Identity/Crisis – Covenant, Compromise, Sacrifice, and Kindness

Podcast: Identity/Crisis, Shalom Hartman Institute
Host: Yehuda Kurtzer
Episode Date: November 25, 2025 (Re-release from Nov. 19, 2024)
Summary Timeframe: [01:07]–[47:30]

Episode Overview

This episode, recorded immediately after the election of the second Trump presidency and just weeks following a landmark New York mayoral race, features Yehuda Kurtzer reflecting on the seismic shifts within American Judaism and politics. Kurtzer argues that American Jews are at an unprecedented—and perhaps revolutionary—political moment. He explores how historical analogies are insufficient to understand today's dynamics and proposes a new framework for Jewish and civic engagement based on four core values: covenant, compromise, sacrifice, and kindness.

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The Role of History & Jewish Memory ([01:56]–[12:00])

• Jews traditionally use historical memory to interpret contemporary events, searching for analogies to provide guidance and reassurance.
• Kurtzer cites Jonathan Safran Foer:
  “When a Jew encounters an event... he asks, ‘what does it remember?’” ([02:24])
• Cautions against the easy use of Holocaust or older Diaspora analogies for current crises.
  “The limits of the appeal to metaphor for history actually become very obvious when we realize how very different the conditions that modern Jews have both in America and Israel are.” ([11:44])

2. A Revolutionary Political Moment for American Jews ([12:00]–[15:20])

• Suggests that relying on history is inadequate for understanding the current reality.
• Invokes Gershom Scholem’s observation about Zionism—as both continuity and revolt—to suggest American Jews are likewise in an age of revolt, not just continuity.
• Notable Quote:
  “Tonight, my argument is going to be that we're in the midst of a revolutionary political moment as American Jews.” ([13:46])

3. Three Models of Diaspora Jewish Politics ([15:21]–[29:30])

• First Model: Control → Sideline Politics after loss of sovereignty, exemplified by Book of Esther and Talmudic stories.
  • Jews as outsiders influencing power but dependent and vulnerable.
  • Benefit: Judaism remains “pristine, untainted by politics.”
• Second Model: Integration into the System (20th Century American Model)
  • Jews as full participants, with collective concerns recognized as American concerns—e.g., US Holocaust Memorial, Pittsburgh shooting response.
  • Entry of Jewish concerns into mainstream American narrative.
• Third Model: Values-Based, Atomized Politics (Present)
  • Jewish identity becomes one of many adjectives; politics increasingly aligned not with Jewish collective, but with broader ideological camps.
  • “We are by and large subordinating our Jewish identities to our American identities... narrate all of our particular commitments which make us not really members of a group.” ([23:35])

4. The Breakdown of Collective Jewish Interests ([29:31]–[34:00])

• Jewish values are now curated to fit partisan identities (e.g., justice for Democrats, social policies for Republicans).
• Even fundamental threats like antisemitism are interpreted through partisan lenses, preventing unified strategy.
  • “Because by the way, increasingly we don't feel like we share them [collective concerns], even though it's pretty obvious that we do.” ([29:57])
  • Left focuses on white supremacy; right focuses on anti-Israel activity—neither unified nor comprehensive.

5. Jews’ Historic Role in Shaping America ([34:01]–[38:58])

• Jews once played an outsized role in imagining America’s ideals:
  • Emma Lazarus (“Give me your tired, your poor…”),
  • Justice Brandeis (freedom of speech jurisprudence),
  • Horace Kallen (pluralism).
• Now, Jewish public thinking about America is largely narrowed to partisan battles or internal, parochial concerns.
  “For a long time it's become clear that American Jews don't do this project anymore. Jewish thinkers, I plead guilty to this focus on the particular Jewish interests of our community.” ([36:18])

6. The Decline of Optimism & the Need for Transcendent Ideas ([38:59]–[41:17])

• Pessimism about the American experiment is rising on both left and right.
• Both nostalgia (right) and exposure of founding myths (left) have limited the appetite for national idealism.
• Sustaining democracy, Kurtzer argues, needs both transcendent ideals and social/civic practices—midrash (ideas) and ma’ase (action).

