The Vanishing American Jew: In Search of Jewish Identity for the Next Century

Alan M. Dershowitz

Ene 2000 · Ibinebenta ng Little, Brown

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In this urgent book, Alan M. Dershowitz shows why American Jews are in danger of disappearing - and what must be done now to create a renewed sense of Jewish identity for the next century. In previous times, the threats to Jewish survival were external - the virulent consequences of anti-Semitism. Now, however, in late-twentieth-century America, the danger has shifted. Jews today are more secure, more accepted, more assimilated, and more successful than ever before. They've dived into the melting pot - and they've achieved the American Dream. And that, according to Dershowitz, is precisely the problem. More than 50 percent of Jews will marry non-Jews, and their children will most often be raised as non-Jews. Which means, in the view of Dershowitz, that American Jews will vanish as a distinct cultural group sometime in the next century - unless they act now. Speaking to concerned Jews everywhere, Dershowitz calls for a new Jewish identity that focuses on the positive - the 3,500-year-old legacy of Jewish culture, values, and traditions. Dershowitz shows how this new Jewish identity can compete in America's open environment of opportunity and choice - and offers concrete proposals on how to instill it in the younger generation.

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Attorney and bestselling author Alan M. Dershowitz was first in his class at Yale Law School. Dershowitz was editor-in-chief of the Yale Law Journal and the youngest full professor in the history of Harvard Law School. He is currently the Felix Frankfurter Professor of Law at Harvard University. He has served on the National Board of Directors of the American Civil Liberties Union. Dershowitz has represented many controversial clients, including O. J. Simpson, Claus von Bulow, Mike Tyson, Leona Helmsley and Patricia Hearst. His books include Reasonable Doubt (about the O. J. Simpson trial) and Sexual McCarthyism: Clinton, Starr, and the Emerging Constitutional Crisis.