[edit] Biography

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Prager is a native of Brooklyn, New York. His parents were also born and raised in Brooklyn. His father, Max Prager (born July 18, 1918) married Hilda Friedfeld (born October 24, 1919) on September 14, 1940. They had two sons: Kenneth, born January 3, 1943, and Dennis, born August 2, 1948.

Raised an Orthodox Jew, Prager attended Yeshiva Rambam for kindergarden through 8th grade and Yeshiva Flatbush for high school where he met his future co-author Joseph Telushkin in the 10th grade. Prager graduated from Brooklyn College in 1970, majoring in Anthropology and History[1]. In 1969, Prager spent his Junior year abroad at the University of Leeds in England. Having studied Russian, Prager was sponsored to be sent to the Soviet Union to bring in Jewish religious objects and meet with Russian Jewish dissidents. Upon his return, Prager began his career as a public speaker, lecturing several times a week about the state of Jews in the Soviet Union.

From 1970-72, Prager attended the Russian and Middle East Institutes at the Columbia University School of International Affairs. He studied under Dr. Zbigniew Brezinski, who later served in the Carter administration as the head of the National Security Council.

Prager did not complete his Masters degree, and instead dropped out in 1973 to write an introduction to Judaism with Joseph Telushkin. They self-published the book in 1975 as The Eight Questions People Ask About Judaism, later published by Simon & Schuster in 1976 as The Nine Questions People Ask About Judaism. The book has been translated into nearly a dozen languages and remians a widely used introductory text to Judaism.

From 1976 to 1983, Prager served as the director of the Brandeis-Bardin Institute in Simi Valley, California, teaching Judaism to college-aged Jewish singles. During the summer of 1980, Prager met his first wife, Janice Adelstein, who was a nurse there. They were married January 15, 1981. Their son, David, was born two years later.

Prager started his radio career In August 1982, as the moderator of "Religion on the Line," a Sunday night on KABC-AM, Los Angeles. The program featured discussions between representatives of various religions, typically including a priest, a Protestant minister, and a Jewish rabbi. Prager continued as the show's moderator for 10 years, and he continued to broadcast on KABC for several more years.

 

[edit] Philosophy

Prager often presents his political views in moral terms. He advocates what he sees as the uniquely American combination of "Judeo-Christian values." He places great emphasis on "moral clarity," that is, the ability to identify and combat evil. Though Prager is an activist and advocate for conservative causes and a partisan of the conservative Republican party, he sometimes labels himself as "passionate centrist" or a "JFK liberal."

In his articles, broadcasts, and lectures, Prager has declared that the U.S. is engaged in a "second civil war," a "culture war" over the fundamental moral values on which American society was built. Prager claims that many influential American institutions (universities, trial lawyers, labor unions, the ACLU, Civil Rights groups, and most large newspapers and television networks) are dominated by secular leftists. These institutions, according to Prager, attack and misrepresent the uniqueness of the Judeo-Christian tradition and its remarkable positive historical effect upon America and the world. He suggests that most contemporary social and political crises stem from the absence of a normative system of "ethical monotheism." Prager accuses the governments of Western Europe ("a civilization in decline") and Canada of suffering from "a broken moral compass," charging that the dominance of secular leftist thought in those countries has rendered their societies morally confused and corrupt.

Prager is a proponent of "American exceptionalism," the view that the moral superiority of the US justifies unilateral action on the world stage, and that the US should not be constrained by international law or the United Nations in pursuit of its goals. He is consistent supporter of President George W. Bush, whom he frequently describes as "great," and whom he claimed on his radio show had been specifically chosen President though the direct intervention of God. Prager is an enthusitic supporter of the United States' initiative in the War in Iraq, which he characterizes as another example of the nobility of the US: Americans dying in order to bring liberty to others &emdash; as in Korea and Europe before. President Bush appointed Prager to the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Council.

Prager is both a leader in Jewish life ("One of the three most interesting minds in American Jewish life" according to The Jewish Week) and an outspoken supporter of the conservative Christian movement in the U.S., with whom he often shares a political agenda. Prager is often harshly critical of religious organizations who do not share his interpretations of Jewish or Christian values, such as the Presbyterian Church (USA), the National Council of Churches and the Anti-Defamation League. He often speaks of his estrangement from the mainstream of contemporary Jews: in a 1993 speech in Greensboro, North Carolina, Prager said that "the real religion of most American Jews is liberalism."

