Jews and Power (Jewish Encounters) | 
 enlarge | Author: Ruth R. Wisse
Publisher: Schocken
Category: Book
List Price: $19.95
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Avg. Customer Rating:  11 reviews
Sales Rank: 93282
Media: Hardcover
Edition: 1
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 256
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.7
Dimensions (in): 7.6 x 5.1 x 1.1
ISBN: 0805242244
Dewey Decimal Number: 305.8924
EAN: 9780805242249
ASIN: 0805242244
Publication Date: August 28, 2007
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Product Description
Taking in everything from the Kingdom of David to the Oslo Accords, Ruth Wisse offers a radical new way to think about the Jewish relationship to power. Traditional Jews believed that upholding the covenant with God constituted a treaty with the most powerful force in the universe; this later transformed itself into a belief that, unburdened by a military, Jews could pursue their religious mission on a purely moral plain. Wisse, an eminent professor of comparative literature at Harvard, demonstrates how Jewish political weakness both increased Jewish vulnerability to scapegoating and violence, and unwittingly goaded power-seeking nations to cast Jews as perpetual targets.
Although she sees hope in the State of Israel, Wisse questions the way the strategies of the Diaspora continue to drive the Jewish state, echoing Abba Eban's observation that Israel was the only nation to win a war and then sue for peace. And then she draws a persuasive parallel to the United States today, as it struggles to figure out how a liberal democracy can face off against enemies who view Western morality as weakness. This deeply provocative book is sure to stir debate both inside and outside the Jewish world. Wisse's narrative offers a compelling argument that is rich with history and bristling with contemporary urgency.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 6 more reviews...
 Jews and Power January 21, 2008
Gave me an unexpected and refreshing perspective on the history of the Jewish people. They have much to be proud of, I learned, particularly in their need to excel without armies, national power, or centralized wealth and influence in the centuries before establishment of the present State of Israil. The perspective is especially interesting in considering the current conflict with Palestinians in the Middle East.
 Good analysis of Diaspora politics; bad analysis of Arab politics January 6, 2008
4 out of 4 found this review helpful
As a book that seeks to begin a debate about Jews' ambiguous relationship to (and even more ambiguous feelings about) political power, this book works quite well. It works far less well, however, when Ruth Wisse strays into an analysis of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Here's where the book works. Wisse traces the Jewish communities' Diaspora politics of accommodation which resulted in highly flexible and democratic communities whose first instinct was to see whether there was anything that the community could have done or could do better in the existing circumstances and a desire to please others at the community's own expense. Wisse also does a good job of pointing out the spiritual facet of that politics which made the Jewish communities reluctant to assume political or military power and, in turn, made a fighting force the last institution the Jews developed under the Mandate. (In this context, it would have been interesting to see Ruth Wisse comment on whether this political tradition--which put so much emphasis on not doing wrong as opposed to risking doing wrong in the name of the community--had anything to do with the fact that, Ben Zakkai, a pacifist was instrumental in launching Diaspora politics.)
The book breaks down however in Wisse's analysis of anti-Semitism (it's the non-Jews' problem) and in her analysis of the Israeli-Palestinian/Israeli-Arab conflicts. Firstly, it is true that the nobility found it easy to "sacrifice" the Jews to fend off the mobs. However, in most of Europe, the majority of Jews were not well off. So the argument that they stood out more than the Gypsies did not convince me. Anti-Semitism has been described as "the rumor about Jews," in other words the West's and the East's longest-running conspiracy theory. Rather than dismiss this argument (or rather not even mention it), Ruth Wisse would have done herself and us a great service by frankly engaging with it.
Secondly, there is her treatment of the Israeli-Palestinian and Israeli-Arab conflict. Although she dismisses the claims of both the ultra-Right and the ultra-Left ("the first [claim] is not subject to proof; the second is demonstrably bogus") she essentializes Arabs (a people who she says are the opposite of Jews) and Palestinians (a people who are the opposite of Jews and who seek to take on Jewish symbols) and hence makes any sort of analysis of the conflict impossible. What is more this whole line of argument was not even necessary for Ruth Wisse to make her point. All she had to do was point out the callousness with which some Jews treat Jewish claims--and contrast that to the sensitivity these same Jews show to (identical or equivalent) Arab and Palestinian claims. That, I feel, would have made her point (that Diaspora politics plays a tremendous role in shaping Israeli politics) far better than what she did. This, after all, is a book about Jewish; not Arab politics--and when it sticks to its subject it works well; when it does not it does not work and sometimes becomes downright insulting.
For anyone interested in a stimulating discussion about Jewish Diaspora politics I would recommend this book with the proviso to read section on the Arab/Palestinian-Israeli conflict with more than a grain of salt.
No mention of the word "oil" December 9, 2007
4 out of 7 found this review helpful
To me the strangest thing about the "Arab-Israeli" conflict is that while the facts on the ground are similar to what has happened in many other parts of the world (Indian/Pakistani conflict, Greek/Turkish conflict, etc) one of the sides (the Arabs) has never accepted the reality. While Indians and Pakistanis or Greeks and Turks may not love each other, they have accepted the results and resettled their own refugees. Why the Arabs refuse to accept reality and why many countries support them? Wisse points out the unusal situation but she does not point to the not so secret Arab weapon, the oil. Even some of the "friends" of Israel are too concerned about the "feelings" of the major oil producers. Two of the Arab countries that made peace with Israel (Egypt and Jordan) are not oil producers. The large social problems of the Arab countries make it necessary for their rulers to look for a scapegoat and Israel fits that role perfectly. While there are several Israeli actions that could be criticized, I do not think a different Isreali behavior would have made a difference, given the above factors.
