https://jewishjournal.com/analysis/306066/three-jews-two-links-one-lesson/
On Nov. 10, Norman Podhoretz, the legendary editor of Commentary magazine, will receive the Herzl Prize from philanthropic and educational institution Tikvah. It is the latest in a long line of honors for Podhoretz, including the Presidential Medal of Freedom President George W. Bush awarded him in 2004. Now age 89, Podhoretz is the author of a dozen path-breaking books and countless essays on politics, literature, culture and religion.
Bush said: “Podhoretz ranks among the most prominent American editors of the 20th century. … Never a man to tailor his opinions to please others, [he] has always written and spoken with directness and honesty. Sometimes speaking the truth has carried a cost. Yet, over the years, he has only gained in stature among his fellow writers and thinkers. …[We] pay tribute to this fierce intellectual man and his fine writing and his great love for our country.”
Podhoretz takes his place among the Jews who, over the past century, have contributed immeasurably to both Zionism and Americanism, including Supreme Court Justice Louis D. Brandeis during World War I and renowned writer Ben Hecht during World War II.
When we examine their three lives together, we see they have two fascinating links, which provide a single, important lesson for our time.
Brandeis was the first Jewish justice, whom Woodrow Wilson nominated in 1916. It was a controversial nomination because for the first time in its history, the Senate held hearings on a nominee, which lasted four months. Brandeis was confirmed only after a contentious process involving 43 witnesses. He served 23 years.
He was born in Kentucky in 1856 to Jewish immigrants from Prague, who gave him no Jewish education. He never attended services, never observed Jewish holidays, and never made significant contributions to Jewish organizations before he turned 57. Then, in 1914, he agreed to head the American Zionist movement.
“Brandeis invigorated the American Zionist movement by articulating the connection between Zionism and American ideals.”
It was a time when most American Jews considered Zionism an unrealistic, possibly unpatriotic, European ideology. Out of 1.5 million Jews in the United States at the time, only 15,000 were members of the Zionist Organization of America (ZOA). As Tikvah senior director Jonathan Silver has written, Americans “saw themselves as having fled oppression, crossed the wilderness, and arrived in a new promised land.” American Jews considered themselves not in exile, but at home in a new place.