Prager has taken up several causes to preserve references to God and the Ten Commandments in public facilities such as schools, parks, and courthouses. In 2004, he spearheaded an unsuccessful movement to protect the official seal of the County of Los Angeles from being redesigned in such a way as to remove a small Christian cross from its imagery after the ACLU complained that the cross on the official seal implied government endorsement of religion, in violation of the U.S. Constitution.

 

[edit] Controversy

In late 2006 Prager became the center of a national controversy, when he wrote a column condemning the plan of Representative-elect Keith Ellison (D-MN), the first Muslim elected to US Congress, to swear on the Quran, rather than the traditional Bible during a ceremonial oath. "He [Ellison] should not be allowed to do so -- not because of any American hostility to the Koran, but because the act undermines American civilization," Prager wrote.

Prager's column and his subsequent comments triggered angry denuciations from many quarters: for example, former New York City mayor Ed Koch made public demands that Prager be kicked off the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Council because of his comments. Additional details about this issue are available at the Wikipedia article Quran Oath Controversy of the 110th United States Congress.

 

[edit] Lectures, radio and writings

He lectures in almost every Jewish community in North America, at major business conclaves, to chapters of the YPO (Young Presidents Organization) around the world, and at churches and other Christian institutions. He is a regular columnist in the Jewish magazine Moment.

On February 1, 1999, Prager began nationally syndicating his radio show. Now KRLA is his flagship station, broadcasting live across the country, 9:00 AM - Noon (Pacific Time). [2]

Since 2002, Prager has been a columnist for Townhall.com, a widely-read blog.

In June, 2005, The American Jewish Press Association awarded him First Prize for Excellence in Commentary.

In 2005, he devoted 24 of his columns to the case for Judeo-Christian values. He is currently writing his fifth book, The Best System Ever Devised: The Case for Judeo-Christian Values.

In 2006, he was appointed by President George W. Bush to the United States Holocaust Memorial Council (which, among other projects, governs the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum).

Prager is credited with lecturing on all seven continents, though it's unclear to which audience he presented in Antarctica. [3]

 

[edit] Bibliography

Prager wrote for several years for the Sunday Los Angeles Times "Current" section and writes a weekly column published in newspapers and online at Townhall.com [4] and elsewhere. He is also the author of several books:

 

* Nine Questions People ask about Judaism (with Joseph Telushkin)

* Why the Jews? The Reason for Antisemitism (with Joseph Telushkin)

* Happiness Is a Serious Problem: A Human Nature Repair Manual

* Think A Second Time (a collection of 44 essays on 40 topics)

 

[edit] Trivia

 

* Conducts orchestras in Southern California. Considers Haydn as great as Mozart.

* Brought Larry Elder to Los Angeles talk radio in 1994.

* Has stated on his radio program that he considers Jimmy Carter's refusal to back The Shah of Iran in 1979--which contributed to his fall and the rise of political Islam after Ayatollah Khomeini's ascension to power--to be the biggest American foreign policy failure of his lifetime.

* Believes that breast feeding is over-rated and that mothers should therefore not be pressured into doing so. He also believes that it ought not be done by a new mother if her husband is turned off by it, since a good sexual life between parents is more important to family health than breast feeding.

* Believes that women and men have very different sexual natures. He notes as a major example that men are far more initially aroused by the visual than are women.

* Prager, a Jew, often speaks to Christian groups. He was one of the three speakers invited to speak at the 25th anniversary celebration of Focus on the Family.

* Though twice divorced, he is a major advocate of marriage and has convinced many men who fear marriage to find a woman and commit to her. He also believes that a bad marriage is a form of "lifetime imprisonment" and "lifetime imprisonment should be reserved for murderers, not decent people." He has three children.

 

[edit] External links

 

* Why Are Atheists So Angry? A Debate Between Prager and Sam Harris

* pragerradio.com

* dennisprager.com

* Townhall.com page

* Townhall columns