Faith or Fear: How Jews Can Survive in a Christian America (Hardcover)

by Elliott Abrams (Author) "SINCE THE earliest decades of this century, the American Jewish community has seemed the safest and most successful of them all..." (more)
Key Phrases: intermarriage crisis, endorsing religion, synagogue affiliation, American Jews, American Jewish, United States (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review
The Jewish population in the United States may shrink by two million people in the next half-century. This demographic likelihood--well known in Jewish circles and due almost entirely to intermarriage--creates a dilemma for group survival. A big part of the problem, writes Elliott Abrams, has been the secularization of Jewish life. Abrams uncovers data showing that Jews are among the least religious people in America. Many have made a tragic mistake in equating Jewish security with removing all forms of religious devotion from public life. And now, says Abrams, they must either rediscover the faith that can sustain them or risk vanishing into the great American melting pot. Provocative, but persuasive, this highly readable book deserves a wide audience.

From Library Journal
Neoconservative writer Abrams (Security and Sacrifice, Hudson Inst., 1995), who had a controversial career in politics as a former assistant secretary of state in the Reagan administration, is now the director of a Washington, D.C., think tank. Like Alan Dershowitz in his The Vanishing American Jew (LJ 3/1/97), Abrams is concerned with the loss of Jewish identity in an attractive, amorphous American culture. While both seek a revitalization of the Jewish spirit, Dershowitz sees belief in a deity as just a part of Jewish cultural renewal; Abrams believes that the only way for Jews to survive is by renewed religious faith. Dershowitz scorns the Orthodox methods of separateness, while Abrams believes Jews should emulate some of them. Abrams also argues for the benefits of a school voucher plan and heeding the influence of evangelical Christian groups. Libraries that ordered the Dershowitz tome may want to buy this one for comparison and contrast. Recommended for libraries serving a Jewish clientele.?Paul M. Kaplan, Lake Villa Dist. Library, Ill.
Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 256 pages
• Publisher: Free Press (June 4, 1997)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0684825112
• ISBN-13: 978-0684825113
• Product Dimensions: 9.6 x 6.4 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #1,679,042 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Well-written addressing of a difficult issue, October 4, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: Faith or Fear: How Jews Can Survive in a Christian America (Paperback)

Despite 3000 years of history, Jews still argue over who is a Jew. Abrams addresses a lot of the issues surrounding this: Judaism as a religion vs. as a culture, intermarriage, et al. He also addresses how these ideas apply to American history, culture, and politics. To his credit, he states his biases up front, but he also does a good job backing up his assertions with surveys and anecdotes that, at least for me, resonated.

The book is well-written and an easy read, which is a compliment for a book with an academic tone. Abrams' analysis of the generational patterns of American Jews maintaining or losing their Jewish identity are quite right, and a must read for any Jew who wants Jewish grandchildren. Some of Abrams' arguments were less convincing.

Whatever your reaction to the book, the discussion will never end. (Insert your favorite Jewish mother or Jewish guilt joke here). This book represents a productive contribution to that discussion, and as such I recommend it to anyone who is concerned with personal or societal Jewish identity.

2 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Having a Jewish Identity crisis? Answer: GET RELIGION!, February 19, 2005

By	Zeeskyte - See all my reviews

This review is from: Faith or Fear: How Jews Can Survive in a Christian America (Paperback)

If anyone hadn't heard his name before, just a reminder, this author was the Assistant Secretary of State during the Reagan era. His book these reads like a report on Jewish life in illreverant America. While his argument on the state of Jewish idenity is well defended, (ie, like minimizing the religious aspect of the Jewish idenity and having major jewish organizations not supporting the religiously observant publically has lead to a loss of jewish poeple #s, etc.) it has some obvious flaws.

For example, he says that today's role of the Christian right and anti-semetism has been overexagerrated and feared by Jews. Great strides in the Christian-Jewish dialigoe has minimize hate teaching and proselytizing of jews by christian organizations. There is a great acceptance of Jews as senators,etc and other community leadership roles. And true, fundamentalists and evangetical organizations are no longer targeting jews per se and actually support Israel. But what is ignored is that they no longer have to directly. Why there are separate organizations that allow jews to do it to themselves. They are called Jews for Jesus and Messianic synagogues! There are over 100 messianic synagogues in Israel alone! Why no mention in the book? These outreach efforts are funded by the very evangetical organizations jews should not fear in allowing support to their religious political/educational agendas - in exchange of orthodox jewish ones.

Another example that struck me a bit off is the "abandonment" of the outreach to jews of mixed ethnic origins ("half" and "quarter" jews). Granted he does not say this directly, but he suggests money being more well spent in educating the remaining full jews from marrying outside the faith completely, regardless of a spousal conversion. To me this would be like jewish suicide, in denying the rest of the jewish population how they choose to idenify themselves as jews. If anything, jews of mixed ethnic or faith backgrounds need a special kind of sensitivity otherwise, they will deny their 'jewish self' all the more easily.

Lastly, there are divisions in the Jewish community on Israel due to their inability to create a peaceful solution with their neighbors, the Palestinians. Flag waving at the synagogues only help so much. The issue is not properly dealt with in this book which gives Abrams' book a false sense of authenticity.

Of course I recognize the problems Jews faced today. As a convert who has jewish relatives both though my step-father and now a jewish husband, I wonder how did I ever get into this mess! The jewish people have conflicts within their faith as well as outside of it, quite unique from say Irish or Italian american intermarriage to the protestants (though his comparisons to those groups are interesting). Identification with ourselves as a group must be more liberal that of the original torah. In this sense 'jewish survival' will depend more on the oral tradition of reinterpreting the original precepts of the jewish faith rather than the narrow view of jewish identification which he sees as the only way for Jews to exist as fully jews. And NO it does not mean that a Christmas tree needs to be put in a lobby of the Reform synagogue as he insinuates! Geez!

10 of 22 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Liberals ignore this book at their peril, April 2, 2001

By	Scribe "Scribe" (San Francisco, CA United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Faith or Fear: How Jews Can Survive in a Christian America (Paperback)

Abrams' unflinching clarity, wisdom, brilliance, responsibility, and calm are equally evident in his writing and in his eyes (see book jacket). His book, rich with meticulously documented references and chapters organized with the grace of rivers flowing into the sea, held me in thrall; it was over too soon! (We love to read someone else's case for our existing opinions.)

After my own vain efforts to bridge the rift between Right and Left, observant and downright anti-religious, I had recently concluded that the anti-religious Left is a branch best left to die. Abrams addresses my conclusion. Liberals ignore this book at their peril. My burning questions: (1) From a theological perspective, wouldn't a non-anti-Jewish Christianity cease to be Christianity at all?, and (2) What is it -- a yeshiva education? -- that creates a person so clear-sighted, unrelentingly logical, and pleasantly articulate as the author?

pk