David Klinghoffer

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David Klinghoffer is a controversial author and essayist, and a proponent of intelligent design who is a Senior Fellow of the Discovery Institute, the organization that is the driving force behind the intelligent design movement. He is also a frequent contributor to National Review and a columnist for the Jewish weekly newspaper The Forward.

Klinghoffer is a practicing Orthodox Jew who has written a spiritual memoir about his journey from Reform Judaism to becoming ba'al tshuva (Hebrew, a newly religious Orthodox Jew).[1] In his book Why the Jews Rejected Jesus, Klinghoffer theorizes that Jewish rejection of Jesus allowed Christianity to separate from Judaism and become a multi-ethnic religion. Christianity was thus able to achieve a dominance in gentile Europe that would have been impossible for Judaism to attain. To Klinghoffer, this changed world history, because Christianity was able to serve as a bulwark against the spread of Islam into Europe.[2]

Klinghoffer has published a series of articles, editorial columns, and letters to the editor in both Jewish and conservative publications seeking to promote opposition to Darwinian views of evolution.[3][4][5] Larry Yudelson has responded, in a piece directed at Klinghoffer, that rabbinical Judaism has accepted evolutionary theory for more than a century, and that Judaism has never rejected science.[6] Yudelson also charges that Klinghoffer is paid to promote his ideas by his employer, the Discovery Institute, which Yudelson identifies as a Christian think tank that is funded by organizations that seek to promote a "Christian-friendly world view."[7]

Klinghoffer received his Bachelors Degree from Brown University.

[edit] Books by David Klinghoffer

  • Klinghoffer, David (1998). The Lord Will Gather Me In: My Journey to Jewish Orthodoxy. Free Press. ISBN: 074324267X. 
  • Klinghoffer, David (2004). The Discovery of God: Abraham and the Birth of Monotheism. Random House. ISBN: 978-0385-49973-6. 
  • Klinghoffer, David (2006). Why the Jews Rejected Jesus: The Turning Point in Western History. Three Leaves. ISBN: 978-0-385-51021-9. 
  • Klinghoffer, David (2007). Shattered Tablets: Why America Ignores the Ten Commandments at Its Peril. Doubleday. ISBN: 978-0385-51567-2. 

[edit] References

  1. ^ Klinghoffer, David (1998). The Lord Will Gather Me In: My Journey to Jewish Orthodoxy. Free Press. ISBN-10: 074324267X. 
  2. ^ Chilton, Bruce (Nov 04, 2005), “Exploring What Binds — and Divides — Jews and Christians”, Jewish Forward, <http://www.forward.com/articles/exploring-what-binds-%E2%80%93%E2%80%93-and-divides-%E2%80%93%E2%80%93-jew/> 
  3. ^ Klinghoffer, David (August 3, 2005). "Designs on Us". National Review. 
  4. ^ Klinghoffer, David (Dec 29, 2006), “Get Rich And Prosper”, Jewish Forward 
  5. ^ Klinghoffer, David (Feb 12, 2007), “Happy Darwin Day! Celebrating mankind's discovery of eugenics.”, The Daily Standard, <http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/013/257fhwqb.asp> 
  6. ^ Yudelson, Larry (March 24, 2006). Darwin is Not the Enemy. The Jewish Week of Greater New York.
  7. ^ Yudelson, Larry (Apr 18, 2006). Worse for the Jews: Darwin or David Klinghoffer?. YudelLine.
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