The State of the Jews: A Critical Appraisal

by Edward Alexander (Editor)

Overview

The State of the Jews examines the current predicament of the Jewish people and the land of Israel, both of which still stand at the storm center of history, because Jews can never take the right to live as a natural right.

The volume comprises celebrations and attacks. Edward Alexander celebrates writers like Abba Kovner, Cynthia Ozick, Ruth Wisse, and Hillel Halkin, who recognized in the foundation of Israel shortly after the destruction of European Jewry one of the few redeeming events in a century of blood and shame. He attacks Israel's external enemies—busy planners of boycotts, brazen advocates of politicide, professorial apologists for suicide bombing—and also its internal enemies. These are "anti-Zionist" Jews, devotees of lost causes willfully blind to the fact that Israel's creation was an event of biblical magnitude. Indifference to Jewish survival during World War II was the admitted moral failure of earlier American-Jewish intellectuals, but today's "progressives" and "New Diasporists" call indifference virtue, and mistake cowardice for courage.

Because the new anti-Semitism, tightening the noose around Israel's throat, emanates mainly from liberals, Alexander analyzes both antisemitic and philosemitic strains in three prominent Victorian liberals: Thomas Arnold, his son Matthew, and John Stuart Mill. The main body of Alexander's book is divided generically into history, politics, and literature. At a deeper level, its chapters are integrated by the book's pervasive concern: the interconnectedness between the state of Israel and the spiritual state of contemporary Jewry.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781412846141
Publisher:	Transaction Publishers
Publication date:	07/15/2012
Pages:	264
Product dimensions:	6.10(w) x 9.20(h) x 0.70(d)

About the Author

Edward Alexander is professor emeritus of English at the University of Washington, Seattle. He is the author of The Jewish Idea and Its Enemies, The Holocaust and the War of Ideas, Irving Howe: Socialist, Critic, Jew, and Lionel Trilling and Irving Howe.

Table of Contents

Preamble: A Walk through the Table of Contents-and a Linguistic Alert xiii

Acknowledgments xv

Introduction 1

I The Victorian Background 13

Dr. Arnold, Matthew Arnold, and John Stuart Mill 15

II History 41

Britannia Waives the Rules: Antisemitism, English-Style 43

British Philosemitism: A Thing of the Past? 53

Medieval Zionism: Yehuda Halevi 59

Hitler's American Professors 65

Hitler's (Palestinian) Arabs 71

Beethoven and the Holocaust in Hungary 75

Israel's "Original Sin": The Refugees of 1948 81

"If I Am Not for Myself, Who Will Be for Me?" The History of Commentary Magazine 87

End of the Holocaust? 95

III Politics 103

Survival Precedes Definition: Ruth Wisse's Moral Imperative 105

"Pharaoh Who Knew Not Joseph": Obama Demotes the Jews 113

The Meaning of Criticism 123

Professors for Suicide Bombing: The Explosive Power of Boredom 129

Back to 1933: How the Academic Boycott of Israel Began 139

Afrocentrism, Liberal Dogmatism, and Antisemitism at Wellesley College 145

Tom Paulin: Poetaster of Murder 151

Jewish Israel-Haters Convert Their Dead Grandmothers: A New Mormonism? 159

The Antisemitism of Liberals: A Gentile's View 165

IV Literature 171

Lionel Trilling: The (Jewish) Road Not Taken 173

Metaphor and Memory in Cynthia Ozick: Pro and Con 181

Foreign Bodies: Americans Abroad in Post-Holocaust Europe 195

Saul Bellow's Jewish Letters 201

Lublin Before It Became Majdanek: Jacob Glatstein's Autobiography 207

Abba Kovner: Partisan, Poet, Curator, Avenger 213

Ashamed Jews: The Finkler Question 219

Daniel Deronda: "The Zionist Fate in English Hands" and "The Liberal Betrayal of the Jews" 227