Wisse covers a long period of history and, as a result, she does not treat it with depth. She considers the failed revolts against the Romans as the start of the Jewish diaspora even though she mentions that a large Jewish community existed in Alexendria two hundred years earlier. The travels of Paul of Tarsus (that took place before the revolts) point to the existence of numerous Jewish communities quite far more Israel. She also metions briefly the role of Jews as the "middleman minority" without considering that this may have a characteristic of the Jews going all the way back to the Egypt of the Hyksos times.
There are several historical details that, in my view, Wisse got wrong. For example, the Armenians were not the only middleman minority in the Ottoman empire, Jews also filled some of the role, and, most numerous were the Greeks. I have read that the estabishment of a Greek state in early 19th century was part of the inspiration that led Herzl to Zionism. Here was a "middleman minority" that established an ethnic state in a land with whom had ancient links, even though at the time "Greeks" lived all over the Balkan peninsula, Asia Minor and other lands of the Byzantine Empire. Wisse mentions that Herzl was inspired by the re-unification of Italy but that parallel seems far weaker.
In short, it is a book that presents a thesis (with which I generally agree) but with no serious analysis backing it. In other words the author "preaches exclusively to the choir."
 Well written eye opener December 3, 2007
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
In this relatively short book, Ruth Wisse manages to cover thousands of years of Jewish history and to point out the basic aspect of Jewish faith, that God knows why everything occurs, that He has a reason for it, but that at the end, if we are good people, He will bring us back to our home in Jerusalem. Jews also understood, until recently, that they were alive a the good will of the local authorities and that the best way to maintain this good will was to make themselves indispensable. Which led to many of them acquiring advanced skills. Only after 1948 did Israel provide a defense of its citizens. Ruth Wisse style is direct and fluid.
A very nice work and a very informative read.
Jacques Beser, Ph.D.
Newport beach, CA
 There is something beyond ethnocentric delusion...This BOOK! November 10, 2007
8 out of 40 found this review helpful
As Prof.Kevin MacDonald says(READ HIS BOOKS)-- Jews are again portrayed as history's powerless victims. Wisse summarizes the history of Jewish economic behavior as altruistically providing goods and services to non-Jews at the price of being politically vulnerable. Such a view ignores competition between Jews and non-Jews over the middleman economic niche, and it ignores the common role of Jews in traditional societies as willing agents of oppressive alien elites. It also ignores the emergence of Jews as a hostile elite in European societies and in America beginning in the late 19th century: Yuri Slezkine's aptly named The Jewish Century could not possibly be remotely factual if Jews were nothing more than politically vulnerable victims. Wisse's view of Jews as altruistic middlemen even applies to Israel: "Israel still lived by strategies of accommodation, trying to supply its neighborhood with useful services and goods such as medical, agricultural and technological know-how."
This is a grotesque gloss on the reality of Israeli aggression against the Palestinians and against its neighbors since the founding of Israel. Since Mearsheimer and Walt are bête noires for Wisse, it is worth pointing to some of the examples they provide: Israel is an expansionist state whose leaders were not satisfied with the original partition of 1948--a time when Jews comprised 35% of the population of Palestine and controlled 7% of the land. Israelis "continued to impose terrible violence and discrimination against the Palestinians for decades" after the founding of the state, including ethnic cleansing after the 1967 war and, according to Israeli historian Benny Morris, an occupation based on "brute force, repression and fear, collaboration and treachery, beatings and torture chambers, and daily intimidation, humiliation, and manipulation" (p. 100). Mearsheimer and Walt also point out the horrors of the invasion of Lebanon in 1982 and the wanton destruction of the bombing of Lebanon in the summer of 2006. They also show how Israel has aggressively promoted regime change throughout the region, using the power of the United States harnessed by the Israel lobby.
Wisse not only sees Israel as too timid, she argues that the Israel lobby in America is also weak. Her basis for this is that Edward Said, a Palestinian critic of Israel, held a position at Columbia University, and his right to speak out on Middle East issues was supported by some Jewish academics. Apparently for Wisse, the existence of even a few marginalized, powerless critics is a sign of the weakness of the lobby -- never mind its stranglehold over Congress and presidents.
Despite bewailing the impotence of the lobby, she does see hope because of the intersection of Jewish and American interests: "The Arab war against Israel and radical Islam's war against the United States are in almost perfect alignment, which means that resistance to one supports resistance to the other." That seems reasonable -- except for the fact that, as Mearsheimer and Walt note, "the United States has a terrorism problem in good part because it has long been so supportive of Israel" (p. 64).
Wisse concludes as follows:
It is seductive to hope that by accommodating our enemies, we will be allowed to live in peace. But the strategy of accommodation that historically turned Jews into a no-fail target is the course least likely to stop ongoing acts of aggression against them. Indeed, anti-Jewish politics will end only when those who practice it accept the democratic values of religious pluralism and political choice -- or are forced to pay a high enough price for flouting them.
What is most poisonous about this is that Wisse is completely blind to Jewish aggression, both on the part of Israel and on the part of the lobby. (Harnessing the power of the United States to effect regime change of governments that Israel doesn't like is nothing if not aggressive.) In her view, Jews are surrounded by enemies who desire their destruction simply because of the morally superior qualities of Jews: Jews "function as a lodestar of religious and political freedom: The Jews' attackers oppose such liberties, and their defenders promote them." She sees Jews as altruistic martyrs throughout history who will once again suffer martyrdom unless they eschew their altruism and become aggressive. Accommodation simply leads to more martyrdom, and this rationalizes even more aggression toward their enemies.
If there is anything beyond ethnocentric delusion in all of this, I think that behind Wisse's aggressive stance is the belief that they can win, where winning is defined as removing the Palestinians from most of the West Bank, enclosing the Palestinians in walled-off Bantustans where conditions are so horrible that many will eventually emigrate, and establishing hegemony in the entire area.
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