The Tikvah Fund

08/21/2026

On Ask Haviv Anything, Tikvah Distinguished Senior Fellow Ruth Wisse reflects on 1948—arguing that Israel's founding, just three years after the Holocaust, stands as one of the most hopeful moments in modern civilization. A nation reborn from the ashes of a continent that had destroyed itself. Watch the full conversation here: youtube.com/watch?v=UXKAjjFMGow&t=826

08/19/2026

What can great works of art teach us about Western civilization—and how can we bring those lessons into Jewish day school classrooms?

Last week, Tikvah brought together English, history, and Tanakh educators for a day exploring the ideas, traditions, and artistic achievements that have shaped the West.

Led by Rabbi Dr. Mitchell Rocklin, educators toured the Metropolitan Museum of Art, explored the historic sanctuary at Congregation Kehilath Jeshurun, and concluded with a seminar on bringing these ideas back into the classroom.

The program is part of Tikvah's work to strengthen Jewish day school education—helping teachers deepen their students' understanding of Jewish and Western civilization and giving them the tools to engage thoughtfully with both.

Interested in joining future programs for educators? Contact [email protected].

08/19/2026

Ruth Wisse foresaw many of today's debates decades before they entered the mainstream, and her work has only become more relevant in the years since October 7.

Tal Fortgang's review of the new edition of The Liberal Betrayal of the Jews, in The Free Beacon, traces this arc—showing how Wisse's work has shaped generations of students, including many here at Tikvah, and remains essential reading for anyone trying to understand the political ideas behind contemporary anti-Semitism.

Read the review: https://freebeacon.com/culture/ruth-was-right/
Earlier this summer, Professor Wisse joined Bret Stephens at Tikvah to discuss these same themes.

Here's a moment from that conversation that speaks directly to the issues Tal raises: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_8bfMZHivng

To encounter Ruth Wisse is to learn from her, and I was blessed to be her student for the first time a decade ago. She, an eminent scholar of literature at Harvard, spent a weekend with us, a group of Jewish students in the Tikvah Fund’s then-nascent Collegiate Summer Honors program, doing what co...

08/19/2026

No other hatred bends to fit every ideology the way anti-Semitism does—capitalist and Communist, nationalist and globalist, all at once. That shape-shifting quality makes it the weapon of choice for foreign regimes waging an information war on the American mind. Link in the comments.

08/19/2026

On Ask Haviv Anything, Tikvah Distinguished Senior Fellow Ruth Wisse breaks down the 'politics of the pointing finger'—how 19th-century Germany turned unemployment, cultural anxiety, and social unrest into a single, convenient target: the Jews. A pattern that reveals anti-Semitism as calculated politics, not spontaneous prejudice. Watch the full conversation: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UXKAjjFMGow

08/19/2026

As America turns 250, Abe Greenwald warns that the country is being tested on multiple fronts—from political extremism at home to Iran holding the Strait of Hormuz hostage to an information war for the hearts and minds of young Americans.

In "The 250th Test," Abe points to Eliana Aiken's Mosaic essay on information warfare: "Generation Z spends an average of five hours a day on social media, nearly a full workday."

His conclusion: "Gen Z is being babysat by our adversaries."

Read Abe: https://links.commentary.org/index.php?action=social&chash=84b20b1f5a0d103f5710bb67a043cd78.10978&nosocial=1

And read Eliana's Mosaic essay on the information war shaping Gen Z: https://ideas.tikvah.org/mosaic/essays/anti-semitism-as-information-warfare

How Russia, Iran, and China learned to turn Americans against the Jews, and use the Jews to turn Americans against one another.

08/17/2026

Tikvah Scholars alumnus Leo Lewis has a warning for anyone trying to understand anti-Semitism among Gen Z: it's worse than most adults realize.

Writing in The Free Press, Leo describes what he sees among his own peers: from Holocaust jokes and conspiracy theories to a new right-wing anti-Semitism spreading through memes, influencers, and everyday conversation.

But his argument doesn't end with the diagnosis. Leo argues that anti-Semitism flourishes amid a deeper crisis of loneliness, civic decay, and loss of confidence in America—and that the answer isn't simply better arguments against anti-Semitism. It's stronger Jewish communities, stronger American institutions, and a renewed confidence in the civilization worth defending.

Read Leo's essay: https://www.thefp.com/p/gen-z-rising-antisemitism

And read Tikvah CEO Eric Cohen's "The Exodus Project," which Leo points to as part of that answer: https://ideas.tikvah.org/mosaic/essays/the-exodus-project-a-jewish-answer-to-the-university-crisis

I’m a high school student. The Jew-hatred I see spreading through young Americans is worse than you think, writes Leo Lewis.

08/17/2026

The anti-Zionist propaganda flooding American feeds today isn't new—it's Soviet-era disinformation, recycled from the Cold War and re-released for the social-media age. Eliana Aiken traces how the Kremlin's decades-old playbook is employed on the platforms young Americans use every day. Link in the comments.

08/14/2026

Why is anti-Semitism such an effective political strategy, generation after generation?

On the latest Ask Haviv Anything, Haviv Rettig Gur sits down with Tikvah Distinguished Senior Fellow Ruth Wisse to trace the "politics of the pointing finger"—from 19th-century Europe to today's campus coalitions and the rising voices on both the progressive left and populist right who find Jews an easy target.

And Wisse makes the case for a very different response: Jewish self-confidence.

Watch: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UXKAjjFMGow

For those who want to go deeper, Wisse explores these questions in Tikvah's four-part series, The Liberal Betrayal of the Jews: https://lp.tikvah.org/liberal-betrayal-of-the-jews

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08/14/2026

Anti-Semitism is ultimately a theory that promises to explain a person's failures and misfortunes by pointing to a hidden hand behind them. Eliana Aiken shows why that combination has made Jew-hatred the propaganda tool of choice for the regimes in Moscow, Tehran, and Beijing. Link in the comments.