Morality and Power: Contemporary Jewish Views

This collection of essays by distinguished Israeli and American Jews focuses on the problems of relating morality and power in contemporary statecraft. The following three questions are addressed in detail by the contributors: 1) Is there a difference between individual morality and the morality of public policy choices for a state or other political community? 2) Assuming a less than perfect world, how should political communities, their leaders and members deal with the problem of maintaining moral positions under duress or at times of crisis? 3) To what extent does or should a morally relativistic or morally absolutist position influence one’s conclusions with regard to the first two questions? Contributors: Sidney Hook, Moshe Landau, Manfred Gerstenfeld, Natan Yanai, Netanel Lorch, Ismar Schorsh, Meir Shitrit, Shmuel Trigano, Baruch Susser, and others. Co-published with the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs.