My Amazon Review of Bari Weiss' "How to Fight Anti-Semitism"

It is Our Fight

New York Times columnist Bari Weiss has written an important book about the resurgence of anti-Semitism in America and Europe. After finishing her book yesterday I attended a meeting at my synagogue to discuss security preparations for the upcoming High Holy Day services. Yes, this is the messed up world we live in.

Weiss distinguishes between the anti-Semitism of the Right from the anti-Semitism of the Left. To me the alt-Right doesn’t want me to live in America and the progressive Left doesn’t want me to live in Israel. So where am I to live? I also would make the distinction between low frequency-high severity incidents like the attack on the Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh where Weiss became a Bat Mitzvah and the high frequency-low severity attacks on Orthodox Jews in New York City and Europe. The former are performed by right win extremists while the latter are performed largely by African Americans in America and Islamists in Europe. Because they are not done by stereotypical right wingers, these high frequency attacks make the Jews who worship at the altar of secular liberalism very uncomfortable. Weiss notes that half the reported hate crimes in America are against Jews or Jewish facilities.

Before I get criticized for using the term “Islamist” I would note the experience of the former Somali refugee and Dutch Parliamentarian, Ayaan Hirsi Ali. I had the privilege of meeting her several years ago. She grew up in Somalia and Kenya and from the get go she was taught to hate Israel and the Jews. It took a number of years in the West to learn the error of thinking. Thus it is no surprise that recent immigrants to Europe are involved in anti-Semitic attacks.  

Perhaps most insidious is the rise of institutional anti-Semitism in academia and in the precincts of the progressive Left. Unlike the extreme Right that has been given new life under Trump, the anti-Semitic left is closer to power in the Democratic Party and it has taken over the Labour Party in the U.K..  In their world Jews are part of the white power structure and the view demonizes Israel as oppressors of the Palestinians. So great is their hatred of democratic Israel is that they view worldwide Jewry as their enemy. To be sure one can have and does have political differences with Israel, but that is a far cry from calling for the destruction of the Jewish State as BDS does.

Weiss’ solution in a nutshell is not so much to argue with the anti-Semites of the world, but rather to live our lives as proud Jews and stand strong in support of the State of Israel. Note I used the word state, not government; on that point we can disagree. Remember we are no longer the cowering Jews of 1930s Europe and 1880s Russia.

My criticism of Weiss’ book is that it seemed very rushed and in many respects had the aspects of a long magazine article. Further footnotes and a bibliography would have helped. I am a geek for sources. Nevertheless Weiss’ book should be read by Jew and non-Jew alike because as she notes anti-Semitism is a symptom of a very real disease in our democracy.

The full Amazon URL appears at: https://www.amazon.com/review/R3TQ65B69CJTE6/ref=pe_1098610_137716200_cm_rv_eml_rv0_rv

My Amazon Review of Daniel Gordis' "Israel: A Concise History of a Nation Reborn"

The Impossible Dream

After reading Daniel Gordis’ magnificent biography of Menachem Begin, I looked forward to his history of Israel. Although I liked his new book, I was somewhat disappointed in that I don’t think it is as good as Ari Shavit’s , “My Promised Land.”

Nevertheless Gordis brings to life the idea of a national homeland for the Jews from the proto-Zionists of the mid-1800s to Zionism becoming a mass movement under the leadership of Theodor Herzl after the first Zionist Congress in 1897. To dream of a state after nearly 2000 years of statelessness was truly an impossible dream, but it came true 50 years later after the horror of the holocaust that befell European Jewry.

What Zionism did was that it transformed the cowering Jew of the shtetl to the muscular member of the Israel Defense Forces of today. This is truly a major accomplishment. However early Zionism was secular and socialist and along the way it lost some of its Jewish soul which it is now returning to.

Gordis highlights the role of David Ben Gurion and his labor socialism in building the institutions necessary for statehood. After all, a state cannot be created out of thin air. The stat he built was dominated by the Ashkenazi Jews of northern Europe to the detriment of the Sephardi Jews of Africa and the Middle East. This would come home to roost with Begin’s surprise victory of 1977 giving power to the Israeli right.

As with most histories of Israel  Gordis discusses the Balfour Declaration, the White Paper, the war for independence, the 6-day war of 1956, the 1967 war and the 1973 war. Truly it is a history of conflict with the native Palestinian population and the neighboring Arab states. A conflict that continues to this day and in all likelihood it will not be resolved until the Palestinians accept the existence of Israel as a Jewish State.

What I found lacking in the book was the absence of any real discussion about the economy.  To be sure you need institutions to have a state, but you also need an economy. There should have been more discussion on the role of agriculture in the early days and the shift to a modern high-tech economy. He also neglects the importance of German Reparations in the 1950s, contributions form worldwide Jewry and foreign aid from the United States. While few in 1900 would have predicted the arrival of a Jewish state, even fewer would have predicted the modern economy that Israel has created. That is an important story worth telling. That said Gordis’ work puts in one volume a very readable history of Israel.

For the complete Amazon URL see:

https://www.amazon.com/Israel-Concise-History-Nation-Reborn-ebook/dp/B01B19O4FA/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1482250196&sr=1-1&keywords=daniel+gordis+israel