Amor Mundi

The Supreme Court in a Divided Nation

Jill Lepore writes about how Chief Justice William Howard Taft presided over a divided Court at a time of great ideological ferment. Taft brought a pragmatic and political sensibility to the Court. He both made the Court more efficient and expanded its power and authority. And as a conservative amidst the Progressive Era, Taft set the Court on his path of obstructing progressive legislation. 

On Zion, Zionism, and Zionists: A Biblical History

Jim Sleeper begins his long essay on the many forgotten historical and religious foundations of the shallow modern understanding of claims like “zionism,” “settler colonialism,” and “antisemitism” by quoting T.S. Eliot who writes, “Humankind cannot bear very much reality.” We can’t understand the eruptions in the Middle East and in the United States without facing the ancient religious passions that drive American and Jewish history.

Tekhines

Sarah Chandler is discovering the ancient Jewish art of measuring graves, or tekhines, and she writes about her visit to Hannah Arendt’s grave at Bard College. "I’ve invited my friends to accompany me to the cemetery that sits in the center of the campus of Bard College, located in Annandale-on-Hudson, New York. It is just over 100 miles north of my Brooklyn apartment, but I suspect it will take us at least three hours to get there on a Monday afternoon."

The Joy of Arendt Center Conferences

Arendt Center member Neil Gussman writes about his experience attending Hannah Arendt Center Conferences, most recently our conference Between Power and Authority. 

What we are reading: The Shoah After Gaza

Pankaj Mishra, who spoke at the 2022 Arendt Center Conference Rage and Reason, reflects on how to think about the Shoah in the wake of the war in Gaza and Israel.

What we're listening to: Victims, Villians, and Settler Colonialism

Mike Cosper explores why the West requires Israel to play by different rules when it comes to defense and modern warfare.

"Mafioso Politics"

Roger Berkowitz
Hannah Arendt insists that we look reality in the face and seek to understand even what is most strange, difficult, and horrific. In a new essay, Timothy Snyder analyzes the context of how Trump is seeking to normalize criminality and violence. Snyder’s essay reminds us of Arendt’s worry in her final essay, that “Public opinion is dangerously inclined to condone not crime in the streets but all political transgressions short of murder.”

The End of The Golden Age

Franklin Foer has an essay arguing that “The Golden Age of American Jews is Ending.” What Foer calls the Golden Age was not only good for Jews; the emergence of Jewish-Americans helped define a new American liberalism, one the shed the assimilationist metaphor of the melting pot for the hyphenated-identity of the mosaic. But that Golden Age is ending. Antisemitism, once relegated to the fringes of American society, is back with a vengeance.

Liberalism and Liberal-Democracy

N.S. Lyons interviews Polish philosopher and politician Ryszard Legutko about Polish politics and liberal democracy. Asked about the difference between liberalism and progressivism, Legutko answers, "As I see it, liberalism is not about freedom but about power and social engineering . . . liberals always assume a dominant position, claiming to know how to distribute freedom in the optimal proportions, therefore, deserving to be the irrevocable referees."