January 27, 2008

Broadcast Date: 
Jan 27 2008

On the eve of the Florida primaries and beyond to Super Tuesday, a look at the Jewish vote; plus, a provocative new book about the renegade Jewish philosopher Baruch Spinoza and the New York debut of Mike Leigh's Two Thousand Years.

Episode segments
  • January 27, 2008
    National Politics, Electoral, Jewish
    Jennifer Siegel, staff writer and political reporter for The Forward.
    Esther Kaplan and Marilyn Kleinberg Neimark

    In the run-up to the Florida primary and to Super Tuesday, we talk with political reporter Jennifer Siegel about the Jewish vote, the Israel factor, and the persistence of the smear campaign against Barack Obama.

  • January 27, 2008
    Literature

    Rebecca Goldstein, philosopher, novelist and author of Betraying Spinoza: The Renegade Jew Who Gave Us Modernity.

     
    Melanie Kaye/Kantrowitz

    Baruch Spinoza, considered by many to be the greatest philosopher since Plato and the political theorist who first enunciated the general principles for a secular democratic society, was reviled by his own Portuguese Jewish community in 17th century Amsterdam. In her study of Spinoza, Rebecca Goldstein explores the thinking of this great philosopher and her own intellectual and emotional relationship to him.

  • January 27, 2009-8
    Theater, Arts & Culture
    Scott Elliott, director of Mike Leigh's Two Thousand Years
    Alisa Solomon

    Director Scott Elliott discusses a new play by Mike Leigh about three generations of British secular socialist Jews, as it opens at the New Group in New York.