SAPIR Conversations

Tomorrow, we launch our second issue on Aspiration—devoted to audacious ideas for a thriving Jewish future. Four years ago, when we published our first issue, the world was a very different place. In his editor’s note, Bret Stephens writes: “Jewish aspiration after October 7 is a different story. Paradoxically, it requires more realism and more ambition.”
So here we are, returning with new questions: Is the Jewish world taking enough risks? Has American Jewish life become too convenient? Should we, indeed, stop fighting antisemitism and instead fight Jewish complacency? And did Bret go too far when he called for the dismantling of the ADL?Join Editor-in-Chief Bret Stephens and Rabbi David Wolpe for a wide-ranging SAPIR Conversation on these questions and more.
Read SAPIR: www.sapirjournal.org  
Music from #Uppbeat: ⁠https://uppbeat.io/t/theo-gerard/monsieur-groove

When KIND Snacks founder Daniel Lubetzky looks at a glass of water, he doesn’t see it as half empty or half full. He sees an opportunity to fill up the cup. 

In this SAPIR Conversation with Rabbi David Wolpe, Lubetzky explains how this mindset shaped his journey from arriving in the United States as a 16-year-old immigrant to becoming a multi-billion-dollar entrepreneur who founded one of the most recognizable health food brands in the country. This success propelled him onto the hit TV series Shark Tank as one of the “sharks” and into a life as a social entrepreneur, investor, philanthropist, author, and civic leader. Above all, Lubetzky is a builder. As the son of the Holocaust survivor, he views it as his mission to build bridges across seemingly impossible divides – and encourages us all to use our power to do the same. 

Read the SAPIR essays and op-eds referenced in this SAPIR Conversation and reach out to us at [email protected]:  
Ilana Horwitz’s SAPIR essay on Poverty and Jewish Community: https://sapirjournal.org/money/2025/poverty-and-jewish-community/
Daniel Lubetzky’s Washington Post op-ed, The lessons I carry from my Jewish grandfather: https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2025/11/28/antisemitism-jewish-penny-portnoy-entrepreneur/
Music from #Uppbeat: ⁠https://uppbeat.io/t/theo-gerard/monsieur-groove

Jack Lew was drawn to a mission of service well before becoming the 76th U.S. Secretary of the Treasury. As a kid in Forest Hills, Queens, he stepped up as his high school’s inaugural Earth Day coordinator. Inspired by a local rabbi, he supported low-income housing in his hometown. Raised in a home committed to Jewish life and Zionism but also social justice and the community around him, Lew never wavered from an equal sense of responsibility to both worlds. In fact, it’s that very outlook that led him to a storied career in public service without ever sacrificing his Jewish faith and practice. 
  
On January 13th, Rabbi David Wolpe sat down with Secretary Lew for an in-depth SAPIR Conversation. Together, they reflected on moments both personal and historic: the time President Clinton left Lew a voicemail on Shabbat; the pivotal conversation he had with President Obama before accepting the position of White House Chief of Staff; the experience of serving as U.S. Ambassador to Israel weeks after October 7th. They also discussed the future of U.S. military assistance to Israel, the fate of American Jewry, and – this being a SAPIR issue on Money – his understanding of the ideal form of Tzedaka, or charity. 
  
Read the SAPIR essays referenced in this SAPIR Conversation, including: 
  
Ilana Horwitz’s essay on Poverty and Jewish Community: https://sapirjournal.org/money/2025/poverty-and-jewish-community/ 
  
Jordan Chandler Hirsch’s essay on The Need for a Jewish Sovereign Wealth Fund: https://sapirjournal.org/money/2025/the-need-for-a-jewish-sovereign-wealth-fund/ 
  
Music from #Uppbeat (free for Creators!): ⁠https://uppbeat.io/t/theo-gerard/monsieur-groove

Economic vulnerability affects 1 in 4 American Jews, but it doesn’t affect all of them equally, writes Tulane University sociologist Ilana Horwitz in her recent SAPIR article, “Poverty and Jewish Community.” The difference between a life of temporary hardship and one of permanent poverty may, in some circumstances, boil down to whether a person or family is embedded deeply in Jewish life. Why is that the case? What does this finding reveal about the invisible safety net of Jewish belonging? And what are the practical interventions at our disposal to help alleviate financial strain?
 
Horwitz joined Managing Editor Phil Getz for an in-depth discussion about poverty and the American Jewish community.
 
Read Ilana Horwitz’s essay: https://sapirjournal.org/money/2025/poverty-and-jewish-community/
 
Watch the virtual discussion: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9ueBdD9TltQ
 
Music from #Uppbeat (free for Creators!): https://uppbeat.io/t/theo-gerard/monsieur-groove

American Jewry has long thrived in a society built on institutions. But today, we live in an anti-establishment age, where subtlety fuels suspicion and open displays of power are seemingly valued for their authenticity. In this environment, should America’s Jews think and act like a state, as Jordan Chandler Hirsch argues in his essay “The Need for a Jewish Sovereign Wealth Fund”? Or is this proposed cure an abandonment of the features that have long defined American exceptionalism — and the Jewish experience within it, as Roger Zakheim argues in response.

On December 8, SAPIR Editor-in-Chief Bret Stephens moderated a conversation on the future of the American Jewish community in an anti-institutional era with Jordan Chandler Hirsch, senior counselor to the CEO of Palantir Technologies, and Roger Zakheim, director of the Ronald Reagan Institute Roger Zakheim.

Read Jordan Chandler Hirsch’s essay: https://sapirjournal.org/money/2025/the-need-for-a-jewish-sovereign-wealth-fund/

Read Roger Zakheim’s rebuttal: https://sapirjournal.org/letters/against-a-jewish-sovereign-wealth-fund-renewing-americas-covenantal-promise/

Watch the virtual discussion: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5g51WmzVsNw

Music from #Uppbeat (free for Creators!): https://uppbeat.io/t/theo-gerard/monsieur-groove