TO BE A JEW TODAY

A multifaceted exploration of Jewish identity in the modern world and the place Israel has come to hold in it.

In this personal, analytical, nonpolemical work, Harvard law professor Feldman, author of The Broken Constitution and Divided by God, walks readers through the different versions of Jewish belief today—including “ultra-Orthodox, Modern Orthodox, Religious Zionist, Conservative, Reconstructionist, Reform, and Humanist”—and how the state of Israel plays a central role in them all. With an intentional nod to Moses Maimonides’ Guide of the Perplexed, published in 1190, Feldman employs deep scholarship and a nondidactic tone to revisit the essential stories of Jewish struggle and faith. First, he looks at the beliefs of various Jewish sects, regarding them all inclusively, even the atheist. “Even conscious rejection of Jewishness may be meaningfully Jewish,” he writes. In the second part of the book, the author posits, “the idea of Israel has fundamentally transformed all strands of Jewish belief.” He delves deeply into the early secular Zionist ideal; how the early 1970s brought Israel to the forefront for Diaspora Jews because of renewed Holocaust awareness and the Yom Kippur War; the powerful appeal of messianism; and the debate over how Jews are the “chosen” people. He offers a warning that Israel is exhibiting the sin of excessive pride. Finally, the author examines Jewishness as an embrace of family, community, and God. “A nationalism that tries to take God out of the picture and transmute Jewishness into an expression of pure peoplehood,” he writes, “will not provide access to experiences of transcendent meaning that make life worth living.” Feldman calls this work a map or field guide, and he seems to have in mind young readers who are confused and angry about the raging Israel-Palestine war.

An eloquent, accessible, well-written reflection on the significance of being a Jew.