Zahava and Moshael J. Straus Center for Torah and Western Thought faculty, staff and students were published in several leading publications over the month of December 2025, writing articles that contributed to the discourse and debates that continue to shape American society and the Jewish people. 

Straus Center Director Rabbi Dr. Meir Soloveichik published his monthly column in Commentary, titled “A Death-Defying Orchestra.” In the article, Rabbi Soloveichik recapped a recent performance by the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra in Paris, describing it as a moment of cultural courage and an embodiment of the miracle of Jewish history. Rabbi Dr. Soloveichik also published “How the Bible Helped Smash the Crown” in The Free Press as part of the online magazine’s “America at 250” series and eulogized Norman Podhoretz in the Washington Free Beacon. Finally, Rabbi Dr. Soloveichik appeared on The Tikvah Podcast the enduring legacy of Psalms in the American and Jewish psyche. 

Rabbi Dr. Stuart Halpern, deputy director of the Straus Center, published a series of essays throughout December in the Jewish Journal, including book reviews of Yael Leibowitz’s Ezra-Nehemiah: Retrograde Revolution and Mitchell “Moish” Silk’s A Seat at the Table: An Inside Account of Trump’s Global Economic Revolution. Other book reviews from Rabbi Dr. Halpern this month include Eran Shalev’s The Star-Spangled Republic: Political Astronomy and the Rise of the American Constellation in the Wall Street Journal and Amit Segal’s A Call at 4 AM: Thirteen Prime Ministers and the Crucial Decisions That Shaped Israeli Politics in the Washington Free Beacon. In celebration of Hanukkah, Rabbi Dr. Halpern also wrote an ode to Emma Lazarus’s poetry on the festival of lights for ARC. 

Dr. Tevi Troy, Straus Center senior scholar, wrote his own eulogy for Podhoretz in the pages of the Washington Post and remembered other titans of the conservative movement who passed away in 2025 in the Washington Examiner. For City Journal, he analyzed former New York City mayor Eric Adams’ failed 2025 re-election bid and looked at Trump’s increased interest in foreign affairs for the Wall Street Journal. 

Finally, Straus Scholar Elisha Price (YC’28) published his first piece in The Lehrhaus: “A Window into the Kabbalistic Soul: Heilek Elo’ah Mi-ma’al From Job to Tanya.”

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