Walzer, Kristol discuss Jewish political trends

But the two speakers — William Kristol, the founder of the political magazine The Weekly Standard and a columnist for The New York Times, and Michael Walzer, a political philosopher and a professor emeritus at the Institute for Advanced Study — did share their views on Jewish political thought, with Walzer approaching the subject from a historical perspective and Kristol tackling Jewish Americans’ foreign policy concerns.

“The near left is where Jews should put themselves, [it] is where they belong,” Walzer said, noting that Jews have historically aligned with the political left as a result of having experienced hostility and persecution.

“Self-knowledge as well as self-interest led us to defend … civil rights and religious toleration,” Walzer said, adding that the Jews are “probably the strongest supporters of a liberal, open society.”

He noted that 78 percent of the Jewish community voted for President-elect Barack Obama.

Walzer cited the history of Jewish immigration to America to explain Jewish support for the welfare state in spite of their material interests.

In 1652, Jews migrated from Brazil to New Amsterdam — as New York was known before British rule — where they promised the colonial governor that they would care for their own poor, he said. Jews kept this promise, Walzer added, until the Great Depression, when a rapidly expanding Jewish population coupled with a struggling economy drastically changed the relationship between Jews and the government.

The government, controlled by President Franklin Roosevelt and New Deal Democrats, intervened to provide the necessary assistance, leading Jews to become “responsible and rightful supporters of welfare state,” Walzer explained.

As Jews look to the future and decide where to throw their political support, Kristol offered three pieces of advice.

First, he urged Jews to think as individuals, adding that he does not see a consensus ideology within the Jewish community.

In the 1970s, Nixon’s strong support for Israel caused a “big move [of the Jewish population] towards the Republican Party,” Kristol explained. This support for the GOP, however, tapered off in the 1980s, he said, in part as a result of increased support for the security of the Israeli state.

He noted, however, that this trend may change in the near future. “This is the first time in a while that a genuine … threat is looming,” Kristol said. “With Iran looming, I suppose it would be interesting to see if that reunites the sense of the 1970s.”

While he admitted that the Democrats’ and Republicans’ current policies toward Israel — both of which focus on the two-state solution — are virtually indistinguishable, Kristol asked audience members whom they would trust more in a crisis.

Get the best of the ‘Prince’ delivered straight to your inbox. Subscribe now »

“You want someone who will make some tough decisions,” he said. “At the end of the day, Israel was better off with [President Richard] Nixon in 1973 and [President] Bush in 2002.”

Walzer countered this position, speculating that neither former president Bill Clinton nor Obama would have supported a withdrawal from Gaza, which he said “turned out to be a disaster.”

Kristol also attributed the declining Jewish support for the GOP to the rise of the Christian right, noting a sense of distaste within the Jewish community for the movement.

From this, Kristol offered his third piece of advice: “Be friendly with the Christians.”

“Go to Alaska and meet some Christians,” he said, to great audience laughter. “Mentioning or even alluding to [Gov.] Sarah Palin [R-Alaska] gets such a fantastic reaction from a Jewish audience,” Kristol noted in jest.

The lecture, held Monday night in Dodds Auditorium, was sponsored by the Tikvah Project on Jewish Thought, a grant to support events related to Jewish thought and the humanities as well as new courses and fellowships.