in her apartment. She was a genius at teasing Wisse: I want to read from a lecture that out of these files of the back issues of the For- Leo Strauss delivered in 1962 — republished ward items that illuminated the ironies that as an essay called “Why We Remain Jews.” He we’re speaking of. We lost, when she died, the writes, “The Jewish people and their fate are genius that she put into that column of items living witness for the absence of redemption. from back issues of the Forward. What Jews This, one could say, is the meaning of the cho- sometimes attribute to the neoconservatives sen people; the Jews are chosen to prove the today, are ideas not far off from what were absence of redemption.” It’s a chilling but mainstream liberal views of an earlier time. It’s amazingly incisive way of formulating the like what Ronald Reagan said, “I didn’t leave issue. People who want to believe that the the Democratic Party, it left me.” Lucy under- world has been redeemed or is immediately stood that much of the hostility was hostility redemptive, would have to wish the Jews out to Jews and to the Jewish struggle. I think of of existence since the aggression against them that often these days. so clearly contradicts this faith. Jews and the New York Intellectuals Michael Kimmage he relationship between Jews and neo- munism, socialism, radicalism, conservatism, Tconservatism, neither causal nor compre- and his own cherished liberalism. hensive, grows more organic when focused on Finally, the New York intellectual milieu the New York intellectuals, a class of writers encouraged debate about politics that was ori- and critics that came of age in the 1930s and ented toward the public sphere and resistant into maturity after World War II. The New to the esoteric language of academia. Even if York intellectuals lived in a predominantly the New York intellectuals were writing for an Jewish milieu, which can be understood soci- audience of 10,000, they wrote as if they were ologically (their background), intellectually addressing the nation or at least its capital city. (their preoccupation with certain questions), This is hardly a Jewish quality per se, but it re- or aesthetically (their particular style of writ- flects the vibrant assimilation of Jews into the ing or argument). The milieu was inseparable American mainstream, such that they could from politics, beginning with the socialism balance the intellectuality of their heritage of the parent generation, continuing on to the with the civic activism promised as an Ameri- communist flirtations of the 1930s, to the can birthright. Commentary — the premier anti-communist liberalism of the 1950s, the magazine of Jewish intellect that would evolve radicalism of the 1960s, and, as a parallel de- into the neoconservative magazine — showed velopment, the neoconservatism of the 1970s itself as an unconventional American product and beyond. in its blend of big European names (Marx, The Jewish influence on neoconservatism Freud, Proust, Mann) with essays on American was threefold. First, politics was approached as foreign and public policy. an ideology or a system of ideas, as opposed to New York intellectuals who turned neo- the rough calculus of electoral politics in the conservative — Irving Kristol, Gertrude Him- classic American vein. This began as an interest melfarb, Norman Podhoretz, and others — in socialism and communism as well as in fas- did so out of disgust with 1960s radicalism, cism, by virtue of necessity, in Hitler’s case, and which had a pronounced Jewish element. Six- not of sympathy. An ideological rendering of ties radicalism offered a searing critique of politics is ideal for intellectuals, for it makes all American power and culture, spurring the ideas relevant to the political life, leading to the neoconservatives to defend several key insti- Michael Kimmage is an second piece of the puzzle: an intimate combi- tutions: the university, the state and, least tan- assistant professor of nation of politics with culture, especially litera- gibly, the West, of which the State of Israel was history at the Catholic ture. Here the figure of Lionel Trilling is a crucial part. The university was a place of University of America. pivotal, not because Trilling, a literary critic, high culture and democratic exchange; the personally identified with neoconservatism, but American state was a liberal polity worth up- April 2008 Nisan 5768 because he wrote incisively about the cultural holding and, if need be, fighting for; and the To subscribe: 877-568-SHMA and literary underpinnings of ideology — com- West