In a candid, intellectual, often pessimistic book, Leifer pulls no punches.
A damning assessment of the present and future of Judaism.
Highly critical of Jewish structures, the U.S., and Israel, Leifer, a member of the Dissent editorial board, concludes the present era is “the autumn of American Jewish culture.” He continues, “What is left of American Jewish culture appears to have lost its distinctiveness and its bite, devolved into mere kitsch and cliché: no more Saul Bellow novels, only Seth Rogen movies.” The author explains that many 20th-century Jews, escaping oppression in Europe, aligned their Jewish identity with their newfound American identity, seeing what was good for America as being good for Jews. However, Leifer argues, “American Jewish integration and upward mobility accomplished the wholesale destruction of older forms of life, organizations, languages, and cultural memory.” While acculturated Jews thrived in America, many uncritically supported Zionism and the actions of the Israeli government and military, even as injustices mounted against Palestinians. The author views the current form of American Judaism as composed of a separatist Orthodoxy, a minority core of anti-establishment activists, and “a mainline affiliated Judaism sunken into indifference, satisfied with its shallowness, and unaware of the extent of its own religious ignorance.” He sees Judaism in Israel as similarly tainted by its American ties, whether financial, political, religious, or military. In his view, the October 7, 2023, attacks and resulting war are culminations of geopolitical mistakes going back to the administrations of Bill Clinton and George W. Bush. In a work replete with personal reflections and opinions, the author does not shy away from blunt criticism of numerous politicians and personalities who have shaped his own sense of dissent and stirred the anger of fellow young progressive Jews—an anger that only grows as the present conflict continues to claim thousands of lives.
In a candid, intellectual, often pessimistic book, Leifer pulls no punches.Pub Date: Aug. 20, 2024
ISBN: 9780593187180
Page Count: 416
Publisher: Dutton
Review Posted Online: May 28, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2024
IN THE NEWS
An incisive, urgently relevant analysis of—and call to action on—America’s foundational ideal.
An examination of how the U.S. can revitalize its commitment to freedom.
In this ambitious study, Snyder, author of On Tyranny, The Road to Unfreedom, and other books, explores how American freedom might be reconceived not simply in negative terms—as freedom from coercion, especially by the state—but positive ones: the freedom to develop our human potential within sustaining communal structures. The author blends extensive personal reflections on his own evolving understanding of liberty with definitions of the concept by a range of philosophers, historians, politicians, and social activists. Americans, he explains, often wrongly assume that freedom simply means the removal of some barrier: “An individual is free, we think, when the government is out of the way. Negative freedom is our common sense.” In his careful and impassioned description of the profound implications of this conceptual limitation, Snyder provides a compelling account of the circumstances necessary for the realization of positive freedom, along with a set of detailed recommendations for specific sociopolitical reforms and policy initiatives. “We have to see freedom as positive, as beginning from virtues, as shared among people, and as built into institutions,” he writes. The author argues that it’s absurd to think of government as the enemy of freedom; instead, we ought to reimagine how a strong government might focus on creating the appropriate conditions for human flourishing and genuine liberty. Another essential and overlooked element of freedom is the fostering of a culture of solidarity, in which an awareness of and concern for the disadvantaged becomes a guiding virtue. Particularly striking and persuasive are the sections devoted to eviscerating the false promises of libertarianism, exposing the brutal injustices of the nation’s penitentiaries, and documenting the wide-ranging pathologies that flow from a tax system favoring the ultrawealthy.
An incisive, urgently relevant analysis of—and call to action on—America’s foundational ideal.Pub Date: Sept. 17, 2024
ISBN: 9780593728727
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: June 25, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2024
If the authors are serious, this is a silly, distasteful book. If they are not, it’s a brilliant satire.
The authors have created a sort of anti-Book of Virtues in this encyclopedic compendium of the ways and means of power.
Everyone wants power and everyone is in a constant duplicitous game to gain more power at the expense of others, according to Greene, a screenwriter and former editor at Esquire (Elffers, a book packager, designed the volume, with its attractive marginalia). We live today as courtiers once did in royal courts: we must appear civil while attempting to crush all those around us. This power game can be played well or poorly, and in these 48 laws culled from the history and wisdom of the world’s greatest power players are the rules that must be followed to win. These laws boil down to being as ruthless, selfish, manipulative, and deceitful as possible. Each law, however, gets its own chapter: “Conceal Your Intentions,” “Always Say Less Than Necessary,” “Pose as a Friend, Work as a Spy,” and so on. Each chapter is conveniently broken down into sections on what happened to those who transgressed or observed the particular law, the key elements in this law, and ways to defensively reverse this law when it’s used against you. Quotations in the margins amplify the lesson being taught. While compelling in the way an auto accident might be, the book is simply nonsense. Rules often contradict each other. We are told, for instance, to “be conspicuous at all cost,” then told to “behave like others.” More seriously, Greene never really defines “power,” and he merely asserts, rather than offers evidence for, the Hobbesian world of all against all in which he insists we live. The world may be like this at times, but often it isn’t. To ask why this is so would be a far more useful project.
If the authors are serious, this is a silly, distasteful book. If they are not, it’s a brilliant satire.Pub Date: Sept. 1, 1998
ISBN: 0-670-88146-5
Page Count: 430
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 1998
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