Where Are We?: The Inner Life of America's Jews - Softcover

Fein, Leonard

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0060915641 ISBN 13: 9780060915643

Publisher: Harper & Row, 1989

Synopsis

Exploring the convictions and confusions of Jewish life, the author examines the ways in which American Jews grapple with concepts such as the Holocaust, Israel, and God and the imperative of Jewish survival

About this title

From Publishers Weekly:

In this bold inquiry into how American Jews define themselves, Fein touches many raw nerves. For example, he charges that the Holocaust and the saga of Israel have become substitutes for the shared meanings that once solidified the interrelatedness of Jews. He ponders the Israeli "search for exoneration, for reassurance that they have not gone military." Author of Politics in Israel, Fein examines sensitive issues in this open-ended exploration. "One does not have to take God literally in order to take God seriously," he declares, then goes on to argue that the U.S. Jewish community can only survive if it becomes a wellspring of values and moral standards. Dismissing as myth the alleged rightward political turn of America's Jews, he questions the verities of liberalism, which he dubs a "political religion." His probing report mixes soul-searching and sociological analysis.
Copyright 1988 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal:

Fein, founding editor and publisher of Moment magazine, has here written a readable, lucid, and evocative analysis of Jewish life and Judaism in the United States today. His questions concerning identity, theology, and the relationship between American Jewry and Israel are ones Jews are now trying to face; his answers, stemming from a liberal, intellectual Jewish perspective, are controversial and thought-provoking. Fein carefully considers such issues as the differences between Jewish values and Jewish interests, the relationship between Jews and blacks, the importance of pluralism to American Jews, and the conflict between Jewish liberalism and neoconservatism. Highly recommended. Maurice Tuchman, Hebrew Coll. Lib., Brookline, Mass.
Copyright 1988 Reed Business Information, Inc.

About this edition

• Publisher: Harper & Row
• Publication date: 1989
• ISBN 10: 0060915641
• ISBN 13: 9780060915643
• Binding: Paperback