Friday, November : 18, 903 21'
THE DETROIT JEWISH NEWS,
O
NeiirBook"Digctigges
By ARTHUR SLOAN
"Why the Jews?" by De-
nnis Prager and Rabbi
Joseph Telushkin (Simon
and Schuster), and dedi-
cated to Raoul Wallenberg,
starts with the hypothesis
that Jews are hated not be-
cause people need
scapegoats, or that Jews are
affluent, or the anti-
Semitism is an example of
racism or religious bigotry,
or that anti-Semites are
simply sick, but Jews are
hated because they are Jews
and Judaism makes Jews
different and challenging.
The purpose of the book is
to prove the hypothesis
which the authors present
as the age-old Jewish
understanding of anti-
Semitism and to refute
modern attempts to deny
the distinctly Jewish rea-
sons for Jew-hatred and its
contemporary manifesta-
tion, anti-Zionism.
The authors inquire into
the reasons why the very
word "Jew" continues to
arouse passions as does no
other religious or national
name. Jew-hatred is pre-
. sented as unique with no
other hatred being - as uni-
versal, as _deep, or as per-
manent as anti-Semitism
and the universality of
anti-Semitism is attested to
by the fact that the JewS
have been expelled from
nearly every country in
which they have resided,
and they have been sub-
jected to beatings, torture
and murder solely because
they were Jews.
Modern attempts to
de-judaize anti-Semitism,
, to attribute it to eco-
nomic, social and politi-
cal reasons, and univer-
salize it into merely an-
other instance of bigotry
are stated by the authors
to be opposed to the facts
of Jewish history and to
the historical Jewish
understanding of anti-
Semitism.
Four basic reasons are
given: why the ultimate
cause of anti-Semitism is
that which has made Jews
Jewish — Judaism. These
are:
• Judaism has three com-
ponents — God, Torah and
Israel and the Jews' alle-
giance to any of these com-
ponents has rendered the
Jew an outsider and has
been regarded by non-Jews
as challenging the validity
of the non-Jews' gods and/or
national allegiance.
• The raison d'etre of
Judaism has been to change
the world for the better, and
this attempt to change the
world, to challenge the gods,
religious or secular, of the
societies around them, and
to make moral demands
upon others has constantly
been a source of tension be-
tween Jews and non-Jews.
• Judaism has held that
the Jews were chosen by
God to achieve the mission
of perfecting the world and
this has been a major cause
of anti-Semitism.
• As a result of the Jews'
commitment to Judaism,
they have led higher quality
lives than their neighbors
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TSUI 0111P3
Silt 31411119111
"Rozie's Rhymes,"
in almost every society in with those of Judaism.
which they have lived and
This book, which presents
this has provoked envy and an interesting treatment
hostility among non-Jews.
and analysis of anti-
There is a chapter on Semitism and its causes,
non-Jewish Jews whose concludes with an epilogue
only Jewish identity con- followed by detailed notes
sists of having been born
Jews, and who remain
Jews by virtue of not hav-
ing converted to another
religion. The authors be-
lieve that a small number
of radical non-Jewish
Jews have created a
problem for all Jews
since they destroy their
own and the non-Jews'
roots and their behavior
is identified as Jewish
behavior and anti-
Semites attribute their
destructive words and
actions to all Jews.
Modern reasons for anti-
Semitism such as the
scapegoat theory, econom-
ics, pSychological explana-
tions, etc. are considered by
the authors to be merely
factors exacerbating pre-
existing anti-Semitism.
The authors ask what is
to be done about anti-
Semitism and give five op-
tions: assimilation; going to
live among Jews in -the
Jewish state, Israel; con-
verting non-Jews to
Judaism; (what the authors
consider the most obvious
response) fighting anti-
Semitism wheneVer it man-
ifests itself; for Jews to
influence non-Jews to moral
values which are consonant
containing references and
authorities, a bibliography
and an index.
The epilogue deduces
that treatment of the
Jews has served as one of
humanity's barometers.
553-2226
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