In 2023, we celebrated the 75th anniversary of a momentous event in the history of the 20th century and a defining hour in the ongoing providential drama of Jewish history, the establishment of modern Israel.

But 1948 is memorable in the history of nations for another reason, too. In that year, the United Nations General Assembly

adopted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which gives voice to a range of fundamental freedoms

that, when respected, honor the freedom and dignity of persons in many of their basic aspects.

It's remembered as a foundation stone of international human rights law.

See then, in 1948, many of the enthusiastic proponents of human rights statements and

organizations were not only Jewish, but indeed were proud Zionists.

In the 75 years since, those two sorts of commitments

seem to have grown in different directions, so that now most people who work in the

human rights industry of NGOs and multilateral institutions and activist organizations

do not support, but in fact actively oppose the foundational premises and practical necessities of Jewish

national freedom. How did the human rights movement and Israel start together and grow apart?

And what possibilities can we think of to reconceive the human rights movement so that it can

project its rhetorical power into the depraved tyrannies of the world without

falling prey to the anti-Semitism that today corrupts and undermines it.

Welcome to the Tikva podcast.

I'm your host, Jonathan Silver.

My guest, to help us recover this history and to think about an alternative future,

is Hillel Neuer, the executive director of UN Watch,

the Distinguished Human Rights NGO based in Geneva.

Our conversation is drawn from a new essay from Hillel, published as a chapter in a new

volume, Jewish priorities, 65 proposals for the future of our people, published by Wicked

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