Welcome to the Tikva podcast on great Jewish essays and ideas. I'm your host, Eric Kope.

It's a great pleasure to be joined today by Yuram Hazzoni, an important Israeli thinker and intellectual,

the founder of the Herzl Institute, former president of the Shalem Center, and a prolific writer and thinker and intellectual, the founder of the Herzl Institute, former president of Shalem

Center, and a prolific writer and thinker on a wide range of subjects, including the philosophy

of the Hebrew scriptures, an important commentary he wrote on the book of Esther, books on Zionism

and the founding and spirit and purpose of the Jewish state. He's really someone who's written

widely on many,

many things. Yoram, great to have you. Thank you for having me. So our focus today is an important

essay you've just published in Mosaic on nationalism, on the state of Western civilization, on

the future of Western freedom. And I thought we'd begin where you begin, which is this dramatic and important vote in Britain

to leave the European Union, which you describe

as a political event of massive proportions.

So what happened?

What's at stake in this vote?

And how does it invite us to think more deeply

about the meaning of nationalist?

Well, we're not used to thinking about, you know, votes in Europe, having kind of some

kind of earth-shaking importance.

And I thought it was surprising the extent to which Americans, I'd say just in general,

international media up until the moment

of the Brexit vote itself, British independence, it was almost silent.

I mean, really very, very little of substance was said.

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