Irreconcilable differences

About this book

"Steven T. Rosenthal offers the first full-scale examination of the nature and development of the American Jewish response to Israel. He traces the rise of community consensus and its subsequent dissolution in the face of a series of critical confrontations between American Jews and the Jewish state. In lively prose, he reviews the crises and missteps that transformed this relationship from one of uncritical "Israelotry" to disenchantment and distress.". "The invasion of Lebanon, the Pollard spy case, the "Who is a Jew?" controversy, and the Palestinian Intifada have shattered American Jewish unanimity, but, as Rosenthal notes, dissolution stems as well from a half century of internal changes and the evolution of Jewish identity in both Israeli and American society. As Israel's heroic age fades into history, he argues, Israel has become less and less important to American Jews, who are increasingly obsessed with home-grown crises such as the skyrocketing rates of inter-marriage. Meanwhile Israel itself has, in many ways, outgrown its need for American Jewish paternalism."--BOOK JACKET.