Sneak Peek of the (Fixing) America Issue – with Bret Stephens and Rabbi David Wolpe
6/9/202633 min
Tomorrow, June 10, SAPIR launches its latest issue, on (Fixing) America. An exciting set of contributors including political scientist Yascha Mounk, former deputy national security adviser Anne Neuberger, Brandeis historian Jonathan Sarna, and many others explore this era in American Jewish life, on the eve of the nation's Semiquincentennial.
Is America in decline? Can America become a resilient country like Israel? What does it mean to be living through the end of the postwar era? In the latest episode of SAPIR Conversations, Editor-in-Chief Bret Stephens joins Rabbi David Wolpe to preview the upcoming issue.
Read SAPIR: sapirjournal.org
Music from #Uppbeat: https://uppbeat.io/t/theo-gerard/monsieur-groove
Clips
Transcript preview
First 90 secondsBret Stephens· Guest0:00
[upbeat music] Resilience isn't simply a matter of strength. It's a matter of purpose. You will find strength if you feel you have purpose.
David Wolpe· Host0:09
[upbeat music] America does in fact succeed better when it believes in itself. [upbeat music] Welcome back to Sapir Conversations, where we explore the best ideas for a thriving Jewish future. I'm your host, Rabbi David Wolpe. With just a few weeks to go until America's 250th birthday, known to some as the semi-quincentennial, we're turning to a new issue of Sapir entitled Fixing America. As is our custom, I'm joined by editor-in-chief Brett Stevens to preview this latest volume. [laughs] So Brett, before we get started, what do you think of the word semi-quincentennial?
Bret Stephens· Guest0:47
I think it's a very long word.
David Wolpe· Host0:49
Have a better one for our 250th birthday?
Bret Stephens· Guest0:51
Yes, I think 250th birthday does the job. Um, I guess quincentennial would be 500. Semi, half of 500, so that's 250. I, I got that far. But that's a lot of math in our math-challenged age, so I think 250th gets it across.
David Wolpe· Host1:09
So our redoubtable producer, Chanan Weissman, wanted me to ask a very rabbinic, and persnickety, and pilpulistic question, which is, for 21 issues, the themes have all been nouns. Education, Zionism, chosenness, activism.