The Vanishing American Jew: In Search of Jewish Identity for the Next Century

Little Brown and Company, 1997. First edition. Stated. First printing [stated]. Hardcover. Very good in good dust jacket. Signed by author. DJ has some wear, soiling, and sticker mark.. x, 395 p. Occasional footnotes. Index. In this urgent book, Alan M. Dershowitz shows why American Jews are in danger of disappearing-and what must be done now to create a renewed sense of Jewish identity for the next century. In previous times, the threats to Jewish survival were external-the virulent consequences of anti-Semitism. Now, however, in late-twentieth-century America, the danger has shifted. Jews today are more secure, more accepted, more assimilated, and more successful than ever before. They've dived into the melting pot-and they've achieved the American Dream. And that, according to Dershowitz, is precisely the problem. More than 50 percent of Jews will marry non-Jews, and their children will most often be raised as non-Jews. Which means, in the view of Dershowitz, that American Jews will vanish as a distinct cultural group sometime in the next century-unless they act now. Speaking to concerned Jews everywhere, Dershowitz calls for a new Jewish identity that focuses on the positive-the 3, 500-year-old legacy of Jewish culture, values, and traditions. Dershowitz shows how this new Jewish identity can compete in America's open environment of opportunity and choice-and offers concrete proposals on how to instill it in the younger generation.