I’ve never understood ethnic, race, gender or sex pride. Even as a kid. For my bar mitzvah, someone gave me a book titled “Great Jews in Sports” or something like it. Aside from the usual jokes — it was not a long book; the print and the photos were very large — what I remember best was that I had little interest in the book. I loved sports. And I strongly identified as a Jew — I was raised in an Orthodox Jewish home and attended yeshivas until the age of 19. So, my disinterest in the book didn’t emanate from either disinterest in sports or disinterest in Jews. I was keenly interested in both ..read more

One of the most remarkable laws in the Bible is in the Book of Deuteronomy: “Do not hate an Egyptian.” It is remarkable because it was given to the generation of Israelites that had just been liberated from slavery in Egypt. Imagine. A people who had been enslaved for hundreds of years, and for a period of time had their newborn sons drowned, was instructed — by Moses in the name of God, no less — not to hate the people who had just enslaved them. This is one of many examples why America’s Founders regarded the Bible as the most important book ever written. According to one historian who stud ..read more

There are four primary reasons fewer and fewer people in America and the West take God, the Bible or religion seriously. 1. The belief that science disproves religion. 2. The belief that reason and feelings supplant God and the Bible as the only necessary vehicles to morality. 3. The “progressive” ideologies of at least 100 years that seek to replace religion. 4. The failure of religious people to convince the next generation to be religious. As I have dealt with the first three reasons on many occasions, I will only note that it should be obvious to any rational person that the first three r ..read more

Last week, Otto, my beloved English bulldog, died. He died as he lived — peacefully. His presence in our home for 12 years was an unmitigated joy. He also, amazingly, became the best-known dog in America through sheer happenstance; he was on camera during almost all of my nearly 300 weekly Fireside Chats for PragerU and became the hero of a series of PragerU books for children. Moreover, as I have often noted, none of this fame went to his head. The sadness I feel at Otto’s death and the outpouring of condolence messages to my wife and me have caused me to reflect on two long-held concerns abo ..read more

A generation of Americans is being raised on half-truths and lies about the history of slavery in America. They are given the impression that America was uniquely bad and that American slavery was uniquely bad. They learn nothing about slavery elsewhere. Among the many lies they are told are that “black slaves built America” and that America is systemically racist. Since the only mortal enemy of the Left is truth, here are some truths about slavery. AMERICA’S SLAVERY COMPARED TO SLAVERY ELSEWHERE If you are interested in morality and committed to truth, you do not ask, “Who had slaves?” You as ..read more

My field of study in graduate school was communism. As a fellow at the Russian Institute of Columbia’s School of International Affairs, I was, if I remember correctly, one of seven students in the entire university to major in what was known at the time as “Communist Affairs.” I cite this in order to make this point: In my wildest dreams, I never imagined what I was studying would ever apply to the United States of America, the freest country in world history. I assumed that communism was, for various reasons, something that happened elsewhere — most obviously, Russia, China, Vietnam, Cuba, Ca ..read more

The primary concern of the people who ran the Silicon Valley Bank (SVB) — the bank that just went bust — was not banking. Nor was it making money for the bank’s shareholders or safeguarding the funds of its depositors. Their primary concern was social activism — LGBTQIA+, DEI (Diversity, Equity, Inclusion), ESG (Environmental, Social, and Governance), and climate change. In fact, for nine months — from April 2022 until only eight weeks ago — SVB in America didn’t even have a chief risk officer (CRO). It did have a CRO for Europe, Africa, and the Middle East, but the woman entrusted with that r ..read more

The world’s most trusted evaluator of medical studies, the Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews, has just released as close to a conclusive report on the effectiveness of masks against respiratory viruses such as COVID-19 as we are likely to have for the foreseeable future. The report assessed data from 78 different studies, including 11 new randomized controlled trials involving 610,872 participants. In the words of one of the authors, Dr. Tom Jefferson of Oxford University, Cochrane concluded, “There is just no evidence that they (masks) make any difference. Full stop.” Among the reasons ..read more

This past Shabbat (Sabbath) was a dark day in American Jewish history. Once again — this time within Judaism — the rule that the Left destroys everything it touches was exemplified. Twelve hundred American synagogues participated in “Repro-Shabbat.” “Repro” is short for “reproductive rights.” The idea, which originated with a left-wing organization called the National Conference of Jewish Women (NCJW), was to have as many synagogues as possible promote the idea that Judaism supports a woman’s right to abort the child she is carrying at any time in her pregnancy and for any reason, that the hum ..read more

The term “Judeo-Christian values” is frequently used. I am one who uses it. I do so for the same reason the late great British prime minister Margaret Thatcher did: “The truths of the Judaic-Christian tradition,” she said, “are infinitely precious, not only, as I believe, because they are true, but also because they provide the moral impulse which alone can lead to that peace, in the true meaning of the word, for which we all long… There is little hope for democracy if the hearts of men and women in democratic societies cannot be touched by a call to something greater than themselves.” Mrs. Th ..read more