Up Next: Clinton, Bush Share Wexler’s Stage

It’s T-minus five months to one of the most high-profile headlines in the history of American Jewish University’s (AJU) annual lecture series: On Feb. 22, former Presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush are slated to share a stage at Universal’s Gibson Amphitheatre, with AJU President Robert Wexler probing their perspectives on world affairs.

With such prominent — and radically different — personalities set to converge before an audience in the thousands, Wexler must already be busy preparing his notes and researching profound, thoughtful questions — right?

“Not yet,” he said recently with a laugh. “I can never start to put together my questions more than a month in advance. It’s too risky; things change so rapidly that I have no idea what’s going to be happening in the world that I’d ask them about.”

It’s this dedication to fresh takes on topical political figures that has made AJU’s public lecture series such a popular draw since its inception in 2001. Organized through the university’s Whizin Center for Continuing Education, the series has featured heavyweights including former Vice President Al Gore; former British Prime Minister Tony Blair; Israeli Prime Ministers Ehud Barak and Shimon Peres; and U.S. Secretaries of State Henry Kissinger, Madeleine Albright and Colin Powell. Clinton has appeared twice before, but this is Bush’s first appearance at AJU — and the two former presidents have never before appeared together in a U.S. forum of this sort.

The series was to have begun at the Santa Monica Civic Auditorium, but even before it got started, a larger venue was needed. The amphitheater’s 6,000 seats and a broad intellectual hook attracted both Jews and non-Jews alike. Wexler, who is a rabbi and scholar and continues to teach a small number of classes at AJU, said he’s still scratching his head over what has turned out to be a simple formula for success.

“We discovered over the years that Jews enjoy coming together to hear intellectual political discussions,” he said. “They might not necessarily be connected to Jewish life, but they like to do it in a Jewish environment.”

This year, for the first time, the Whizin Center is hosting a single “mega-lecture” in place of its usual series of events. Tickets for the event go on sale Nov. 5.

Getting two presidents together is a costly feat, Wexler said, and organizers had trouble answering the difficult question: “Who would you put after these guys?”

Most of the series’ lectures don’t focus on Jewish issues, but Wexler always tries to work in a Jewish angle. At the talk with Clinton and Bush, for example, he said he will discuss Middle East policy and attitudes toward Israel.

Wexler might not write up his questions until a few weeks before an interview, but what he usually does months in advance is a common activity at AJU: his homework. Books and op-eds his guests have written are fair game, and he even parses past interviews they’ve given to get a feel for their speaking rhythm and cadence.

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