Books

Klinghoffer: God Is a Conservative; Alterman: Jesus Is a Liberal

By Daniel Treiman February 27, 2008

It gives me great pleasure to announce the upcoming publication of a book from Forward columnist David Klinghoffer, titled “How Would God Vote?: Why the Bible Commands You to Be a Conservative,” which is due out this summer from Doubleday.

But while Klinghoffer believes that God is a conservative, Nation columnist Eric Alterman apparently thinks that Jesus is a liberal. The cover of his new book, “Why We’re Liberals: A Political Handbook for Post-Bush America,” (due out next month) features cartoon renderings of 42 famous figures whom the author seems to consider paragons of liberalism, including the Jewish fellow from Nazareth who inspired the world’s most popular religion.

I doubt, however, that Klinghoffer would be too fazed by Alterman claiming Jesus for the liberal cause, since Klinghoffer did, after all, write an earlier book titled, “Why the Jews Rejected Jesus” (though, to be fair, its thesis wasn’t “because he’s a liberal”).

Other famous Jews included along with Jesus in Alterman’s book-cover liberal pantheon are: Paul Wellstone, Albert Einstein, Gloria Steinem, I.F. Stone, Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel, Paul Newman, Barney Frank, Russ Feingold and the author himself.