Jewish Polemics

Book Summary

Jewish Polemics offers essays by one of the most widely read and respected political commentators and scholars of the Jewish experience, Arthur Hertzberg. He begins with a personal statement concerning his own past experiences as an American Jew who emigrated in 1926 from Europe, who had family murdered by the Nazis, and who actively participated in the creation of Israel. He then expands the narrative to take on the most highly charged political issues being debated today. Provocative, lively, politically important, and controversial, Hertzberg's essays touch on such topics as Zionism in America, God and the Holocaust, Christian-Jewish relations, the Arab-Israeli conflict, and Israeli politics. Hertzberg challenges and examines the viewpoints of such noted leaders and personalities as Menachem Begin, Yitzhak Shamir, and Pope John Paul II. Striking a beautiful balance between the personal and the political, this is a book of moral outcry expressed in argument--with politicians, with notions of right and wrong, with oneself--in linking past experiences and religious and cultural upbringing to one's view of the world. The selections will appeal to all readers interested in the American Jewish experience, Jewish political thought, the Arab-Israeli conflict, and religious debate. Especially compelling is Hertzberg's call for the individual's responsibility and role in effecting positive political and social change. -- "The Jewish Week"

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