Water on the Fires of Political Correctness: A Conversation with George Weigel and Yoram Hazony
Israel Seen – Modernity, Religion and Morality
A Conversation with George Weigel and Yoram Hazony
h/t Mosaic Magazine
During last month’s Advanced Institute in Jerusalem, “God, Politics, and the Future of Europe,” Tikvah hosted a conversation on “Modernity, Religion and Morality” to discuss the decline of Western Civilization and to probe some of the reasons behind it. What happens when faith in the God of the Bible deteriorates? How does that affect faith in reason and are the values of liberalism enough to sustain a society?
The panel featured prominent intellectuals, George Weigel, Distinguished Senior Fellow and William E. Simon Chair in Catholic Studies at the Ethics and Public Policy Center, and Yoram Hazony, President of the Herzl Institute. The evening’s discussion was moderated by Daniel Johnson, founder and editor of Standpoint Magazine.
Israel Seen – Modernity, Religion and Morality
Israel Seen – Modernity, Religion and Morality
Yoram Hazony
I am President of the Herzl Institute, a research and educational hub established in Jerusalem in 2013. I’m also Director of the John Templeton Foundation‘s project in Jewish Philosophical Theology, and a member of the Israel Council for Higher Education’s commission reviewing the General Studies and Liberal Arts programs in all of Israel’s universities and colleges.
I research and write in the fields of philosophy and theology, political theory and intellectual history. My next book, God and Politics in Esther (Cambridge University Press, 2016), is scheduled to be published on February 1. Previous books include The Philosophy of Hebrew Scripture (Cambridge University Press, 2012), which was awarded the second place PROSE award for the best book in the category of Theology and Religion by the Association of American Publishers; and The Jewish State: The Struggle for Israel’s Soul (Basic Books, 2000). Two more books in the works are Newton and Hume: On Science, the Mind, and the Nature of Reality; and An Essay on God (Cambridge University Press, 2017).
In addition, my articles and essays have appeared in publications such as The Wall St. Journal, The New York Times, Commentary and The New Republic, among others. I also write a series of dispatches on philosophy, Judaism, Israel and higher education called Jerusalem Letters. I received the American Jewish Press Association’s Simon Rockower Prize in the category of Art Criticism for my essay on the Coen brothers’ A Serious Man (“Hollywood’s Jewish Moment,” March 2010).
Previously, I founded and headed the Shalem Center, a Jerusalem research institute that conducted nearly two decades of pioneering work in the fields of philosophy, political theory, Bible, Talmud, Jewish and Zionist history, Middle East Studies and archaeology beginning in 1994. The Center’s publishing arm, Shalem Press, became Israel’s leading publisher of works of Western philosophy translated into Hebrew, and also published Azure magazine. In 2013, Shalem received accreditation to begin granting Israel’s first Liberal Arts B.A., and formally became Shalem College. I served as President of Shalem from 1994-2002, and as Provost (academic head) from 2005-2012. You can read a journalistic write-up about my work at Shalem here.
I was born in Rehovot, Israel, in 1964. I graduated from Princeton University with a B.A. in East Asian Studies in 1986, and completed my Ph.D. at Rutgers University in Political Theory in 1993. I live in Jerusalem with my wife Yael Hazony. We have nine children.
Israel Seen – Modernity, Religion and Morality
George Weigel, Distinguished Senior Fellow of the Ethics and Public Policy Center, is a Catholic theologian and one of America’s leading public intellectuals.
Professional Experience
A native of Baltimore, he was educated at St. Mary’s Seminary College in his native city, and at the University of St. Michael’s College in Toronto. In 1975, Weigel moved to Seattle where he was Assistant Professor of Theology and Assistant (later Acting) Dean of Studies at the St. Thomas Seminary School of Theology in Kenmore. In 1977, Weigel became Scholar-in-Residence at the World Without War Council of Greater Seattle, a position he held until 1984. In 1984-85 Weigel was a fellow of the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in Washington, D.C. There, he wrote Tranquillitas Ordinis: The Present Failure and Future Promise of American Catholic Thought on War and Peace (Oxford University Press, 1987).
Weigel is the author or editor of nineteen other books, including The Final Revolution: The Resistance Church and the Collapse of Communism (Oxford, 1992); The Truth of Catholicism: Ten Controversies Explored (HarperCollins, 2001); The Courage To Be Catholic: Crisis, Reform, and the Future of the Church (Basic Books, 2002); Letters to a Young Catholic (Basic, 2004); The Cube and the Cathedral: Europe, America, and Politics Without God (Basic, 2005); God’s Choice: Pope Benedict XVI and the Future of the Catholic Church (HarperCollins, 2005); Faith, Reason, and the War Against Jihadism (Doubleday, 2007); and Against the Grain: Christianity and Democracy, War and Peace (Crossroad, 2008). Weigel has written essays, op-ed columns, and reviews for the major opinion journals and newspapers in the United States, and is a contributor to Newsweek. A frequent guest on television and radio, he is also Vatican analyst for NBC News. His weekly column, “The Catholic Difference,” is syndicated to sixty newspapers around the United States. His scholarly work and his journalism are regularly translated into the major European languages.
From 1989 through June 1996, Weigel was president of the Ethics and Public Policy Center, where he led a wide-ranging, ecumenical and inter-religious program of research and publication on foreign and domestic policy issues. From June 1996, as a Senior Fellow of the Center, Weigel prepared a major study of the life, thought, and action of Pope John Paul II. Witness to Hope: The Biography of Pope John Paul II was published to international acclaim in the Fall of 1999, in English, French, Italian, and Spanish editions. Polish, Portuguese, Slovak, Czech, and Slovenian editions were published in 2000. A Russian edition was published in 2001, and a German edition in 2002; Chinese and Romanian editions are in preparation. A documentary film based on the book was released in the fall of 2001 and has won numerous prizes.
Weigel has been awarded ten honorary doctorates, the papal cross Pro Ecclesia et Pontifice, and the Gloria Artis Gold Medal by the Republic of Poland. He serves on the boards of directors of several organizations dedicated to human rights and the cause of religious freedom and is a member of the editorial board of First Things.
George Weigel and his wife, Joan, have three children and one grandchild, and live in North Bethesda, Maryland.
Education
B.A., St. Mary’s Seminary and University, Baltimore
M.A., University of St. Michael’s College, Toronto
- Full Bio, from the Ethics & Public Policy Center.
- George Weigel’s Syndicated Column “The Catholic Difference”
- Israel Seen – Modernity, Religion and Morality
