At a time when American Jews should feel more secure and cohesive than ever, civil war is tearing apart their community. Congregations, neighborhoods, even families are taking sides in battles about Jewish identity and Jewish authenticity. The conflict pits fundamentalist against secularist, denomination against denomination, even liberal against conservative within each branch of Jewry. "Jew vs. Jew" tells the story of how American Jewry has increasingly -- and perhaps terminally -- broken apart in the last forty years. "Jew vs. Jew" stretches in time from 1960 to 2000. It travels the country from Florida to New England, from Los Angeles to the Catskills in New York, from Cleveland to Denver, and it also crosses the ocean to Israel to show how tensions within the Jewish state inflame those among American Jews. The flash-points range from conversion standards to the role of women, from the peace process in Israel to the sexual climate on an Ivy League campus. But behind them all, as Samuel Freedman writes, lie common causes. First, far from unifying American Jews, Israel now divides them on both political and religious grounds. Second, neither America nor the larger world presents Jews with a single enemy against whom to coalesce. Third, and most important, nothing in the Jewish history of persecution, oppression, and exile prepared the Chosen People for the challenge posed by America, the challenge of being absorbed into a tolerant and diverse nation, being accepted so thoroughly that the intermarriage rate tops 50 percent. "Jew vs. Jew" introduces readers to memorable places and characters. Freedman describes one of the final summers at a Labor Zionist camp in theCatskills whose brand of secular Jewishness is becoming obsolete because Zionism succeeded in creating Israel. He tells the story of Orthodox and Reform Jews in a Cleveland suburb who are fighting about the construction of several synagogues -- and, on a deeper level, about whether unity or pluralism ought to be the goal of Jewish life. He portrays a Florida Jew so violently opposed to the Oslo peace accords that he planted a bomb in a synagogue where Shimon Peres was speaking. He tells about a Los Angeles congregation that spent three years debating whether or not to honor the Biblical matriarchs in its liturgy.We come to know the Long Island neighbors who cannot tolerate sharing even a property line because their versions of Jewish identity are so irreconcilably different. "Jew vs. Jew" is a work of vigorous reporting, lucid writing, and intellectual curiosity. And even as it chronicles an embittered and polarized community, it refuses to take sides or pass judgment. Instead, with compassion and acuity, "Jew vs. Jew" bears witness.
Jew vs. Jew is Samuel G. Freedman's passionate story of the "struggle for the soul of American Jewry." Freedman believes that three fundamental questions are rending the American Jewish community today: "What is the definition of Jewish identity? Who decides what is authentic and legitimate Judaism? And what is the Jewish compact with America?" Exploring these questions leads Freedman down a number of wild paths. He listens patiently to the fierce neighborly squabbles in Great Neck, New York; he reconstructs the tension-filled final days of a labor Zionist summer camp in the Catskills; he witnesses orthodox Jews attacking American conservative Jews worshiping at the foot of the Western Wall. Freedman expertly sketches the major conflicts in American Judaism--"secularist against believer, denomination against denomination, gender against gender, liberal against conservative, traditionalist against modernist even within each branch." The book's conclusions (such as "America without Jews is unimaginable, and the brave assimilationists made that possible, even if the price was much of their own distinctiveness as Jews") are not particularly groundbreaking. But Jew vs. Jew is a thoughtful and beautifully written assessment of the precarious situation of Jewish identity in America today. --Michael Joseph Gross
Customer Reviews:
Avg. Customer Rating: 3.5 / 5.0
One shiksa's opinion...it's good to care, even if it means you sometimes have to fight...:
Freedman spent two years and nine months researching and writing this book; the subject is obviously close to his heart but he has worked hard to be scrupulously fair. He skillfully weaves history, both ancient and modern, American and Israeli, into the twentieth-century American events he has chosen to illustrate conflicts between different Jewish factions. A chapter is given to each of the following:
1963 (Camp Kinderwelt, New York) - the story of Sharon, from a Labor Zionist family, and what... more info
Fascinating, but Not Quite Satisfying:
This book should be read if for no other reason than its fascinating subject. In portraying a series of Jewish communities, Samuel Freedman powerfully portrays both the diversity and the passionate divisions within modern American Jewry. It would be difficult to read this book and then attempt to answer a question like "What do Jews believe about _____" or "What's the Jewish perspective on _____." Typically, the most honest answer would be that while Jews disagree as to how they'd respond, each of us is... more info
Superficial Writing:
Freedman intends to study how American Jews differ on how they should interpret religion. For example, some Jews believe in strict adherance to Jewish doctrines, while some favour relaxation, such as letting women participate in religious services.
Freeman gives a good chunk of pages to the conflicts between "Orthodox" Jews, who lead lives dictated by religion, and more secular Jews, such as the Reform and Conservative groups. When Orthodox families flood a neighborhood that had been Jewish for years,... more info
An engaging communal portrait:
It has been thirty years or more since I left America , but I do have some sense of what has gone on with the American- Jewish community in that time. And I believe that Samuel Freedman accurately describes many of the processes, including the assimilation, intermarriage, strengthening of the Haredi world, decline of a kind of ethnic secular Judaism. Freedman has also suggested a decline in the kind of consensus within the community, and an increase in conflict over vital issues of identity and self-... more info
