On the front lines in a changing Jewish world: collected writings, 1988-2013

"Michael Kotzin is that rare activist who is also a powerful writer... [His] writings are dispatches from the front in the war for Jewish legitimacy."
From the preface by Yossi Klein Halevi

The essays, opinion columns, speeches, and reviews that appear in this collection deal with a range of subjects of central concern to the American Jewish community. Offered from the perspective of one who has been intimately involved in dealing with such issues, some of these pieces have an advocacy thrust while others are more analytic and contemplative.

Covering a dramatic, volatile quarter century in the world at large and for the Jewish people, these pieces illuminate the times in which they appeared while remaining relevant today - sometimes uncannily so.

With a foreword by Steven B. Nasatir, a preface by Yossi Klein Halevi, and an introduction and other new material by the author, this volume is thus both a fascinating record of the period it covers and a valuable resource for understanding and approaching today's challenges.

A Chicago native, Michael Kotzin is currently Senior Counselor to the President of the Jewish Federation of Metropolitan Chicago. He joined the staff of the Federation in 1988, and from 1999 until 2011 served as Executive Vice President. Before coming to the Federation he directed the Anti-Defamation League's Chicago office. He previously taught English Literature at Tel Aviv University for eleven years. The author of a book on the novels of Charles Dickens, he has published widely on literary topics and on issues high on the Jewish communal agenda.