As the 2024 elections loom, America has rarely felt as divided over politics and policies as it does today. So too the Jewish community.

• Are the interests of American Jewry, of world Jewry, and of Israel better served by conservative or liberal policies, and which party will better serve those interests if elected?
• What insights do Jewish law, Jewish history, and Jewish values bring to our contemporary political debates?
• In the wake of Oct. 7th, can we model Jewish unity and American political unity on Israel’s security and the special relationship between Israel and the U.S., at a time of growing ideological and generational divides inAmerica and in our communities?

Dr. Tevi Troy and Rabbi David Saperstein are travelling across the country to debate these vital issues and model how even political protagonists with sharply differing political, religious, and ideological views can engage in respectfully and constructively – and occasionally find common ground.

On issues like abortion, antisemitism, church-state relations, civil rights, climate change, economic freedom and growth, foreign policy, immigration policy, and/or religious freedom — what are the merits of their liberal v. conservative views? So too with urgent, complex issues such as whether the fight against antisemitism should stress the distinctive aspects of hate against Jews or its intersectional relation with other forms of hate; or how to assess the current crises in Israel and their impact on U.S. Jewry and American politics; or how to balance the tensions in our country between religious freedom claims and civil rights claims; or what to think of the significant changes wrought in recent years by the Supreme Court.

At such a time as this, is bipartisan/cross-ideological comity, compromise, and common ground possible? And what is the path to cooperation and tolerance, both in America and within the Jewish community?

About the Speakers

Dr. Tevi Troy
Best-selling presidential historian; former senior White House aide and Deputy Secretary of HHS; and former Liaison to the Jewish Community in the Bush Administration.

 

 

Rabbi David Saperstein
Former Director of the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism; past President of the World Union for Progressive Judaism; and former U.S. Ambassador for International Religious Freedom in the Obama Administration.

 

 

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