I recently attended a webinar, “Amidst the Wreckage of Neoconservatism: Jewish Progressives and the American National Interest,” organized by The Forum for Critical Jewish Thought (FCJT). The speakers were Suzanne Schneider, Executive Director of the Brooklyn Institute for Social Research; Ben Rhodes, former Deputy National Security Adviser under President Obama; and Eliyahu Stern, Professor of Religious Studies and Jewish Studies at Yale. (The discussion was moderated by Ezra Tzfadya.)

I enjoyed the conversation, and agreed with a great deal of what Schneider and Rhodes had to say, but in what follows, I want to lay out some criticisms of all three speakers’ presentations. I’ll devote one post to each speaker, starting with Schneider, and end by describing a problematic common to all three.