diplomatic role at the United Nations, and his various ministerial posts through the years, the book shows much about the nation to which Netanyahu has dedicated himself. It also shows a political mind at work, one settling scores, investing in strategic relationships, and making arguments in the public arena to influence the direction of modern Israel.

Last week, Mosaic’s editor Jonathan Silver sat down with Netanyahu for an interview. Rather than focus on his early life as depicted in the memoir, or on the current international and domestic challenges and controversies that face him as he returns to office, this interview focuses on the process of political decision-making and how Netanyahu sees it. The discussion zeroes in on three consequential choices Netanyahu made during his career: his decision to liberalize the Israeli economy as finance minister in the early 2000s; his decision to speak in front of the U.S. Congress in opposition to the Iran deal in 2015; and his decision to undertake, and then to publicize, a massive 2018 Mossad operation that resulted in the seizure of a half-ton of records, notes, and plans documenting Iran’s nuclear-weapons program.

Musical selections in this podcast are drawn from the Quintet for Clarinet and Strings, op. 31a, composed by Paul Ben-Haim and performed by the ARC Ensemble.

There was never an explicit announcement to men that they no longer needed to wear bowties and could wear neckties instead, just like there was no announcement that they didn’t need to wear ties at all. Those cultural norms shifted gradually, and are understood even as they do so.

In Orthodox Jewish communities, the way cultural norms work are a bit similar and a bit different. They come both from unspoken social cues and from explicit instruction, including from religious texts. The latter approach reflects the insight that how a person dresses isn’t a purely superficial matter, but communicates something of substance. Is the human form public or private, should it be open to the gaze of all or only to select people within a circle of trust or family? What should be covered, and how? Such questions involve reflecting on men, women, and human sexuality too, of course.

This week, Mosaic’s editor Jonathan Silver sits down with Shoshanna Keats Jaskoll to explore the virtues of Jewish modesty, and how those virtues can be radicalized, grow excessive, and—like all virtues—transform into vice. Jaskoll is the director Chochmat Nashim (“The Wisdom of Women”), an organization dedicated to the healthy depiction of women in the Jewish public square that opposes removing pictures of women completely, while still supporting modesty. They discuss what modesty is, what it’s for, why it deserves protection, and how it can be exaggerated and abused.

Musical selections in this podcast are drawn from the Quintet for Clarinet and Strings, op. 31a, composed by Paul Ben-Haim and performed by the ARC Ensemble.

On February 24, when Russian president Vladimir Putin began his country’s invasion of Ukraine, Jewish leaders found themselves caught on opposing sides of an active war. Ukrainian rabbis have suggested that the war is a holy fight between good and evil. Jewish religious leaders in Russia, meanwhile, have come under heavy pressure to denounce the war publicly, which most of them have thus far avoided doing, no doubt in part since the Russian government is now cracking down on dissent. Instead, they’ve generally taken a publicly pacifist position, arguing that all war is bad and that holiness can be found in peace.

On this week’s podcast, Maxim D. Shrayer, Maxim D. Shrayer, a professor of Russian, English, and Jewish studies at Boston College, joins Mosaic editor Jonathan Silver to discuss how those Russian Jewish leaders have tried to balance their competing priorities. As Shrayer points out, though many of them likely oppose the war, they’re also called to care for their communities, maintain functional relations with the political authorities, and preserve what their congregants have built up over the decades since the end of the Soviet Union. So what are the moral obligations of Russia’s Jewish leaders right now?

Musical selections in this podcast are drawn from the Quintet for Clarinet and Strings, op. 31a, composed by Paul Ben-Haim and performed by the ARC Ensemble.

Over the years, the Ethics and Public Policy Center, a think tank in Washington D.C., has been home to some of the most interesting and important thinkers at the intersection of religion and public affairs in America. And unlike most other D.C. think tanks, EPPC is just as interested in cultural renewal and the moral health of America as it is in policy and politics.