Articles & Commentary

A review of Sarah Isgur’s Last Branch Standing, which casts the Supreme Court as the one branch still functioning as designed. Weighs her emphasis on process and legitimacy against a public that judges the Court by its results.

A personal essay by Jay Lefkowitz on reciting the mourner’s kaddish daily for his father while doubting the God the prayer addresses, and on the meaning found in the ritual and the community that gathers for it.

A review of David Lowe’s biography of Morris Abram, the civil rights lawyer who won the one man, one vote case and advised presidents of both parties, and whose commitment to colour-blind civil rights outlasted his shift from left to right.

Written during the confirmation hearings, drawing on their time together in the Bush White House. Describes Kavanaugh’s personal decency and his record of supporting religious freedom.

A review of Dennis Ross’s Doomed to Succeed, a history of the US-Israel relationship from Truman to Obama, and its argument that presidents who distanced themselves from Israel to court Arab states gained little in return.

Argues that two decades of US policy, from the Agreed Framework to “strategic patience,” failed as Pyongyang broke each agreement while its weapons programme advanced. Calls for tougher sanctions enforcement and linking human rights to security talks.

Examines how Delaware courts assess director independence compared with the bright-line NYSE and Nasdaq standards, and advises boards to evaluate independence under both frameworks.

Argues that relying on drone strikes rather than capturing terrorism suspects forfeits the intelligence that detention and interrogation can yield, and that the US still needs a workable long-term detention policy.

Contends that security-only negotiations have produced a cycle of provocation and reward without stopping North Korea’s nuclear programme. Proposes tying aid to verifiable progress on both security and human rights, on the model of the Helsinki Accords.

Responds to the federal injunction halting funding for embryonic stem cell research, arguing that the ruling swept far wider than the Dickey-Wicker amendment required and unsettled a compromise that had held for a decade.

A review of David Gelernter’s attempt to convey Judaism through recurring images and the texture of observance rather than systematic theology, and how well that approach serves readers outside observant life.

A first-hand account from inside the Bush White House of how the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief came together, and the deliberations behind committing billions to fighting AIDS in Africa.

Examines Ms. magazine’s refusal to run an advertisement featuring three senior Israeli women officials, weighs the magazine’s shifting explanations, and argues the rejection reflected a reluctance on parts of the left to allow any favourable portrayal of Israel.

Considers a congressional push to overturn the Bush limits on embryonic stem cell funding, and argues that new findings from Harvard and Wake Forest scientists supported the existing policy and could move the issue out of partisan contention.

Analyzes American Jewish voting in the 2004 election, noting that Jews have backed the Democratic nominee in every contest since 1916 and that a modest gain for George W. Bush did little to change long-standing habits.

Argues that the FCC’s plan to hand Nextel valuable wireless spectrum in exchange for interference-remediation spending bypassed the auction process required by law, shortchanged the Treasury, and warranted congressional scrutiny.

Reports on the OSCE’s Berlin conference on anti-Semitism, argues that contemporary European anti-Semitism is largely rooted in hostility to Israel, and proposes a test based on whether Jews or Israel are held to a different standard than others.

Responds to a federal appeals court ruling striking down the FCC’s network-sharing rules, arguing that forced unbundling under the 1996 Telecommunications Act discouraged investment and that new rules should encourage carriers to build their own infrastructure.

Discusses the September 11 Victim Compensation Fund as its filing deadline approached: its purpose of delivering prompt payments to families while shielding the airlines from protracted litigation, and its likely influence on future compensation schemes.

Discusses the September 11 Victim Compensation Fund as its filing deadline approached: its purpose of delivering prompt payments to families while shielding the airlines from protracted litigation, and its likely influence on future compensation schemes.

A review of Samuel G. Freedman’s account of deepening divisions among American Jews, told through case studies of conflicts between Orthodox and non-Orthodox communities.

