List Books » Wrestling with Zion: Progressive Jewish-American Responses to the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict
Authors: Tony Kushner, Alisa Solomon (Editor), Alisa Solomon (Editor), Tony Kushner (Introduction), Alisa Solomon
ISBN-13: 9780802140159, ISBN-10: 0802140157
Format: Paperback
Publisher: Grove/Atlantic, Inc.
Date Published: September 2003
Edition: First
As the Israeli-Palestinian conflict escalates, a dangerous illusion persists that the American Jewish community speaks with a single voice, expressing universal, uncritical support for the policies of the Sharon government. This appearance of unanimity does grave disservice to the heterogeneity of Jewish thought, and to the centuries-old Jewish traditions of lively dispute and rigorous, unapologetic skeptical inquiry. Wrestling with Zion brings together prominent poets, essayists, journalists, activists, academics, novelists, and playwrights, representing the diversity of opinion in the progressive Jewish-American community regarding the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. All the participants share three things: a Jewish identity, an American identity, and a sense of urgency, refusing to ignore the catastrophic injustice that has been visited upon the Palestinian people, while at the same time being passionately committed to Jewish survival and American legacies of compassion and moral courage. The contributors including Nathan Englander, Susan Sontag, Robert Pinsky, Daniel Wolfe, and many others have considered certain essential questions: What is at the heart of the connection between Israel and American Jews? What is Israel's role in shaping Jewish-American identities? How has this role changed historically? And what is the history, both familiar and forgotten, of Zionism's political, cultural, and spiritual meaning?
Jonathan Safran Foer, Leon Golub, Adrienne Rich, Susan Sontag and dozens more Jewish American writers respond to the current Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information.
Frontispiece: Sh'ma: From The Book of Blessings | ||
Acknowledgments | ||
Wrestling with Zion: An Introduction | 1 | |
What We've Always Known: A Century's Sample of Dissenting Voices | 13 | |
From "A Truth from Eretz Yisrael" | 14 | |
Letters to Chaim Weizmann and Felix Warburg | 17 | |
Our Psuedo-Samsons | 21 | |
From "Zionism Reconsidered" | 24 | |
Two Letters to the Editor of the The New York Times | 26 | |
From "Israel's Spiritual Climate" | 29 | |
From "Holy War" | 31 | |
On Withdrawing from Sh'ma | 35 | |
Morning News | 37 | |
The United States-Israeli Alliance | 41 | |
Deal Breakers | 51 | |
Israel and the Media: An Acquired Taste | 61 | |
Rescuing Private Lynch, Forgetting Rachel Corrie | 69 | |
The Chosen: Ideological Roots of the U.S.-Israeli Special Relationship | 72 | |
"Globalize the Intifada" | 81 | |
If We Really Care About Israel: Breira and the Limits of Dissent | 89 | |
Five Short Essays | ||
A Profile of Henry Siegman | 106 | |
Jewish Ethics and Terrorism | 108 | |
It Does Concern the Diaspora | 110 | |
The Perils of Messianic Politics | 113 | |
When Oslo Finally Dies | 116 | |
Deal with Fundamentals | 117 | |
Of Dogs and Tails: The Changing Nature of the Pro-Israeli Lobby | ||
The Unchanging Nature of the U.S.-Israeli Alliance | 120 | |
Wings | 134 | |
Jew vs. Jew: On the Jewish Civil War and the New Prophetic | 139 | |
Jewish Days and Nights | 157 | |
Why Israel Must Choose Justice | 166 | |
Living With the Holocaust: The Journey of a Child of Holocaust Survivors | 70 | |
Rally 'Round the Flag | 178 | |
On a Zion in the Wilderness | 183 | |
A Blessing to the Families of the Earth | 191 | |
Dislocated Identities: Reflections of an Arab-Jew | 195 | |
Interrogate My Love | 198 | |
No Return | 205 | |
My Patriarch Problem - and Ours | 221 | |
Is There Still a Jewish Question? Why I'm an Anti-Anti-Zionist | 226 | |
Afraid 233 | ||
Immature Song Inman Square Incantation | 236 | |
"Anti-Semitism," Israel, and the Left | 243 | |
The Charge of Anti-Semitism: Jews, Israel, and the Risks of Public Critique | 249 | |
Sharon, Le Pen, and Anti-Semitism | 266 | |
Wall | 269 | |
The Fundamental Truth | 275 | |
The Law of Return | 279 | |
Returning the Law of Return | 279 | |
In Defense of the Law of Return | 287 | |
Roadblocks of the Soul | 290 | |
Utopia: An English Professor's Answer | 291 | |
To Our Son, Marek Alexander Barnette, on the Occasion of His Naming | 293 | |
Should Jews Relinquish the Right of Return? No! | 294 | |
Nothing Is Good for the Jews | 295 | |
Borders | 297 | |
Intifada Diptych | 301 | |
Next Year Where? | 314 | |
Ruins, Mounting toward Jerusalem | 323 | |
Prayer | 337 | |
On the Refusniks | 341 | |
A Profile on Dr. Robert Jay Lifton | 341 | |
On Courage, Truth, and Resistance | 344 | |
Doing Activism, Working for Peace: A Roundtable Discussion, March 9, 2003 | 350 | |
Birkat Shalom, Blessing of Peace: From The Book of Blessings | 379 |