This book sat on my shelf in it's shrink-wrap (one of the few hardcover books I can ever remember buying in plastic shrink-wrap) for almost 25 years before my now grown son noticed it and asked me why I hadn't opened it yet. I did. At first I thought it would be...
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This book sat on my shelf in it's shrink-wrap (one of the few hardcover books I can ever remember buying in plastic shrink-wrap) for almost 25 years before my now grown son noticed it and asked me why I hadn't opened it yet. I did. At first I thought it would be a tedious retelling of the successes and downfalls of now obscure Jewish names from Europe's past, but soon realized that that these first chapters were a necessary background for an insightful analysis of the Jewish political experience in America up until 1992 when the book was published.
Much has happened since 1992 that Mr. Ginzburg couldn't have forseen: the 9/11 attacks, the return of the Jewish neo-cons during Bush II's tenure, and the election of America's first African-American president that some pundits have labelled as America's first "Jewish" president because of his close ties to Jews from his days as a pol in Chicago and later in Springfield, IL. (AIPAC's one-sided viewpoint notwithstanding, I wouldn't regard Obama's frosty relationship with Bibi as anything motivated by anti-Semitism, or anti-Israel sentiment, but simply as impatience and exasperation with what even many Israelis see as an unsustainable status-quo.) Indeed, much of the events since the publish date take on a new light for me after reading this book.
The insights from this book go hand in hand with Maristella Botticini's "The Chosen Few", a history of the Jews between 70-1492 CE, whose thesis is that universal literacy, arising in the centuries following the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem, is what made Jews unique in the ancient world and placed them in a position to advance dramatically in trade, medicine and administration with the rise of Islam, one of many ancient precursors to our current "globalization". Mr. Ginzburg's thesis is that this unique status also makes Jews' position in their host countries especially precarious as they become easy targets of resentment by those who perceive themselves as threatened by each new globalization.
My biggest take-away from "The Fatal Embrace" however, is that anti-Jewish outbursts are rarely spontaneous. Those who are behind them invariable have an agenda to gain or regain lost influence and control over the allocation of favor and influence. This appears to be true in all the episodes that the book analyses, but to me is illustrated most clearly in what I found to be the book's most distressing chapter about antagonism between African-Americans and Jews during the 1980 on college campuses and in New York City bureaus. An episode that once baffled me became crystal clear. People are nothing if not creatures of ambition, and some (at least the sort who tend to become politicians or vie to gain influence on university faculties) will stop at nothing to achieve their ambitions, even when it means throwing their erst-while friends and allies under the bus.
After reading this book, I can no longer take my privileged status as a Jew in America for granted.
This book sat on my shelf in it's shrink-wrap (one of the few hardcover books I can ever remember buying in plastic shrink-wrap) for almost 25 years before my now grown son noticed it and asked me why I hadn't opened it yet. I did. At first I thought it would be a tedious retelling of the successes and downfalls of now obscure Jewish names from Europe's past, but soon realized that that these first chapters were a necessary background for an insightful analysis of the Jewish political experience in America up until 1992 when the book was published.
Much has happened since 1992 that Mr. Ginzburg couldn't have forseen: the 9/11 attacks, the return of the Jewish neo-cons during Bush II's tenure, and the election of America's first African-American president that some pundits have labelled as America's first "Jewish" president because of his close ties to Jews from his days as a pol in Chicago and later in Springfield, IL. (AIPAC's one-sided viewpoint notwithstanding, I wouldn't regard Obama's frosty relationship with Bibi as anything motivated by anti-Semitism, or anti-Israel sentiment, but simply as impatience and exasperation with what even many Israelis see as an unsustainable status-quo.) Indeed, much of the events since the publish date take on a new light for me after reading this book.
The insights from this book go hand in hand with Maristella Botticini's "The Chosen Few", a history of the Jews between 70-1492 CE, whose thesis is that universal literacy, arising in the centuries following the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem, is what made Jews unique in the ancient world and placed them in a position to advance dramatically in trade, medicine and administration with the rise of Islam, one of many ancient precursors to our current "globalization". Mr. Ginzburg's thesis is that this unique status also makes Jews' position in their host countries especially precarious as they become easy targets of resentment by those who perceive themselves as threatened by each new globalization.
My biggest take-away from "The Fatal Embrace" however, is that anti-Jewish outbursts are rarely spontaneous. Those who are behind them invariable have an agenda to gain or regain lost influence and control over the allocation of favor and influence. This appears to be true in all the episodes that the book analyses, but to me is illustrated most clearly in what I found to be the book's most distressing chapter about antagonism between African-Americans and Jews during the 1980 on college campuses and in New York City bureaus. An episode that once baffled me became crystal clear. People are nothing if not creatures of ambition, and some (at least the sort who tend to become politicians or vie to gain influence on university faculties) will stop at nothing to achieve their ambitions, even when it means throwing their erst-while friends and allies under the bus.
After reading this book, I can no longer take my privileged status as a Jew in America for granted.