was both a security structure like NATO www.shma.com 9 and a civilization. From the U.S. to West central neoconservative institution like the Berlin, the West was imperiled by Soviet and American Enterprise Institute, could draw Chinese Communism; in the Middle East, Is- upon the movement’s ideas, without it mat- rael was imperiled by the Arab states and by tering that he is not Jewish. Soviet designs on the region. With the Iraq War of 2003, neoconser- By the 1980s, neoconservatives had vatism ceased to be a descriptive term, be- changed; they were no longer based in New coming instead a word with international York and no longer concerned about “making resonance and a great, sometimes dangerous, it,” to borrow the title of Norman Podhoretz’s imprecision of usage. The neoconservatives 1967 autobiography. They had reoriented could be seen as a shadowy presence in the themselves toward Washington, the proper White House, and neoconservatism could be seat of American politics. Despite the promi- a code word for Jews in government, pulling nent Jewish figures who would emerge in the the levers of power and secretly serving Israel movement’s second generation — William by urging President Bush to attack Iraq. Kristol, David Brooks, and Paul Wolfowitz — Though the importance of non-Jews like Dick the Jewish element would diminish over time. Cheney in arguing for war should prevent any Catholic neoconservatives like John Neuhaus easy linkage of Jews, neoconservatism, and the and George Weigel were not less neoconserv- Iraq War, the power of conspiratorial thinking ative than their Jewish counterparts, and Jew- is very strong. This makes it all the more im- ish neoconservatives like David Brooks were portant to clarify the true relationship be- “Jewish” primarily by way of their attachment tween Jews and neoconservatism, which lies in to the intellectual legacy of the movement. the complicated and vanishing milieu of the Someone like Dick Cheney, with his ties to a New York intellectuals. Israel and the Iraq War Allan Arkush ountless magazine articles and books pub- did not exist, would any one of them have fa- Clished during the past few years have doc- vored giving Hans Blix’s team still more time, umented the long campaign on the part of a or leaving the whole matter in the hands of the largely Jewish group of neoconservative intel- UN? Are we to believe that the decades-long lectuals and political figures to get the U.S. to neoconservative campaign against Commu- complete the job it left unfinished in 1991 and nism and anti-Americanism was a fantastically topple Saddam Hussein and his regime. The farsighted Rube Goldberg machine pro- authors of no small number of these works grammed to produce some benefit for Israel have contended that these people were acti- somewhere down the line?” vated mainly by a concern for the security Although Muravchik somewhat oversim- of Israel. None of the neoconservatives, for plified matters, he made a valid point. Even their part, deny that Israel’s safety is of great more than their predecessors, today’s Jewish importance to them. But did it override every- neoconservatives share a perspective that ex- thing else in their eyes? Did their preoccupa- tends far beyond the need to protect Israel, tions with Israel cloud their analyses of which is by no means the centerpiece of their American foreign policy? Did they drag the thinking. This emerges quite clearly from all U.S. into a war that was designed to serve an- of their post-Cold War programmatic writings other nation’s interests more than those of on foreign policy, which have been focused their own country? mainly on outlining the multifarious ways in Writing in Commentary in September 2003, which the U.S ought to dominate world affairs neoconservative Joshua Muravchik responded benevolently during what one of them, Allan Arkush is a profes- to such questions with some questions of his Charles Krauthammer, memorably character- sor of Judaic studies at own. Richard Perle, Elliott Abrams, and Paul ized as a “unipolar moment.” Binghamton University. Wolfowitz, he noted, “as well as the rest of the Conspiracy-mongers have no difficulty in neocon circle, are and were hardliners toward dismissing such writings as mere instruments April 2008 Nisan 5768 the USSR, China, Nicaragua, and North Korea. for the perpetration of a nefarious Zionist To subscribe: 877-568-SHMA Is it any wonder that they held a similar posi- plot. Other observers may conclude that www.shma.com tion toward Saddam Hussein’s Iraq? If Israel where there are so many accusations of the 10.