This dye marker seemed to reappear in the latest issue of Harvard Magazine, though the shade had lost its pink hues. Jews were featured throughout the article, which discussed conservatism on campus. From Yiddish professor Ruth Wisse to the Divinity School's Jon Levenson, Jews are again at the vanguard of the counterculture, only now playing for the other team. Of course, Jews have long played a central role in conservative thought. The neo-conservative movement, led by the likes of Irving Kristol, Norman Podhoretz, and Nathan Glazer, was staffed almost exclusively by Jews. But Harvard's conservative counter-culture - in fact, a sort of counter counter-culture - is much younger, much closer to home, yet, interestingly enough, just as Jewish. What is it that has brought Jews to the forefront of contemporary American conservatism, and where might they take it? 

The first, and perhaps most accurate answer is a historical and sociological one. Jewish tradition has long placed an emphasis on education and the life of the mind. The traditional Jewish scholar and the contemporary intellectual have in common a lifestyle that, if radically different in content, is nearly identical in form. It was only natural, then, for Jews to assume prominence in the American university and the intellectual trends it spawns. Hence the Jewish role in Gelernter's intellectual takeover, and the parallel Jewish role in the neo-con movement. But the connections between Judaism and conservative politics run deeper, and that connection may help advance the cause of conservatism both within the gates of the Yard and beyond.

Within the University, the moral and intellectual tradition of Judaism could certainly lend a hand in reforming the University community. Conservatives have long lamented the decline of the Academy: its academic standards as it embraced political correctness and the orthodoxies of the Left, and its moral standards as it embraced a relativism that all but banished the words "right"and "wrong"from its vocabulary. Jon Levenson, professor of Jewish studies at the Harvard Divinity School, sees a reconstructive role for Judaism. Levenson argues that the notion of disinterested learning transmitted by detached instructors is foreign to Judaism and a dangerous ethic at the university. Academics should be morally engaged with their learning rooted in a tradition, whether Jewish or otherwise. Most importantly they should not simply open the students to a "marketplace of ideas"but should offer moral instruction.

Admittedly, this is a dangerous proposition. There is a fine line between religious coercion and appropriate morally rooted instruction. And professors should certainly not use the classroom to preach. But hasn't the Left used the classroom to advance the causes of feminism, gay rights, and the sexual revolution? Can't the Right at least use the classroom to question these dogmas? Can't it at least suggest that traditional values are not mere anthropological curiosities but viable and meaningful ways of life? At the very least, can't they admit that the acadamy's life of the mind is not an exclusive approach to life but part of a greater whole? 

And what about the role of the university beyond the classroom? What about the condoms in the basements, the UHS-funded abortions? Judaism should aggressively challenge these practices. Together with the broader religious community on campus, Judiasm should confront the moral assumptions of the University. It should dare to ask why the academy has lowered its moral standards so drastically, and why it is so convinced that its new religion of secularism and liberalism is sounder than the wisdom of the religions of old. 

If Judaism could teach the University a thing or two, its mission in the "real world"is no less pressing. Its first task could be debunking what Professor Ruth Wisse calls, "the idealism of the Left which, forgetting the means, rushes right to the ends."Wisse explains that figures of the Left, in their zeal to improve the world, heed the moral imperative to advance social justice without paying attention to the tradition, culture, and legal system in which they operate and through which they must seek progress. Judaism's attitude here is clear. The respect for history, tradition, and most importantly the law, is a prerequisite for everything in Judaism. The Jewish concern for the stranger, the orphan, and the widow must be understood in the context of a religious and legal community which does not seek revolution to help the suffering, but looks to the law, the community, and tradition to understand how to treat other human beings. This lesson would be well learned by a liberalism that exudes empathy in a vacuum; one that is always ready to offer a handout but, in its idealism, cannot see its own limitations.

While Judaism can help lower the ambitions of society by challenging the idealism of the Left, it can raise its standards by helping to reconstruct its moral foundations. As religion has faded from elite culture, the moral consensus upon which society is built has fractured. Levenson, remarking on changing attitudes towards abortion and homosexuality, argues that, "secular culture, liberal culture in general, has a great deal of difficulty sustaining a moral consensus."Indeed, the most heated social issues facing America today were areas of broad consensus only a few decades ago. Pressing issues like homosexual marriage and abortion on demand have become subjects of endless, unproductive debate in the absence of the religious and moral framework in which these issues would have been addressed in the past. We must wonder, how long can society last without a broad moral consensus at its foundation? Not to say that abortion is going to be the downfall of the Republic, but if we lack a framework of common discourse, how are we to discuss, and resolve, the issues that trouble us most?

The role that Judaism can and must play both in the academy and in the broader public realm is an ambitious one. Its values, its traditions, and its texts can offer a wake-up call to a culture indoctrinated in the dogma of secular liberalism. Who better to sound the alarm than some of Harvard's most prominent Jewish faculty members? David Gelernter may have been right that Jews were a dye marker in the intellectual takeover of the 1960's, but Judaism and its intellectual proponents have a grand role to play in the conservative counter-revolution of the next century. What better place for ground-zero than the ivory towers of Harvard?