Jews without mercy: A lament - Hardcover

Shorris, Earl

9780385178532: Jews without mercy: A lament

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0385178530 ISBN 13: 9780385178532

Publisher: Anchor Press, 1982

No one speaks for the Jews. .We are the people of the great fraction; the whole of us must always be described as the number of Jews divided by the number of Jews. Even Moses was permitted no role greater than that of messenger. We are a nation by belief, by ethics, and by history. We are difficult to lead, impossible to collect, a tribe of individuals, a brotherhood of critics. From time to time in our history men and women have come forward, claiming to speak as Jews for Jews. The temptation to proclaim oneself king or prophet in a nation of equals before God is enormous, for God does not seem to answer many prayers. Jews are not likely to turn away the self-proclaimed king or prophet without a hearing, for the life of a Jew offers little ease: History holds little promise, heaven remains in dispute; we are not hostages to fortune but to ethics. As each new challenge to our ethical existence arises, a chorus of Jewish voices answers. The current challenge comes from within the ranks of Jews. A group of men and women, claiming to be both Jews and neoconservatives, now proposes that Jews accept a new ethical definition of themselves, a definition contrary to much, perhaps most, of what has defined us since our historical beginning in the desert after we were Sojourners in Egypt. This book seeks to answer that proposal.

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