Jews And Power

Author : Ruth R. Wisse
Publisher : Schocken
Page : 258 pages
File Size : 44,8 Mb
Release : 2008-12-24
Category : Religion
ISBN : 9780307533135

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Jews and Power by Ruth R. Wisse Pdf

Part of the Jewish Encounter series Taking in everything from the Kingdom of David to the Oslo Accords, Ruth Wisse offers a radical new way to think about the Jewish relationship to power. Traditional Jews believed that upholding the covenant with God constituted a treaty with the most powerful force in the universe; this later transformed itself into a belief that, unburdened by a military, Jews could pursue their religious mission on a purely moral plain. Wisse, an eminent professor of comparative literature at Harvard, demonstrates how Jewish political weakness both increased Jewish vulnerability to scapegoating and violence, and unwittingly goaded power-seeking nations to cast Jews as perpetual targets. Although she sees hope in the State of Israel, Wisse questions the way the strategies of the Diaspora continue to drive the Jewish state, echoing Abba Eban's observation that Israel was the only nation to win a war and then sue for peace. And then she draws a persuasive parallel to the United States today, as it struggles to figure out how a liberal democracy can face off against enemies who view Western morality as weakness. This deeply provocative book is sure to stir debate both inside and outside the Jewish world. Wisse's narrative offers a compelling argument that is rich with history and bristling with contemporary urgency.

Author : Ruth R. Wisse
Publisher : Schocken
Page : 258 pages
File Size : 44,6 Mb
Release : 2020-02-04
Category : Religion
ISBN : 9780805211740

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Jews and Power by Ruth R. Wisse Pdf

Part of the Jewish Encounter series Taking in everything from the Kingdom of David to the Oslo Accords, Ruth Wisse offers a radical new way to think about the Jewish relationship to power. Traditional Jews believed that upholding the covenant with God constituted a treaty with the most powerful force in the universe; this later transformed itself into a belief that, unburdened by a military, Jews could pursue their religious mission on a purely moral plain. Wisse, an eminent professor of comparative literature at Harvard, demonstrates how Jewish political weakness both increased Jewish vulnerability to scapegoating and violence, and unwittingly goaded power-seeking nations to cast Jews as perpetual targets. Although she sees hope in the State of Israel, Wisse questions the way the strategies of the Diaspora continue to drive the Jewish state, echoing Abba Eban's observation that Israel was the only nation to win a war and then sue for peace. And then she draws a persuasive parallel to the United States today, as it struggles to figure out how a liberal democracy can face off against enemies who view Western morality as weakness. This deeply provocative book is sure to stir debate both inside and outside the Jewish world. Wisse's narrative offers a compelling argument that is rich with history and bristling with contemporary urgency.

Author : J. J. Goldberg
Publisher : Addison Wesley Publishing Company
Page : 456 pages
File Size : 51,5 Mb
Release : 1996-10-24
Category : History
ISBN : UOM:39015038161447

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Jewish Power by J. J. Goldberg Pdf

an independent force on the national and world scene in the last quarter-century. Goldberg offers an insider's portrait of the people, the institutions, the money, and the ideas that make up organized Jewish political influence in the U.S.

Author : Marc Dollinger
Publisher : NYU Press
Page : 328 pages
File Size : 43,7 Mb
Release : 2024-04-02
Category : History
ISBN : 9781479826889

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Black Power, Jewish Politics by Marc Dollinger Pdf

"Black Power, Jewish Politics expands with this revised edition that includes the controversial new preface, an additional chapter connecting the book's themes to the national reckoning on race, and a foreword by Jews of Color Initiative founder Ilana Kaufman that all reflect on Blacks, Jews, race, white supremacy, and the civil rights movement"--

Author : Ruth R. Wisse
Publisher : Simon and Schuster
Page : 244 pages
File Size : 44,5 Mb
Release : 1992
Category : History
ISBN : 9780743229616

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If I Am Not For Myself by Ruth R. Wisse Pdf

