There is a Jewish renewal in our lives, and two idiosyncratic instances occurred right here in this city in recent days.
The first was a Sotheby’s auction of the 386-item Judaica collection painstakingly assembled over the years by Michael and Judy Steinhardt, probably the most imaginative Jewish philanthropists of the age. Now, a Read More
I kinda like Caroline Kennedy. Not that she would care if I do or don’t. In any case, I haven’t seen her for a dozen years—and before that only fleetingly. We first met when she was an undergraduate at Harvard in the late ’70s. She was the belle (or maybe not …) of my brilliant Read More
Not all of America’s most eminent public personae are memorialized in public places. But when Pennsylvania Station is finally brought into the contemporary age, Daniel Patrick Moynihan will be, having been so honored in at least two other locations. Pat was still alive but barely out of office when the first of these buildings, the 27-story Moynihan Courthouse at Foley Square (which was named for “Big Tom” Foley, a Tammany Hall pol), was dedicated in his name. (Senior citizens among The Observer’s readers may recall that this is where the Smith Act prosecution of the Communist Party leadership and the trial of Judith Coplon for Soviet espionage took place.)
Moynihan Station will testify to the senator’s fidelity to both the commonplace functionality of public transportation and the grand aspirations of civic architecture. He rescued not only this railroad hub, but also the national capital’s Union Station. Nothing was too slight for this very big man’s attentions, neither the Smithsonian Institution nor this city’s Botanical Gardens nor Cooperstown, where he believably feigned an interest in baseball. Read More
After writing an inflammatory statement on his blog The Spine, Marty Peretz, the editor of The New Republic and former Harvard University professor, has come under fire from a variety of people — including members of the Harvard faculty.
Now, The Harvard Crimson is reporting that Peretz Read More
Marty Peretz has teamed up with former investment banker Larry Grafstein and a small group of other investors in attempt to buy The New Republic, said a person familiar with the discussions.
Mr. Peretz, the former owner of TNR and its current editor in chief, sold his stake in 2007 to CanWest, the troubled Canadian Read More
“Yeah, it’s a bummer, but it’s hard to shed any tears over Frank,” Elspeth Reeve was telling The Observer in a phone interview Friday, the day before her husband, U.S. Army Pvt. Scott Thomas Beauchamp, joined her at her mother’s house in Missouri for his 30-day leave.
Earlier that week, Ms. Reeve’s former boss, Read More
Just days after purchasing the shares from money men Roger Hertog and Michael Steinhardt, Canadian media giant Can West has completely bought out the New Republic.
The Observer first reported in Dec. 2006 (2nd item) that CanWest was taking a majority stake in the company. That was confirmed on Feb 23. Instead Read More
I can’t stop talking about the wonderful-horrible AJC report, it’s so changed the landscape. Again I say, give credit where credit is due: this was the AJC’s reactionary pushback against Carter and Walt and Mearsheimer, and it blew up on the Jewish right/mainstream when the Times actually chose to write about it. Thus the anti-intellectual, Read More
A few weeks back I brought up the charge of dual loyalty with respect to the neocons who claim that Israel’s interests and the U.S.’s interests are identical. A very sensitive question, yes, and a lot of people got upset with me, including friends.
Well now in The New Republic, John Judis Read More
Benjamin Ginsberg, a political scientist at Johns Hopkins, was influenced by Hannah Arendt to consider the relationship of Jews to the state, and in 1993 he published a book on the subject, The Fatal Embrace: Jews and the State. Marty Peretz blurbed the book, calling it “wise and provocative,” and saying that its Read More