A review of Benjamin Ginsberg’s The Fatal Embrace, a study of the recurring alliance between Jews and state power and the backlash it has tended to produce when the regimes they served lost legitimacy.

Examines the 1992 election, in which Bill Clinton won an unusually large share of the Jewish vote, and asks why a two-decade drift of Jewish voters away from the Democratic Party appeared to reverse so sharply.

Written during Israel’s 2023 dispute over judicial reform, the essay revisits the drafting of Israel’s Declaration of Independence and David Ben-Gurion’s role in shaping it, drawing a comparison with Jefferson and the American founding.

Examines exit-poll data and finds only a modest shift towards Trump, driven mainly by Haredi and Modern Orthodox voters. Argues that Israel has become a partisan issue and that this threatens long-term US support.

A review of Gil Troy’s The Zionist Ideas, an updated edition of Arthur Hertzberg’s 1959 anthology, tracing how the Zionist debate has changed since Israel’s founding.

Argues that the incoming administration should move beyond the stalled denuclearisation-first approach to a broader strategy combining economic pressure, pressure on China, and human rights conditions in any negotiation with Pyongyang.

A contribution to Commentary’s symposium asking what the American Jewish community will look like in fifty years.

Describes a segment of Modern Orthodox Jews who keep halacha and engage fully in communal life without firm belief in God or revelation, and argues that behaviour and belonging can sustain observance where belief is uncertain.

Written during the spring 2013 missile and nuclear threats, it argues that treating the regime’s rhetoric as bluster and seeking talks on Pyongyang’s terms repeats earlier mistakes.

A contribution to Commentary’s symposium on how the conservative movement should respond to the 2012 election result.

Examines whether the extended limitations period Congress gave the Federal Housing Finance Agency also overrides the Securities Act’s statute of repose, and what the answer means for billions in mortgage-securities suits.

Argues that the Obama administration, having criticised Bush-era agency pre-emption of state law, invoked federal supremacy itself in suing to block Arizona’s immigration law, and that the two positions are hard to reconcile.

Criticises the 2009 memorandum curbing federal agencies’ ability to pre-empt state health and safety laws, arguing that uniform national standards protect consumers and that the change invites inconsistent state rules and litigation.

Written as outgoing US special envoy, urges the incoming administration to link North Korea’s human rights record to security talks, with aid and trade conditioned on verifiable steps such as freeing political prisoners.

An insider account of how President Bush reached his 2001 decision to fund research only on existing embryonic stem cell lines, and why the compromise was later vindicated by scientific advances.

Examines how North Korea sends tens of thousands of workers abroad, including to Russia and the Czech Republic, and argues their confiscated wages fund the regime rather than improve ordinary citizens’ lives.

Argues that the US tort system is badly broken and that broader use of federal pre-emption, as where FDA approval overrides conflicting state tort claims, offers a workable model for reform.

Discusses the administration’s decision not to seek Supreme Court review of a major telecommunications case, arguing that lifting unbundling rules on wireline and broadband would spur investment.

Remarks on behalf of the US Mission identifying religious, racial and Israel-related strands of anti-Semitism, urging governments to punish violence against Jews, and calling on media, NGOs and clergy to expose double standards.

Argues that the FCC must deliver promised regulatory relief so carriers will invest in new networks, and that fibre, multi-unit housing and telephone-company internet access should be freed from unbundling rules.

A second response to Michael Kinsley on the Bush stem cell policy, disputing his claims about the number of available cell lines and arguing that compromise remains the sound approach to a divisive issue.

Argues that American Jews, reliably Democratic since the New Deal and about two percent of the population, have become increasingly marginal to election outcomes, with both parties taking them for granted.

Reviews Dennis Prager’s collection of short essays on capital punishment, abortion, race and other contested questions, grounded in ethical monotheism; finds it provocative while faulting its neglect of non-monotheistic ethics.

Reviews John Feinstein’s chronicle of the 1992 major league season, which covers the game’s business and labour troubles alongside the on-field action.