Customer Reviews

His Brother's Keeper: Israel and Diaspora Jewry in the Twenty-first Century

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I think many reviews, here and elsewhere, are devolving into right wing vs. left wing. A book should be judged by its content, its wording and phrasing, its rhythms. A book is not an election and we who love to read are not giving stars based on our politics, or we should not, in my opinion. There are other places for that. Here we are readers. I found Yossi Beilin's "My Brother's Keeper" engaging, readable, informative and educational. I want to read it again. But my blood boils when I see reviews that have nothing to do with text and everything to do with one's relation to Israel. I enjoy books from all spectrum. I would give 5 stars to any book well written. This is almost, not quite, that good.

Anyone concerned about continuity of Judaism must be aware of this book. Yossi Beilin is a soft-spoken, sincere Israeli thinker and politician. His doctrine is quite dominant in the Israeli post-Zionist and increasingly post-Jewish milieu. Much of the book is probably factual about topics like languishing old Jewish and Zionist institutions/bureaucracies. Yet, Beilin's broad brushstrokes are a master plan to redefine and eliminate Judaism, which many in Israel perceive as old folkways, superstition, an obsolete culture rather than a religion. Israel is the centerpiece of Jews since the Holocaust, there was an over investment in Israel at the expense of Judaism and by now Jewish and anti-religious Zionist icons, values, imagery are enmeshed - this book indicates the enmeshment is sinister. Readers with critical minds must ask, "Is Israel centered secularism to replace Judaism world-wide in the long-term?" Is that the solution to the "Jewish problem"? If this sounds implausible (after all Israel is presented as the "Jewish State") readers should learn about dramatic/destructive past changes in Judaism during the Shabtai Zvi and Jacob Frank movements, anti-Jewish practices in leftist kibbutzim since pre-State days, understand Herzl's own views about Judaism and details of his family, or at least read current Israeli headlines about "The Secular Revolution" and where religious Jews are often portrayed as the new "Enemy" - replacing the "Arab" as the evil icon.