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blindmath's review against another edition
challenging
informative
reflective
medium-paced
4.5
Every reform/secular Jew should read this.
xrevacholiere's review against another edition
5.0
"To try to equate today's marginal anti-Semitism with the powerful, mainstream Judeophobia of the past amounts to greatly downplaying the impact of Jew-hatred in Western, Christian and modern civilization as expressed until the mid-twentieth century. Yet the conception that makes Jews a 'race' with mysterious qualities, transmitted by obscure routes, still blossoms. While in former times it was a matter of simple physiological characteristics, blood, or facial shape, today it is DNA or, for the more subtle, a paler substitute: the strong belief in a direct lineage down the chain of generations. In a distant past we were dealing with a mixture of fear, contempt, hatred of the other, and ignorance. Today, on the part of the 'post-Shoah goyim', we face a symbiosis of fears, guilty consciences and ignorance, while among "new Jews' we often find victimization, narcissism, pretentiousness, and likewise a crass ignorance."
[...]
In light of the recent tragedies of the first half of the twentieth century, the emotional connection felt by Jewish descendants towards Israel is both understandable and undeniable, and it would be foolish to criticize it. However, in no way does that undeniable connection also necessitate a close connection between the conception of Jewishness as an eternal and ahistorical essence, and the growing support a large number of those who identify themselves as Jews give to the politics of segregation that is inherent in the self-definition of the State of Israel, and to the regime of extended occupation and colonization that has been enforced in the territories conquered in 1967."
[...]
In light of the recent tragedies of the first half of the twentieth century, the emotional connection felt by Jewish descendants towards Israel is both understandable and undeniable, and it would be foolish to criticize it. However, in no way does that undeniable connection also necessitate a close connection between the conception of Jewishness as an eternal and ahistorical essence, and the growing support a large number of those who identify themselves as Jews give to the politics of segregation that is inherent in the self-definition of the State of Israel, and to the regime of extended occupation and colonization that has been enforced in the territories conquered in 1967."
mparisinou's review against another edition
5.0
An articulate essay making a cogent arguments. Particularly appealing was how its themes can in some cases be applied to other cultures/ethnicities, eg that of Cyprus with which I'm intimately familiar.
elephant's review against another edition
2.0
I am not impressed with this book. The writing is highly academic, and seems to attempt to use big words to try to make the author's opinions seem like they are more important and factual than they actually are. The author posits that there is no such thing as a secular Jew and no such thing as a Jewish culture. He, an Israeli, bashes Israel and it's politics while still claiming to love his country. I found the writing to be verbose and boring and the author's opinions, no matter how they are worded, are simply his own opinions. I received this book free to review from Netgalley.
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