The New Republic – Say Kaddish

My friend and colleague, Rabbi Jeffrey Salkin, has written a superb “eulogy” for an American institution, The New Republic in The Jewish Daily Forward, that everyone should read. http://forward.com/articles/210524/the-nu-republic-no-more/

As I try and wrap my mind and heart around what The New Republic’s young, arrogant owner Chris Hughes is difficult to fathom.

For those not following this sad assault on an American intellectual institution, here is the piece in The Washington Post from a few days ago written by Dana Milbank, a former writer at The New Republic, that ought to be read along with Jeffrey’s superb eulogy above – http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/dana-milbank-the-new-republic-is-dead-thanks-to-its-owner/2014/12/08/ae80da42-7ee0-11e4-81fd-8c4814dfa9d7_story.html

The sheer arrogance of Hughes is what is most confounding to me – to buy something he clearly did not understand, change its mission unilaterally, fire Franklin Foer, the respected editor without even telling him personally that he was being replaced, and then to justify what he has done, still not understanding the impact of his deed, is the definition of both hubris and stupidity. This is a very sad moment in America’s journalistic history.