7. A New Framework: Four Foundational Jewish Values ([41:17]–[46:00])

Kurtzer proposes four core Jewish values as tools for both Jewish renewal and American civic repair:

a. Covenant

• Rooted in Jewish tradition and American constitutionalism—commitment to something larger than self.
  • “You get the Torah in the wilderness before you go into the land of Israel, because it sets up a set of terms and conditions through which you hold yourself accountable.” ([41:38])

b. Compromise

• Central but undervalued in Jewish tradition; the rabbis prioritize compromise because only God can deliver true justice.
  • “Rabbinic tradition is all about compromise... the only character who can bring about absolute justice in the world is God. Absent that, the way that you build social fabric in any society is to respect the fact of human difference... through a culture of compromise.” ([42:12])

c. Sacrifice

• The willingness to lose for the sake of the relationship, community, and democracy itself—vital for healthy democratic practice.
  • “A corollary to that in democracies, healthy democracies, people lose a lot and are willing to take risks.” ([42:38])

d. Kindness

• Dismissed as “banal and dumb,” but Kurtzer insists it is a radical and essential tool for national healing and political transformation.
  • “Kindness is a tool for building a society. It actually is one of the most essential variables that shapes cultures of sacrifice and compromise and covenant.” ([44:01])
  • Cites George H.W. Bush (“kinder, gentler nation”) and Donald Trump’s rejection of kindness as weakness:
    “If this country gets any kinder or gentler, it’s literally going to cease to exist.” ([44:36], quoting Trump’s 1990 Playboy interview)

8. The Epidemic of Loneliness and Political Dysfunction ([46:01]–[46:54])

• Notes the parallel rise in vitriolic politics and loneliness, suggesting their interconnection.
  • “When do we start noticing that it might not be a coincidence that in addition to having this violent and virulent political culture... we are also living through an epidemic of loneliness, and that those two things might be fueling each other?” ([46:17])

9. A Countercultural Proposal for American Jews ([46:55]–[47:30])

• Calls on American Jews to re-engage in collective, values-driven work, both for renewal of their community and for America at large.
  • “Maybe a side effect of that is that we will see not only our relationship to other Americans being stronger, but value in staying in relationship with other Jews in that process.” ([47:08])
  • The goal: not to win political bloodsport, but to help “recenter collective concerns for other Americans,” and to rediscover the value of losing in service to something higher.

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On history and modernity:
  “The harder thing for Jews to fathom about the present is not that something complicated is happening, but that something complicated may be happening that's actually something we've never quite seen before.” ([11:51])

• On American Jewish partisanship:
  “We're really talking about Jewish values as curated to be effective members of the Democratic Party and Jewish values as effectively curated to become effective members of the Republican Party.” ([28:38])

• On the loss of collective concerns:
  “It is totally impossible now as American Jews to speak with a clear voice about Jewish collective concerns. Because by the way, increasingly we don't feel like we share them, even though it's pretty obvious that we do.” ([29:57])

• On kindness in politics:
  “Kindness is a tool for building a society. It actually is one of the most essential variables that shapes cultures of sacrifice and compromise and covenant.” ([44:01])

• On the Jewish-American project:
  “I wonder whether the countercultural move for American Jews is to precisely do that work of the 20th century of getting us back into the habit of building Jewish and and building America in concert with one another.” ([46:48])

Suggested Listening Timestamps for Key Segments

• Use & Abuse of Jewish History: [01:56]–[11:44]
• Shift to Revolutionary Political Moment: [13:46]–[15:21]
• Three Diaspora Political Models: [15:21]–[29:30]
• Breakdown of Collective Jewish Interests: [29:31]–[34:00]
• Historic Role in Shaping America: [34:01]–[38:58]
• Four Jewish Values Framework: [41:17]–[46:00]

Conclusion

Kurtzer ends with a call not to retreat into nostalgia or to seek old forms of Jewish collective power, but instead to “invest in America itself,” using Jewish values—covenant, compromise, sacrifice, and kindness—as a path to strengthening both American and Jewish civic life.

Final Thought:
“It may not be that the history of this can be brought back to a previous era of our time, but maybe the practice can be an investment by American Jews in America itself. A willingness to think in a language of Jewish values that serves the larger project of America and the willingness to lose a little bit in order to one day win.” ([47:21])

This rich, honest conversation is essential for anyone interested in the future of American Judaism and the larger questions of democracy, identity, and repair in a polarized age.