The Josh Hammer Report

Josh Hammer

Newsweek Senior Editor-at-Large And Host,
"The Josh Hammer Show"

My debut book, Israel and Civilization: The Fate of the Jewish Nation and the Destiny of the West, comes out this Tuesday, March 18. I started drafting this book just about a year ago. It is totally surreal that I am finally here, at the finish line. I had my first book talk/book signing event in Miami on Monday evening, and there will be many more of those to come. But if you are a reader of this newsletter and a general fan of my work, then it would truly mean the world to me if you would preorder my book on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, or wherever else you get your books. I poured my whole heart and soul into this project.

The Jewish people and the Jewish state of Israel stand as the West's canaries in the coal mine—the tips of the spear in the battle against Islamist terrorism, woke fanaticism, and homogenizing global neoliberalism alike. But the voices championing the Jewish people and the Jewish state are being drowned out by a rising cacophony of multiculturalism, postmodernism, and rank Jew-hatred. Israel and Civilization is a call to arms for a new generation to reject anti-Semitism and affirm the centrality of Judaism to Western civilization—a civilization, that is, predicated above all on the Bible and our broader biblical inheritance.

My book is a call for Jews and Christians alike to fall in love with the Bible again. Without God and Scripture, we are nothing at all. Only a biblically undergirded ecumenical Jewish-Christian nationalist alliance will ever be sufficiently strong, knowledgeable, confident, able, willing, and—dare I get my hopes up a little too much—eager to turn back the tide against wokeism, Islamism, and global neoliberalism. My book offers an unapologetic, rigorous defense of the Jewish people and the Jewish state, arguing that the flourishing of the Jewish people and the Jewish state is inseparable from the long-term survival of Western civilization itself.

Israel and Civilization is a moral and strategic imperative for those seeking to preserve the best of Western thought, law, and culture. Given everything happening all around us on a daily basis, it is also extraordinarily timely. In a world increasingly hostile to both the Jewish people and the Jewish state, my book makes it abundantly clear that the future of both the children of Israel and the State of Israel is inextricably intertwined with the future of the West. Our civilizational rejuvenation begins by learning anew from the eternal wisdom of the Hebrew Bible and Judaism's sacred texts. Only by rediscovering the ways of old can we Jews and Christians chart our path forward—standing together, shoulder to shoulder. We're in this together!

Preorder Israel and Civilization:The Fate of the Jewish Nation and the Destiny of the West today!

To keep up with everything I'm doing, follow me on Twitter/X, Instagram, and Facebook. You can listen to all episodes of "The Josh Hammer Show" at the Newsweek website or on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts—as well as on select radio stations across the country. I also have a second podcast, "America on Trial with Josh Hammer," with The First. And one final time: Make sure to preorder my debut book, out this Tuesday, March 18, Israel and Civilization: The Fate of the Jewish Nation and the Destiny of the West.

Our highlighted recent Newsweek op-eds include selections from John Spencer, former White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows, Arsen Ostrovsky and Mark Goldfeder, Bradley Martin, and Patrick T. Brown.

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Spotlight

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The Democratic Fork in the Road and the Woke Repudiation Imperative

Yogi Berra, the mid-century New York Yankees Hall of Fame catcher known for his pithy and often humorous life observations, once famously quipped: "When you come to a fork in the road, take it." It was sound advice, perhaps, for a traveler on the go and in search of a quick meal. But the modern Democratic Party, rudderless and confused and reeling from a pitiful collective performance during Tuesday evening's presidential joint address to Congress, now confronts a fork in the road that's no joke.

On the one hand lies the path of least resistance: doubling down on the status quo—the progressive culture-warring, woke/identity politics-driven agenda that has dominated the party ever since Barack Obama upset Hillary Clinton in the 2008 Democratic presidential primary. On the other hand lies the more difficult but ultimately more promising path: repudiation of that post-2008 legacy and a conscientious return to a politics of the prudential center. Which path Democrats choose from here will go a long way toward determining their relevance as a national political party for the foreseeable future.

Obama's shocking upset over the madam-president-in-waiting was an inflection point for the institutional trajectory of the Democratic Party. Voters rejected the cultural centrism that was a Clinton-era hallmark in favor of the "hope" and "change" promised by Obama's "coalition of the ascendant." Initially, perhaps, that may have looked like a smart bet: Obama trounced John McCain in the 2008 presidential general election. But the one-time "coalition of the ascendant" transmogrified into an identitarian and deeply off-putting "coalition of aggrieved interests." Culturally militant wokeism eventually reached its pernicious apex during Joe Biden's presidency—which saw the first explicitly "DEI" Supreme Court justice selection (Ketanji Brown Jackson, after Biden vowed to nominate a black woman) and a DEI vice presidential running mate (Kamala Harris, after Biden was pressured to choose a black woman).

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