Welcome to the Tikva podcast and great Jewish essays and ideas. I'm your host, Jonathan Silver.

This week I'm excited to announce the launch of a new podcast and the refocusing of this one.

Over the last year or so, the Tikva podcast has grown. We've enjoyed

an incredible range of conversations on everything from the Ten Commandments to America's

addiction crisis, from Israeli security and foreign policy to religious liberty in the United

States. We've discussed anti-Semitism and Israeli literature, the philosophy of Leo Strauss, and the

statesmanship of Zev Jabotinsky. I hope you've enjoyed these weekly conversations as much as we've

enjoyed hosting and producing them. And we've gotten some nice feedback from friends and alumni

of Tikva's educational programs, and through the podcast, we've gotten to meet some new people, too.

We've tried to think hard about the comments and emails that we've received from so many of you. And so today,

I'm proud to announce the launch of a second podcast. They will compliment what you've come to

enjoy from this one. Kikar, Conversations in the Jewish Public Square, is brought to you by the Jewish

Leadership Conference,

a new institution to provoke discussion about conservative ideas and the Jewish tradition.

Kikar is designed to take up Jewish debates in the arena of public affairs.

We'll talk about public policy, Israeli security and Israeli society, about the vitality and

prospects of the American Jewish community,

and will do so with a view towards Jewish politics.

The Tikva podcast will continue and will refocus on its original purpose,

which is to highlight the very best essays, stories, poems, and books,

that together make up the canon of Jewish ideas that speak to the enduring questions of the human

condition, war and peace, love and death, justice and redemption, the holy and the profane,

...