Jewish liberals, like other liberals, believe that there are three positive traits that describe liberals far more accurately than they describe conservatives — compassionate, intellectual and open-minded.

As my radio show listeners across the country have heard innumerable times, a guiding principal of my show is that I prefer clarity to agreement. Instead of trying to out-argue their ideological adversaries, I suggest to my listeners that they should strive for clarity about where they and their opponents differ. This not only prevents shouting, insulting and defensiveness, it helps each side see where they really differ and where, perhaps, they do not. Married couples have told me that this approach has been helpful in marital disputes.

There is a good chance that being a Jew means little or nothing to you. That would make a great deal of sense because few Jews have been raised to take Judaism seriously. This is not a judgment on your parents. Most of them weren’t raised that way either. It is just a fact.

Two of my favorite journals ever since I was in college have been Commentary and The New York Review of Books. The first is a major right-wing publication, the second a major left-wing one. Though on opposite sides of just about every issue, they both have a feature that should be present in any journal that takes ideas seriously: a response from the authors to letters to the editor.

Why do most American Jews support the president’s and the Democratic Party’s health care plan?

We Jews need to face a sad, even tragic, fact. Things are not going very well in the relationship between God and most Jews.

All polling data agree that among Americans, Jews believe in God less than any other ethnicity or religion-based group. More Jews are agnostic, more Jews are atheist, more Jews are secular than any other group.