Commentary Magazine

The April issue of Commentary is now available. This issue explores war and regime change in Iran, the performance art of Steve Bannon, the history of the pro-Israel lobby, and more. With contributions from @JSchanzer, @jpodhoretz, @jkirchick, @EliLake, @tal_fortgang, @rpondiscio, @StuHalpern, @jordanchirsch, @michaelmrosen, and @rcbl. Read on at commentary.org and subscribe at commentary.org/subscribe.

For all its warts, meritocracy gave us Edison and Salk, air-conditioning and sliced bread, antibiotics and the software revolution. And perhaps most damning for Isaacson’s history, the most meritocratic periods in American history led not to a decline in the common ground of the American Dream but its drastic expansion. commentary.org/articles/jorda…

"The presence of ICE agents at many of these airports was making travelers uncomfortable. Am I taking crazy pills?" Watch the full episode: youtube.com/watch?v=PyTMku…

Today, the Orthodoxy that Kaplan attacked, revised, and fled is the fastest-growing American denomination. Two of the Jewish Center’s rabbis have gone on to serve as presidents of Yeshiva University. Meanwhile, American Jewish University, which Kaplan founded, is struggling to survive. The largest Reconstructionist synagogue cut ties with the movement over its failure to confront anti-Zionism among its affiliated rabbis and rabbinical students following October 7. Kaplan knew how to pick a fight. But he never picked a winner. commentary.org/articles/stuar…

Israel does so much that benefits the rest of the world that sometimes people seem to forget that it is its own country with its own interests. commentary.org/seth-mandel/ge…

"UCLA's activist in residence demanded that the students . . . pray to 'mama earth' and chant 'free Palestine.'" Watch the full episode: youtube.com/watch?v=nI-HLY…

The revelation that Bannon was lining his own pockets under the guise of raising private funds for public works undermines the notion that he is some sort of political Svengali. commentary.org/articles/james…

LISTEN: Today we discuss the lingering questions regarding Trump’s Iran strategy – is he still pursuing a definitive end to the war, or searching for an exit ramp due to rising oil prices and the situation in the Strait of Hormuz? We also touch on the historical context of American losses of life and equipment, and the consequences of American treatment of its international allies. Plus, the fight over TSA funding reaches the boiling point, and the emerging danger of prediction market abuse by insiders. commentary.org/noam-blum/how-…

"The atmospheric anti-Semitism and the accusations of Israel-first sympathies have, in some minds, cast a sickening cloud of suspicion over Jewish patriots."

"They thought that what they were doing was virtuous, and when people think that, they are liberated from conventional morality." Watch the full episode: youtube.com/watch?v=5ZMN0z…

As much as I want to agree with Traub that civic education might help “knit us back together again,” it would require not just a shift in education practice but a wholesale revision in our thinking of why we send children to school in the first place. commentary.org/articles/rober…

"Don't let them tell you that we are suffering an oil shock. It is not only not unprecedented, it is not even true." Watch the full episode: youtube.com/watch?v=VZSFND…

"The Democratic Party's major problem it seems to me is that it is increasingly looking like a freak show." Watch & subscribe to the Commentary Magazine Podcast: youtube.com/watch?v=nI-HLY…

No, “it’s not 2003.” It’s a generation later, and the problem of the worst weapons in the hands of the worst state actors persists. Iraq under Saddam Hussein was one. It is no longer. Donald Trump has made it clear he is determined to make sure the Islamic Republic follows the Baath regime into the dustbin of history. It’s likely that one person in America who is rooting him on, based on his own complex and rueful experience, is George W. Bush. commentary.org/articles/tod-l…

LISTEN: Today we discuss social media companies losing lawsuits in California and New Mexico over child safety and addictive practices and the shifting public perception on these ubiquitous platforms. Will the growing realization of the dangers of these services lead to a substantial change in legislation or regulation, or will the change come from shifting social acceptability? Plus, Christine recommends Ruth Wisse’s NEH Jefferson Lecture. commentary.org/noam-blum/anti…

There is a price to be paid for killing Jews. It should not surprise anybody, then, that the price for October 7 is high, and that Israel will decide when it has been extracted. There is legitimacy enough in that alone. commentary.org/seth-mandel/ge…

Is persuasion about anything even possible anymore? @Commentary managing editor @abegreenwald joined Hugh to discuss how America has become two audiences with very little overlap. youtu.be/vhtK96NLXbo

Habermas believed in the existence of facts and that they could be ascertained through diligent, honest debate. His fellow leftist intellectuals hated the truth that Habermas discovered, because it debunked a modern blood libel. And that truth will live on, whether social theorists like it or not. commentary.org/seth-mandel/wh…

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The contentiousness—and indeed the confusion—that surrounds this subject makes an examination of the history and functioning of other ethnic pressure groups, as well as a comparison with them of the pro-Israel lobby, a useful way of arriving at a clear understanding of this particular lobby’s successes, failures, and roles in American life. commentary.org/articles/micha…

LISTEN: Today we discuss democrats flipping the Florida house seat that includes Mar-a-Lago and the importance of attractiveness and normalcy to political candidacy, as well as the uncertainty surrounding Trump’s 15 point plan to end the Iran war and the inconsistent communication with the American public, and a new lawsuit against UCLA. Plus, we recommend the new film Project Hail Mary. commentary.org/noam-blum/the-…