Index 241

Editorial Reviews

"Alexander's book, in each exquisitely polished entry, identifies what Rabelais used to call 'the essential marrow' of the issue....[He] is a powerful polemicist who possesses a biting sense of humor...In this collection of essays, all of which display Alexander's matchless English prose style, it is difficult to single out favorites." —Arnold Ages, Chicago Jewish Star “Edward Alexander is… one of the better informed writers on matters Jewish… Alexander’s decades in front of his classes come through not as direct statements of the one true fact but rather as discussions of the varying experiences and writings of philo- and anti-semites, and as a good professor leaves his students wanting to learn more. Especially in an age in which the study of classics of Western thought is ignored, or chastised as irrelevant or oppressive to current ideological fervors, Alexander’s précis and discussion of many famous authors’ works does a service in awakening the reader’s interest in delving further… [I]n 238-pages the reader can delve into the past few hundred years of culture that shaped today’s anti-semitism.” —Bruce Kesler, San Diego Jewish World “In his latest magisterial collection of essays devoted to the Jewish struggle for survival. . . [Edward Alexander] has many lessons to teach us. . . . [An] eloquent and courageous volume. Anyone who believes that anti-Semitism should be exposed and not denied or explained away, that the Holocaust was first and foremost a crime against the Jewish people and not an offense against liberalism, and that Jews are entitled to defend themselves and to preserve their own state in their own homeland, will find in Edward Alexander’s writings a goldmine.” —Paul Bogdanor, Society “Alexander’s most scathing analysis focuses on academic anti-Semitism and the collaboration of Jewish liberals in the demotion of Israel to the fetid sewer of illegitimacy until recently reserved for Nazi Germany and South Africa… Edward Alexander’s critical appraisal of “the state of the Jews” reinforces his place of primacy in the continuing war, waged by far too few of our academic or intellectual colleagues, against Israel.” —Jerold S. Auerbach, Algemeiner “To open the lid of this much-traveled steamer trunk is to experience Alexander’s perceptive mind, dry humor, and exquisite sense of irony. Alexander is an entertaining dinner guest at your mental dining room table.” —Robert Wilkes, jtnews.net "[A] besieged people shows signs of cracking under the pressure as many of its most talented sons and daughters join the attackers, flaunting their cowardice and betrayal in hues of moral grandeur. However appalling much of the subject matter, Edward Alexander’s wit, erudition, and insight make this a desirable and important book to read." —P. David Hornik, Front Page “Alexander, a professor emeritus of English at the University of Washington, brings his command of language and broad appreciation of literature to bear on the liberal-left attacks on Israel while celebrating other literati for their laudatory writings on Israel’s founding. Playing on the title of Herzl’s famous Der Judenstaat, the central focus is on the antisemitic and philosemitic ideologies of the Victorian liberals, Dr. Thomas Arnold, his scion Matthew, and John Stuart Mill. The material presented is divided into three parts, history, politics, and literature, with a clear conservative approach, of the sort found in Commentary. Hence, a discussion follows on some of the more well-known English writers who depict Jews in a less than favorable light, Palestinian Arab authors who defame Jews and Judaism, and Holocaust deniers. The section on politics looks at anti-Israeli activities on American campuses, an anti-Obama critique and, probably most importantly, an examination of the concept of criticism. The final grouping on literature finds an evaluation of Lionel Trilling, Cynthia Ozick, and Saul Bellow, among others. This is a marvelous read, informative, and well-written, suitable for a wide range of audiences.” —Sanford R. Silverburg, Association of Jewish Libraries Reviews "The reviews and essays in State of the Jews are both controversial and provocative. They are also often insightful, if one takes into account the fact that Alexander is writing as one of America’s leading conservative intellectuals. Not everyone will agree with everything he writes—but almost everyone will enjoy the read.” —Sarah Schmidt, Jewish Political Studies Review “Edward Alexander, professor emeritus at the University of Washington, Seattle, is oldfangled enough to write with wit, grace and uncommon vigor. Disdaining the theory-ridden jargon that litters so much literacy criticism, he has authored many articles and books dealing with Jewish literary themes and intracommunal dialects. . . . The motivating force [for this book] is Alexander’s fierce, passionate love for the embattled, increasingly isolated Jewish state. . . . I admire Alexander’s trenchant commitment, his elegant synthesis of literature and politics and his rhetorical skill.” —Haim Chertok, Hadassah Magazine “By turns tough-minded and elegant, witty and contentious, Edward Alexander’s essays and reviews engage their subjects in bracing and always illuminating ways. Anyone who wants to learn about ‘the state of the Jews’ will find Alexander a perceptive and provocative guide. A brilliant polemicist, he has few rivals among commentators on contemporary Jewish themes.” —Alvin H. Rosenfeld, professor of English and Jewish studies, Irving M. Glazer Chair in Jewish Studies, director, Institute for the Study of Contemporary Antisemitism, Indiana University “To anyone conscious of the extent to which the higher journalism today, both in America and Europe, trades in willed self-delusion, these essays will come as a decided relief. Witty, pungent, brutally intelligent and wickedly well informed, they demonstrate that the American mind, in spite of everything, is alive and kicking. Alexander’s range is enviably wide. . . . Inevitably, many of these essays touch on the antisemitism once again haunting intellectual discourse. Because antisemitism has killed so many people, we tend to treat it, sometimes grudgingly, with respect. These essays reveal it squarely for what it is: a delusion of the very stupid; a standing offence against the wit, humanity, intelligence, and decency that Alexander’s work so abundantly embodies.” —Bernard Harrison, Emeritus E. E. Ericksen Professor of Philosophy, University of Utah, emeritus professor in the Faculty of Humanities, University of Sussex, UK “One reads this book with moral and aesthetic admiration. Its frightening message is that the so-called ‘new antisemitism’ is really the old antisemitism in a new disguise. It is a page-turner. Edward Alexander is battle-toughened in the trenches of intellectual combat. He knows his Jews, his Judaism, his history, and he sees through the disguises of their enemies with the accuracy of a veteran marksman. You could not find a better guide through the underworld of latter-day Jew-hatred. On top of this, Edward Alexander never wrote a dead sentence in his life. Here is an object lesson in the congruence of character and style, moral courage, and intellectual clarity.” —Abigail L. Rosenthal, professor of philosophy emerita, Brooklyn College of the City University of New York, author of A Good Look at Evil and Conversions: A Philosophic Memoir

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