ABSTRACT
Of the many reasons to celebrate Michael Walzer’s career, I would like to celebrate his role as a dissenting voice among his people. By “his people,” I mean American liberals and social democrats. Walzer’s work leans against the mainstream in two ways. First, at a time when many on the left expressed an allergy to religion, and especially to the role of religion in public life, Walzer devoted himself to the revival of Jewish political thought. The four-volume series he edits on this topic 1 will be an enduring legacy, enabling the Jewish tradition of legal and moral reasoning to take its place alongside Greek, Christian, and Enlightenment thought as a resource for students of political philosophy.
