Jay Lefkowitz on His Life in the Arena
The Tikvah Podcast
Tikvah
4.6 • 620 Ratings
🗓️ 28 September 2017
⏱️ 38 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Has support for Israel become a partisan issue in the United States? What role can a commitment to Jewish culture play in ensuring the Jewish future? And how does an observant Jew say grace?
These are just some of the questions Tikvah Executive Director Eric Cohen discusses with Jay Lefkowitz in this unique podcast. Lefkowitz is veteran of the administrations of George H.W. and George W. Bush as well as a keen analyst of American politics and the American Jewish community. In this conversation, Lefkowitz discusses some of the most memorable moments from his long career in public service and brings his wealth of experience and knowledge to bear on some of the most important issues facing the Jewish people today.
This conversation was originally recorded as part of the Tikvah Summer Fellowship Callings and Careers seminar series.
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 well as Ich Grolle Nicht, by Ron Meixsell and Wahneta Meixsell.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Welcome to the Tikva podcast and great Jewish essays and ideas. |
| 0:11.0 | I'm your host, Jonathan Silver. |
| 0:13.0 | If you like listening to our podcast, I invite you to subscribe on iTunes or Stitcher, and I hope |
| 0:18.0 | you leave us a rating and a review. |
| 0:20.0 | If you want to learn more about our work at Tikva, can visit our website, tikvafund.org, like us on Facebook or follow us on |
| 0:26.6 | Twitter. This week, we're going to take a break from the regular format of our podcast. Instead |
| 0:31.6 | of exploring an enduring Jewish essay or probing the meaning of a challenging Jewish idea, |
| 0:36.6 | we're going to take some time to learn about a |
| 0:38.2 | remarkable Jewish life. Jay Lefkowitz has long combined his deep love of the Jewish people |
| 0:43.3 | with a career in service to the United States. He served in the administration of President George |
| 0:48.9 | H. W. Bush was deputy assistant to President George W. Bush for domestic policy, and from 2005 to 2009 was |
| 0:56.5 | America's special envoy on human rights in North Korea. This past summer, Tickfah's executive |
| 1:01.7 | director, Eric Cohen, sat down with Mr. Lefkowitz for a conversation about his distinguished career, |
| 1:07.7 | the past and future of Jewish politics in America, and his thoughts on the most pressing |
| 1:11.7 | challenges facing the Jewish people today. This conversation was recorded live at one of Tikva's |
| 1:16.8 | student programs in New York City. Jay, it's great to have you here. Eric, thank you very much. |
| 1:22.7 | So I thought we would start with the whole question of Israel and American politics. And I'll start |
| 1:28.6 | with a provocative question, which is, do you think the Democratic left is becoming the anti-Israel |
| 1:34.1 | party and the Republican right is becoming the pro-Israel party and that this is the new face |
| 1:39.5 | and new structure of the Israel question? So I don't know that it's quite that black and white, |
| 1:45.9 | but the relationship between America to Israel and American Jews to the American |
| 1:53.4 | Israel relationship has clearly changed significantly. |
... |
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