Peter Beinart, an important public intellectual and expert in American politics, American Jewish life and Israel, is delivering Syracuse University’s second B.G. Rudolph Lecture of the academic year. The lecture, which is free and open to the public, will take place Tuesday, Feb. 15, at 7:30 p.m. in Hergenhan Auditorium in Newhouse 3. For more information, call the Judaic Studies Program in SU’s College of Arts and Sciences at (315) 443-5671.
Beinart’s presentation, “The Failure of the American Jewish Establishment,” draws on a much-discussed essay he published last July in the New York Review of Books. He is a widely known editor-at-large of The New Republic (TNR) and nationally syndicated columnist.
“Peter Beinart has done as much as anyone to encourage the American Jewish community to examine the relationship with its own leadership, and with the policies of the Israeli government,” says Harvey Teres, associate professor of English and director of Judaic Studies. “His trenchant and controversial views have not made everyone within the Jewish community happy, but many acknowledge that his sincerity, passion and civility have been a welcome addition to the often vexed conversations regarding American Jews and their relations to Israel and the Palestinians.”
Teres adds that Beinart’s lecture affords people the opportunity to have an “informed, substantive conversation” about admittedly difficult matters. “His remarks come at a time when many Americans are unhappy with poisoned rhetoric and slogans that substitute for thought that too often characterize public discourse in our country. I look forward to an informative evening of high-level discussion and debate,” he says.
Oxford-trained Beinart is an associate professor in the CUNY Graduate School of Journalism and a senior fellow at the New American Foundation. In addition to serving as a senior political writer at The Daily Beast, he is a frequent contributor to Time magazine. From 1999-2006, he was editor of TNR.
An accomplished author, Beinart penned “The Icarus Syndrome: How American Triumph Produces American Tragedy” and “The Good Fight: Why Liberals—and Only Liberals—Can Win the War on Terror and Make America Great Again,” both published by HarperCollins in 2010 and 2006, respectively. He has written for The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Financial Times, The Boston Globe, Atlantic Monthly, Newsweek, Slate, Reader’s Digest, Die Zeit, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung and Polity: The Journal of the Northeastern Political Science Studies Association.
A sought-after commentator, Beinart has appeared on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” ABC’s “This Week with George Stephanopoulos,” “Charlie Rose,” “The McLaughlin Group,” “The Colbert Report,” MTV, CNN, Fox, MSNBC and many other television programs.
The B.G. Rudolph Lecture series is organized and presented by the Judaic Studies Program in SU’s College of Arts and Sciences. Beinart’s lecture is co-sponsored by The College’s Middle Eastern Studies Program, the Newhouse School’s Goldring Arts Journalism Program, and the Maxwell School’s Moynihan Institute of Global Affairs. Additional support comes from a grant from the U.S. Department of Education.
