Futurizing the Jews: Alternative Futures for Meaningful Jewish Existence in the 21st Century [Hardcover]

Tsvi Bisk (Author), Moshe Dror (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0275969088 | ISBN-13: 978-0275969080 | Publication Date: November 30, 2003

Bisk and Dror assert that the 21st Century can be the Jewish Century, that no other people is better prepared to face its challenges. However, to do so, a stress on the Jewish Future must replace a preoccupation with the Jewish Past. They offer a neo-Zionist ideological analysis of modern Jewish life as an alternative to both classical Zionism and post-Zionism. They conceptualize a Jewish Grand Strategy by clearly defining and delineating between ideology, policy, grand strategy, strategy and tactics, with compelling proposals for what such a revised Grand Straegy might entail.

They suggest a concept of reinvigorated Israel-Diaspora relations based on this new Grand Strategy and the potential of the Information Technology Revolution. They also offer a conception of Jewish spirituality that could be as appealing to secular as to religious Jews. They reject the concept of a Nation that Dwells Alone. Throughout the ages, Jews have affected and been affected by the world more than any other People they assert. They also reject the view that suffering is the dominant feature of Jewish history as this lachrymose perception cannot inspire needed Jewish ambitions in the young. They stress the needs of the Jewish person and insist that there can be no real significance to the continued existence of the Jewish People unless the real life, concrete needs of the individual are addressed. As former Israeli Ambassador to the United Nations and former Cabinent Minister Gad Yaacobi asserts in his foreword, The book is original, iconoclastic and in some ways revolutionary … it challenges inherited assumptions and calls for positive action. I believe we have before us a book that must become a reference point for Jewish policy makers as quickly as possible.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"Few writers can match Bisk in his in-depth grasp of the situation of world Jewry yesterday, today, and tomorrow. Few have the creativity, the sensitivity, and the chutzpah to make spirit-stretching sense of it. Few are as helpful in enabling us to feel the urgency of the situation, know how high are the stakes, and resolve to do more to assure a 21st century for world Jewry that honors us all, Jew and Gentile alike."-Professor Arthur B. Shostak Sociologist Drexel University, Philadelphia, PA

Book Description

Examines where the Jewish People are at the beginning of the 21st Century and where they go from there.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 288 pages
• Publisher: Praeger (November 30, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0275969088
• ISBN-13: 978-0275969080
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.2 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,052,128 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Will the Jews last?, February 14, 2004

By 

Roberta Russell (New York City, NY USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Futurizing the Jews: Alternative Futures for Meaningful Jewish Existence in the 21st Century (Hardcover)

Futurizing the Jews: Alternative Futures for Meaningful Jewish Existence in the 21st Century

Anti-Semitism is rising and the Jews are disappearing at an accelerating rate, with the median age of American Jewry at over 45-10 to 20 years older than other American norms-and interfaith marriage now a routine affair. Unless the advantages of being Jewish are increased, this trend will continue unabated until a 4,000-year-old history comes to a close by the end of the 21st. century.

The erudite authors, of Futurizing the Jews: Alternative Futures for Meaningful Jewish Existence in the 21st Century, Tsvi Bisk and Moshe Dror, examine this trend from an historic to a current political and economic perspective and offer creative and enlightened ways and means to take advantage of contemporary and futuristic technology to create more a meaningful Jewish identity and support system.

In the context of a metamorphic paradigm for the expression of the Jewish concept tikkun olam (healing the world), possible alliances with environmentalists and educators, who in one form or another share this purpose, are proposed. The authors counsel, "... Jews who do not believe in a transcendent, supernatural god ...can aspire to a rich spiritual life within the Jewish tradition."

Bisk and Dror believe that liberal acceptance and uncritical ecumenism-referred to here as "the New Age bromide all `religions' are really the same," are the greatest current threat to the Jewish people, a threat even greater than growing anti-Semitism.

They present their fascinating and thought-provoking account of the the real bottom-line differences in values that still exist between the secular (non-believing Jew) and the rest of society, Zionism not withstanding. "...A Jew cannot have a personal relationship with god, because god is not a person." Admittedly, they had me, a traditionally resistant student of this sort of examination, taking an informal first-hand survey of the people I know, to see if their points hit the mark. I'm still at it.

Why is a Jewish atheist who eats pork on Yom Kippur still regarded as a Jew while a Jew for Jesus who keeps kosher and lays tefillin, is not? What defines a Jew? Are they a people who share a common gene pool, a religion, a history? Are you still a Jew, if you do not believe in a god that answers prayers and intervenes in human affairs? Can you legitimately call yourself a Jew if you are an atheist or an agnostic? Is the threat of anti-Semitism enough to motivate you to nostalgically keep up Jewish traditions in which you do not believe and thereby keep the religion from disappearing? For the secular Jew, the non-believer, what does the basic desire to find meaning and purpose and to live an integrated life have to do with Jewish identity?

"Cyberspace represents an evolutionary development of human consciousness into omniconsciousness-a new transpersonal level of human awareness. This requires new concepts of community and interactivity...." After you read this bracing book, fire away. Perhaps, in cyber-zionism-Talmudic tradition, you will record your opinion here at amazon.com? I would welcome hearing more on this provocative book and the topic it addresses, the vanishing Jew .