The other night at NYU, Tony Judt said, “Fasten your seatbelts it’s going to be a bumpy night,” and then dropping his scarf and jacket on the stage, gave a barnburner about the intellectual’s responsibility. Here are some of his salient points:
1. Television has greatly narrowed the freedom of the intellectual to do his Read More
Last night at NYU, Tony Judt gave a speech about the changing role of intellectuals in democracies in which he brought up the Israel/Palestine question and observed that the American discourse is now opening up to criticisms of Israel.
Eight or ten years ago, the prof used to hit a wall when he brought up Read More
I caught Ali Abunimah, the Palestinian/American activist and author of a new book calling for a single Arab and Jewish state in Palestine, at Columbia the other night. Abunimah made a few interesting points:
1. Having been to Northern Ireland, Abunimah reports that the two sides hate each other “deeply” but live with each Read More
I’m Sorry for the Super Jews
To the Editor:
When I read last week’s Observer, I at first thought it was the April Fools’ Day edition even though it was October [“Judt at War,” Suzy Hansen, Oct. 16]. I could not believe that a Jew, Abe Foxman, was infringing on the right to freedom of Read More
The latest New Republic has an emotional attack on Tony Judt, John Mearsheimer, and Stephen Walt by Leon Wieseltier. Wieseltier says that W-M are antisemites who don’t understand how policy is formulated and Tony Judt is trading in antisemitic legends. He gets very angry. All this stems from the Walt Mearsheimer paper and Judt’s defense Read More
“I’m struck when I observe the Jewish community in the United States, especially in New York,” said Tony Judt last Saturday, Oct. 7, sitting cross-legged in his Washington Square Park apartment, “that it’s a community which is the most successful, the wealthiest, the most well-integrated, the most influential, the most safe Jewish community in the Read More
Rebel Bachelors
So you’re a New Yorker of some years, let’s say, and you get a phone call from the leader of an African rebel army. It’s his first time in the States, and he wants you to show him the town.
I was heading south through Connecticut in mid-September, somewhere near New Haven, when Read More
Today’s New York Sun prints a vicious attack on Tony Judt as a professor who has “become hostile to the Jewish state” in an article about the Polish consulate in N.Y. abruptly cancelling a Judt speech last night under pressure from the Anti-Defamation League. Penned by Ira Stoll (who I believe is credited with Read More
I got home quite late from the Israel lobby debate and am on deadline for print, so I won’t get around to a full report till later, but thought it best to file a few impressions while the world is still making up its mind…
The debate was diffuse. It had few dramatic moments. There Read More
The brilliant ‘n bold Tony Judt has again put it all together. In the latest London Review of Books, he demonstrates how the liberal intelligentsia have provided crucial support and cover for Bush’s misadventures in Iraq and the “war on terror.”
In today’s America, neo-conservatives generate brutish policies for which liberals provide the ethical Read More