For over a century, Jews have been identified with liberalism. Not only have they been a driving force behind the spread of liberal politics; they have also been steadfastly loyal to a doctrine that promised them both safety and political acceptance. Recent evidence suggests that their commitment has not waned. But while Jews continue to stand up for other groups and "vote their conscience", contends Ruth Wisse, the liberal commitment to the Jews is not nearly so strong. Whenever Jews have been attacked - from the trial of Captain Dreyfus to the sustained military and political war against Israel - liberals have been slow to defend Jewish rights and have preferred instead to hold the Jews responsible for the persistence of their enemies. The explanation for this liberal default, Wisse argues, is the survival and success of anti-Semitism. This irrational idea continues to flourish throughout the world, despite the destruction of the fascist and communist regimes that were its deadliest twentieth-century allies. Wisse points out that anti-Semitism's astonishing resilience has put liberals - including liberal Jews - in an impossible position. The only reasonable response to such a doctrine, Wisse insists, is not appeasement or avoidance, but steadfast confrontation and rejection. Yet such opposition is alien to liberal ideas of open-mindedness and strikes many as intolerant. Unwilling to suspend their optimistic view of man as a benevolent and rational being in order to combat a mortal enemy, most liberals - including many Jews - conclude that Jews themselves must be responsible for the continuing wars against them - thus implicitly condoning their sacrifice. Wisse's book, inspired by afriend's emigration to Israel, traces the Jewish romance with liberalism from its discovery by Jewish integrationists and Zionists to the acceptance today by many Jews of a moral equivalence between Zionism and the war against it. She also explores, among the many contradictions of modern Jewish politics, the ambiguous question of Jewish "chosenness", and the Jewish longing for acceptance in a larger human family; the successful Arab war of ideas against Israel; and the dilemma of Jewish writers and intellectuals who wish to transcend their parochializing siege. Above all, she shows how and why anti-Semitism became the twentieth century's most successful ideology and reveals what people in liberal democracies would have to do to prevent it from once again achieving its goal.

Author : David Biale
Publisher : Schocken
Page : 261 pages
File Size : 49,6 Mb
Release : 2010-12-22
Category : History
ISBN : 9780307772534

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Power & Powerlessness in Jewish History by David Biale Pdf

To shed light on the tensions he observed between Jewish perceptions of power versus political realitieswhich "are often the cause of misguided political decisions," like Israel's Lebanese WarBiale analyzes Jewish history from the point of view of politics and power. The author of Gershom Scholem: Kabbalah and Counter-History here challenges the conventions of what he terms the Jewish "mythical past": the anachronistic interpretation that the Diaspora, which occurred between the fall of an independent Jewish commonwealth in A.D. 70 and the rebirth of the State of Israel in 1948, was politically impotent, and, conversely, that the First and Second Temple periods were eras of full Jewish national sovereignty.

Author : Elka Klein
Publisher : University of Michigan Press
Page : 346 pages
File Size : 42,9 Mb
Release : 2006
Category : History
ISBN : 0472115227

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Jews, Christian Society, & Royal Power in Medieval Barcelona by Elka Klein Pdf

Traces the development of the Jewish community in Barcelona from 1050 to 1300 and its interactions with greater Catalan society and its rulers

Author : Henry Feingold
Publisher : Routledge
Page : 181 pages
File Size : 44,9 Mb
Release : 2017-07-12
Category : Social Science
ISBN : 9781351510875

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Jewish Power in America by Henry Feingold Pdf

Jewish political power exists as a separate agency in the American polity, but before it can be determined whether it is inordinate, historian Henry L. Feingold declares that it first needs to be identified and defined. Jewish power is not associated with military armaments as with a sovereign state like Israel. Nor is it personal power. There are many influential Jews today who have raised huge sums for office seekers, but there are none whose use of financial resources was inordinate. With the exception of an abiding concern with the security of Israel, there are no overriding public policy concerns that differentiate Jewish voters from the informed, educated segment of the American electorate. Feingold acknowledges that American Jews do have political power. But what kind is it, and how does it compare to the power exercised by other ethnic and interest groups that thrive in the American polity? The basic charge of those who have raised the alarm about Jewish power—that it is used conspiratorially against the national interest—is addressed and repudiated. This book addresses the question of Jewish power by examining five recent major instances, beginning with the New Deal, when the play of Jewish power, or power exercised by Jews, was evident. The engagement of American Jewry in the political process is amply documented by survey research and evidenced by the disproportionate number of Jewish office holders on all levels of government. It can be traced in some measure to its relationship to European Jewish migration and to the inherent activism of the political left. The work presents the reader with a broadly comprehensive and highly informative picture of American Jewish participation in the American polity.

Author : Daniel Judah Elazar
Publisher : University Press of America
Page : 338 pages
File Size : 52,6 Mb
Release : 1991
Category : Business & Economics
ISBN : 0819181293

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Authority, Power, and Leadership in the Jewish Polity by Daniel Judah Elazar Pdf

An informative exploration of the Jewish polity from biblical times to the present.

