Jews Against Themselves: By Edward Alexander
http://www.mideastoutpost.com/archives/from-the-editor-rael-jean-isaac-46.html
The inimitable Edward Alexander has done it again—produced a book of essays, Jews Against Themselves, as devastating as it is witty and erudite. That Alexander writes so beautifully makes the painful nature of his subject—the large number of Jews who have turned against Israel– bearable.
Alexander notes: “There will always be readers who express astonishment that there are Jews who question the Jewish right to live as a natural right, or hate Israel and are ashamed to have a state. Surely they are as rare as singing mice or card-playing pigs. Alas, no.”
Says Alexander: “I have not attempted a systematic taxonomy of all the species of Jews arrayed under the genus ‘enemies of Israel,’ a monumental task that would require an encyclopedia to include the following: Jewish progressives against Israel; Jewish queers against Israel; Haredim against Israel; Holocaust survivors against Israel; children of Holocaust survivors against Israel; Jewish Voice for Peace; grandchildren of Holocaust survivors against Israel; survivors of the Warsaw Ghetto against Israel; J Street; Jewish postmodernists against Israel; Jewish Berkeley professors against Israel; post-Zionists against Israel; Jewish members of MESA (Middle East Studies Association) against Israel; Jews for Boycotting Israeli Goods (JBIG, also called, seasonally, London’s Jewish Christmas carolers against Israel); and so on and on, ad infinitum, ad nauseam.”
Even if you have read one or more of these essays when they first appeared (in places like The Weekly Standard, Commentary, Algemeiner), reading them together is far more powerful. For example, this is from an essay in the book not previously published: “How many adult Jews in 1948 could have imagined that the Holocaust would cast its specter of blood and shame over the Jews well into the next century, that its lesson would be not ‘Never again,’ but—for the victims—‘It happened once, it can happen again’ and—for the perpetrators—‘We did it once we can do it again.’”
The book is published by Transaction and available on Amazon.
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