This is the first book to deal with the Jewish thought of Leo Strauss. Known primarily as one of the leading contemporary political thinkers, this book reveals another side of Leo Strauss—as one of the most important Jewish thinkers of the present century. The author presents the Jewish thought of Leo Strauss as powerful, original, and provocative, but also as essential for grasping the true character of Strauss's thought. His Jewish thought may prove to be the key to the proper understanding of his philosophic thought as a whole.