Milton Himmelfarb

Milton Himmelfarb stood out from the other New York Intellectuals of his era for one reason: he was primarily interested in the Jews and Jewish issues. As Professor Wisse explains in this lecture, Himmelfarb thought about the condition of the Jews in America in religious, cultural, and political terms. He was fascinated by the phenomenon of American Jews running away from their distinctive Jewish identity, and by focusing on the particular experience of Jews in America, mediated upon the enduring tensions between tradition and freedom.