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Jul 19, 2026, 4:50 PM

A Celebration With a Vision: Old Masters in New York

OLD MASTERS, NEW AMSTERDAM Exhibition Review at The New York Historical Engaging concept and vision Celebrations of the 250th anniversary of the USA have been carried on widely and at many levels this year, with a varying degree of success, interest...

Jul 18, 2026, 5:48 PM

The Iran war is not Suez, but America needs to make the right choice

Dear readers, The article that you will read below has had an interesting gestation, which in itself throws an intriguing light on the intensifying crisis of the present, and is therefore worth briefly recounting here. On 27 June, I read...

Jul 16, 2026, 12:39 PM

Leadership Means Letting Go

By John Trumbull - Yale University Art Gallery 1832.8, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=14619530

In May 1782, as the American Revolution ebbed, Colonel Lewis Nicola sent General George Washington what has become known as the "Newburgh Letter." The colonies had won their independence, but the future of the new nation was far from...

Jul 14, 2026, 3:33 PM

Democracy in Decline

For most of my fourscore years, I took democracy for granted. Looking back now, I realize that was a naïve and narrow tendency to look at reality through the lens of my own limited life experience. I should have...

Eric M. Leiderman

Jul 13, 2026, 5:02 AM

Did America Prove Herzl Wrong?

Theodor Herzl never witnessed the rise of American Jewry. This illustration imagines Herzl overlooking New York as the United States emerged as the most successful Diaspora community in Jewish history. (AI-generated illustration created with ChatGPT/OpenAI. Not a historical photograph.)

Theodor Herzl remains one of the defining Jewish thinkers of the modern era because he recognized a truth that many of his contemporaries preferred not to see. Writing amid the rise of European nationalism and in the shadow of...

Jul 12, 2026, 10:29 PM

‘Philadelphia Freedom, shine on me…’

As I walked through the small park beside Independence Hall in Philadelphia, in the final days before the city marked America’s 250th anniversary, one melody felt impossible to escape: Elton John’s Philadelphia Freedom. The song was constantly playing in my mind....

Jul 7, 2026, 1:15 PM

A Country Is Not Loved by Pretending It Is Simple

Yesterday there were two flags hanging outside my parents’ house in Israel: the American flag and the Israeli flag. It was the Fourth of July, which is already a strange and beautiful thing to celebrate from here, and somehow...

Jul 7, 2026, 3:09 AM

To Heal a Country, We Need More Than Tolerance

One of the beautiful things about walking around the streets of America with my beard, kippah, and tzitzit visibly showing is that people know who I am - a proud Jew. Sometimes, without any introduction, they come over and...

Jul 6, 2026, 1:22 PM

Good Ideas Are Worth Fighting For

Most nations begin with power. Throughout history, kings, warlords, dynasties, and autocratic regimes have built nations by seizing thrones, consolidating control, claiming territory, conquering land, and calling it a country. Nations measured themselves by the whims of kings, the ambitions...

Eric M. Leiderman

Jul 6, 2026, 3:02 AM

America, the Other Jewish Homeland

Touro Synagogue in Newport, Rhode Island, America's oldest synagogue. Photo by Kenneth C. Zirkel, via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0). President George Washington's 1790 letter to the Hebrew Congregation of Newport. Image courtesy of the U.S. National Archives (public domain).

As Americans celebrate Independence Day this weekend, millions of people will gather for barbecues, parades, fireworks, and backyard parties. In Chicago, where I live, many of those celebrations will include a local tradition: the Chicago-style hot dog. It is...

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