UPDATE: BUSH HONORS OZICK, PIPES, WISSE AND OTHERS

The 2007 National Humanities Medal (Contentions)

Today, President Bush has awarded the National Humanities Medal to a number of important contributors to American intellectual life. We’re delighted to say that five of the honorees have close ties with COMMENTARY: military historian Victor Davis Hanson, the novelist and essayist Cynthia Ozick, Russia scholar Richard Pipes, Harvard professor of Yiddish literature Ruth R. Wisse, and Roger Hertog, a distinguished patron of the humanities and a longtime supporter of COMMENTARY. We’ve made available free of charge some of the major items written by the honorees.

Victor Davis Hanson
Iraq’s Future—and Ours (January 2004)
Goodbye to Europe (October 2002)

Cynthia Ozick
The Rights of History and the Rights of Imagination (March 1999)
Envy; or, Yiddish in America (November 1969)

Richard Pipes
Life, Liberty, Property (March 1999)
Russia’s Chance (March 1992)

Ruth R. Wisse
At Home in Jerusalem (April 2003)
Yiddish: Past, Present, Imperfect (November 1997)

Five Jews awarded humanities medal (JTA)
Five Jews were among the winners of the National Humanities Medal.

They were among nine Americans and a preservation group who were honored with the award this year by President Bush. The White House named the awardees on Wednesday.

The Jewish winners are Stephen Balch of Princeton, N.J., the president of the National Association of Scholars, and a prominent critic of perceived liberal bias on American campuses; Roger Hertog of New York,a philanthropist and one of the principal backers of the New York Sun; Cynthia Ozick of New Rochelle, N.Y., a novelist whose literary preoccupation has been Jewish history; Ruth Wisse of Cambridge, Mass., considered the pre-eminent Yiddishist of modern times; and Richard Pipes of Cambridge, Mass., a Russian history scholar noted for his anti-Soviet activism. Pipes is also the father of Daniel Pipes, a noted conservative writer on Middle East issues.

Also named was the Monuments Men Foundation, which preserves and restores arts and monuments damaged during World War II. It is a lead group in recovering Jewish-owned art stolen by the Nazis.

The White House also named the National Medal of Arts recipients. They include Roy Neuberger of New York City, an arts patron who was born Jewish but now renounces any religion. His son, however, is a practicing Jew.

JEWISH INSTITUTE FOR NATIONAL SECURITY AFFAIRS GIVES AWARD TO MCCAIN

JINSA Bestows Distinguished Service Award Upon Senator John McCain (JINSA)
JINSA’s 24th annual Henry M. “Scoop” Jackson Distinguished Service Award was conferred upon Senator John McCain on December 5, 2006. Mr. Mike Ryan, Executive Vice President for Government Business of Rolls-Royce North America Inc., the evening’s major corporate sponsor, presented the award to the senator.

Through the Jackson Award, JINSA recognizes and thanks those leaders whose careers have been distinguished by the principle that is the foundation of JINSA’s work; the belief that the United States requires a strong military capability for both its own security and for that of trustworthy friends and allies. ...

Moving to policy, Sen. McCain declared that “Tehran’s continued pursuit of nuclear weapons clearly poses an unacceptable risk. Protected by a nuclear deterrent, Iran would feel unconstrained to sponsor terrorist attacks against any perceived enemy.” The Senator also had strong words for Palestinian leaders who say they desire peace but wage a terror war against Israel and for American leaders who would push Israel to engage with such terrorists. “No American leader should be expected to sell a false peace to our democratic ally, consider Israel’s right to self-defense less legitimate than ours, or insist that Israel negotiate a political settlement while terrorism remains its adversaries’ favored bargaining tool.”

Sen. McCain also discussed the situation in Lebanon and along Israel’s northern border. “Israel’s chance for peace with its northern neighbor resides in a Lebanon whose government has a monopoly on authority within its country. That means no independent militias, no Hezbollah fighters, no weapons and equipment flowing to Hezbollah. It means bolstering the security of Lebanon’s borders and ensuring that Hezbollah is not deployed in the south.” Summing it up, the senator declared, “There is one bottom line: to achieve peace, sooner or later, Hezbollah must be disarmed.”