Author : Maristella Botticini,Zvi Eckstein
Publisher : Princeton University Press
Page : 346 pages
File Size : 44,8 Mb
Release : 2012
Category : Business & Economics
ISBN : 9780691144870

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The Chosen Few by Maristella Botticini,Zvi Eckstein Pdf

Maristella Botticini and Zvi Eckstein show that, contrary to previous explanations, this transformation was driven not by anti-Jewish persecution and legal restrictions, but rather by changes within Judaism itself after 70 CE--most importantly, the rise of a new norm that required every Jewish male to read and study the Torah and to send his sons to school. Over the next six centuries, those Jews who found the norms of Judaism too costly to obey converted to other religions, making world Jewry shrink. Later, when urbanization and commercial expansion in the newly established Muslim Caliphates increased the demand for occupations in which literacy was an advantage, the Jews found themselves literate in a world of almost universal illiteracy. From then forward, almost all Jews entered crafts and trade, and many of them began moving in search of business opportunities, creating a worldwide Diaspora in the process.

Author : Henry L. Feingold
Publisher : Transaction Publishers
Page : 164 pages
File Size : 51,9 Mb
Release : 2011
Category : Electronic books
ISBN : 1412847265

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Jewish Power in America by Henry L. Feingold Pdf

Author : M. Benjamin Mollov
Publisher : Lexington Books
Page : 272 pages
File Size : 49,5 Mb
Release : 2002
Category : Biography & Autobiography
ISBN : 0739103741

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Power and Transcendence by M. Benjamin Mollov Pdf

Although Morgenthau, primarily known for his works on international relations such as Politics Among Nations (1948) and In Defense of the National Interest (1951), has been seen as a one-dimensional advocate of pure Realpolitik, Mollov (political science, Bar-Ilan U., Israel) argues that themes of transcendence are very important to his work and seeks to explore those aspects of his political thought that have been influenced by his background as a German Jewish emigre from Nazi Germany. After identifying the Jewish aspect of Morgenthau's work, Mollov uses these elements to attempt to define a Jewish approach to international politics, presumably of primary relevance for the state of Israel. Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR

Author : Edward Tivnan
Publisher : Simon & Schuster
Page : 312 pages
File Size : 48,8 Mb
Release : 1987
Category : Israel
ISBN : UCAL:B4446054

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The Lobby by Edward Tivnan Pdf

Traces Zionism in America and the activities of the pro-Israel lobby, officially created in 1954 as AZCPA (American Zionist Council of Public Affairs) and later called AIPAC (American Israel Public Affairs Committee). Mentions antisemitism and anti-Zionism and the possibility of an antisemitic backlash engendered by AIPAC's activities.

Author : Adam Teller
Publisher : Stanford University Press
Page : 329 pages
File Size : 42,8 Mb
Release : 2016-09-21
Category : History
ISBN : 9780804799874

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Money, Power, and Influence in Eighteenth-Century Lithuania by Adam Teller Pdf

It has often been claimed that Jews have a penchant for capitalism and capitalist economic activity. With this book, Adam Teller challenges that assumption. Examining how Jews achieved their extraordinary success within the late feudal economy of the eighteenth-century Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, he shows that economic success did not necessarily come through any innate entrepreneurial skills, but through identifying and exploiting economic niches in the pre-modern economy—in particular, the monopoly on the sale of grain alcohol. Jewish economic activity was a key factor in the development of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, and it greatly enhanced the incomes, and thereby the social and political status, of the noble magnates, including the powerful Radziwiłł family. In turn, with the magnate's backing, Jews were able to leverage their own economic success into high status in estate society. Over time, relations within Jewish society began to change, putting less value on learning and pedigree and more on wealth and connections with the estate owners. This groundbreaking book exemplifies how the study of Jewish economic history can shed light on a crucial mechanism of Jewish social integration. In the Polish-Lithuanian setting, Jews were simultaneously a despised religious minority and key economic players, with a consequent standing that few could afford to ignore.

Author : Gershon David Hundert
Publisher : JHU Press
Page : 319 pages
File Size : 41,9 Mb
Release : 2019-12-01
Category : History
ISBN : 9781421436272

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The Jews in a Polish Private Town by Gershon David Hundert Pdf

Winner of the Montreal Jewish Public Library's J. I. Segal Prize Originally published in 1991. In the eighteenth century, more than half of the world's Jewish population lived in Polish private villages and towns owned by magnate-aristocrats. Furthermore, roughly half of Poland's entire urban population was Jewish. Thus, the study of Jews in private Polish towns is central to both Jewish history and to the history of Poland-Lithuania. The Jews in a Polish Private Town seeks to investigate the social, economic, and political history of Jews in Opatów, a private Polish town, in the context of an increasing power and influence of private towns at the expense of the Polish crown and gentry in the eighteenth century. Hundert recovers an important community from historical obscurity by providing a balanced perspective on the Jewish experience in the Polish Commonwealth and by describing the special dimensions of Jewish life in a private town.