Letters to an American Jewish friend: A Zionist's polemic By Hillel Halkin

Letters to an american jewish friend book summary

Isn t immune to the transformative influence of time But whereas the Jewish religion itself gets a pass from Halkin due to the strictures of orthodoxy acting as a vanguard against modernity which Halkin claims still acted as an influence on Orthodoxy which kind of softly shoots his point in the foot as numerous times Halkin claims he isn t religious but cites so many religious texts and authorities it becomes kind of hard to take his I m not religious claim that seriously substituting it instead for something like I m not THAT religious might have been helpful secular Jewish culture itself gets no such pass. Letters to an american jewish friendu book I guess I m a bit forgiving and understanding than Halkin I look at the likes of Kafka.

Letters to an american jewish friend book review

Book by Halkin Hillel Letters to an American Jewish friend A Zionist s polemicThere were moments of this book that enraged me as well as many that opened my eyes For every instance I felt Hillel Halkin was talking with me there were just as many where I thought he was talking at me or precisely talking down to me But before I get too far into my feelings regarding the book let me take a step back and delineate a bit professionally just what this text is as opposed to what it claims to be. Letters to an american jewish friendq quotes First of all the title Letters to an American Jewish Friend a Zionist s Polemic is a bit of a misnomer Most friendships so I believe at least are based on some kind of equality and a comfort and even freedom of intimacy to exchange honest ideas and dirty jokes between two or people But unfortunately Halkin shakes the foundation of his use of the word in two ways 1 We never actually see any of the letters this American Jewish friend has written to counter Halkin s literary self save for the occasional paragraph here and there as such we re automatically predisposed to believe what Halkin is saying rather than his friend by sheer dint of quantity alone And 2 The use of friend is ill informed as the equality I believe and I figure most would believe is symptomatic of most friendships seems absent in the exchange we do see between Halkin and this American Jewish friend This absence is most evidenced for me in Halkin s tone which though not completely pedantic is then a little and even substantially condescending not to mention a tad hypocritical and disingenuous but we ll get to that Let me speak positively first if I may Hillel Halkin is clearly a very intelligent well spoken and well read man His level of education both cultural and common sense based is substantial And he approaches the reader as someone equal to his intelligence which is very refreshing given the potential of many with this same subject matter to become mere ideologues bully pulpit amateurs and arm chair mouth pieces with nothing of actual substance or original thought to bring forward save for the same tired rhetoric that has driven so many to tears boredom or at worst indifference and even anger This is especially telling when one realizes as I did that the points Halkin is trying to drive home are not so substantially different from the likes of Arutz Sheva in Israel or any of its idiotic and borderline fascistic acolytes the likes of clownish boor Tzvi Fishman and his ilk come to mind sadly are also trying to put forward or ram down Jewish people s throats but I digress But what is the difference then Let me go on record by saying that I despise Artuz Sheva think Fox News in Israel with not even the pretense of objectively presenting the news or caring about the secular viewpoint and the viewpoints of many of their contributors The difference lies in presentation Halkin presents well reasoned well thought out and well described arguments that while relying far too much on metaphor and Romantic borderline kitsch language appeal not only to pathos but to the ethos and logos as well Instead of parading around a you are doomed unless you do as I say narrative like any hack street preacher of any faith on any street corner in the world does Halkin treats his readers with respect and offers genuine intellectualism as opposed to the petty scare mongering and petty shaming many in the far right camp in Israel mostly English speaking attempt to use to convince people of their arguments with genuine Jewish love being their excuse. Book letters to an american jewish friend book Also I d like to point out that again unlike many who agree with Halkin s end goals Halkin himself doesn t offer a life in Israel as either a guarantee of Jewish survival or as anything completely patently Jewish in comparison to the idealized Judaism of the past partly fictionalized exaggerated and Romanticized in the Diaspora He s too smart too honest and thankfully too intellectually responsible for that Israel and Zionism are not a panacea for the ills of the Jewish people Israel could fall and as a nation is far from perfect and like many a nation America included has committed many sins to get where it is now But Halkin contends it s the best option we as a people have and frankly I agree. Book letters to an american jewish friendship And herein the negatives begin Remember when I said before that Halkin misused the word friend in his title Yeah I still believe that he did This isn t a book involving the exchange of letters between two Jewish equals Halkin clearly doesn t think much of the achievements of Diaspora Jewry outside of the name checked acceptables such as Kabbalah and other outgrowths of an essentially religious nature except for those that he claims have some intrinsic link to Judaism usually Hebraic and again religiously based that can be used as the grist for the burgeoning or he might say stagnated secular Jewish culture in Israel He lambastes the entire canon of Secular Jewish literature American and otherwise mainly because these works failed to be Jewish enough Absolute value judgments like this bother me in a number of ways Primarily they bother me because no one appointed Halkin an arbiter of anything let alone what is and isn t definably Jewish This is especially galling when Halkin himself states that Judaism like any culture Spinoza Mailer Proust and many many others and I don t bemoan that they wrote in a language that wasn t Hebrew how dare they but instead rejoice that these minds ever lived at all These minds have given us some of the greatest literature and philosophy the world has ever seen and I think to dismiss them based on such a narrowly subjective view as what language they wrote in not taking into account that they might not have had the same Hebrew language based upbringing and opportunities to learn said language that the likes of Halkin himself had is just grossly myopic and than a little ignorant Is Secular Jewish literature perfect Far from it Has it damaged Judaism in places and at times Oh yes But so I contend has religious Judaism itself. Book letters to an american jewish friend in english I love the interplay between Secular and Religious Judaism because within that dialectic I believe lies the true fire and brilliance of Judaism in its totality Strict orthodoxy might be the heart of Judaism but it s also frighteningly incestuous and stagnant And Secular Judaism might be the mind of Judaism but it s transience and corruptibility make it something difficult to find tangible purchase in So why not take from both Why not see in Spinoza s exile and Kafka s alienation not a deviation from Judaism but instead a personal restructuring of it to fit the needs of the individual Jew in the face of ideological religious and philosophical abandonment at the hands of the majority of Jews religious or otherwise Zionist or otherwise Just a theory who the hell knows. Book letters to an american jewish friend in english In the end though this is still a rock solid work Far from perfect it does however perfectly engage the willing Jewish reader with bracing ideas that are equal parts galling and potentially enlightening Mr Halkin while I may not agree with everything you ve put forward I do agree that these points needed to be brought up and I m thankful that you ve put them forward in such an erudite and well crafted way I d offer up a Hebrew saying but unlike Halkin I don t have the Hebrew language skills to take for granted As of yet anyway still learning still trying Some of us have to make to do with what we have and even go so far as to earn what is our birthright as opposed to those clueless who are simply gifted it by no partial a judge than blind circumstance Hardcover I read this book in the late 1970 s right after it came out when I was a junior in college I have spent the rest of my life until today thinking about Halkin s arguments most of which I agree with wholeheartedly He was wrong about the vitality of Orthodox Jewish life in the diaspora very wrong but correct about everything else. Letters to an american jewish friendw quotes His book was the first truly Jewish book I ever read that was written by an American Jew Most of the books written by American Jews are not seriously Jewish in their content or spirit They are mostly shallow and uninteresting turning Jewishness into a shtick to entertain nonJews. Letters to an american jewish friend book review 5 years ago and love living here Israel is an amazing miracle and those who study Jewish history including Halkin s wonderful book will appreciate why This book is timeless and will live on as will Israel long after the secular American Jewish community disappears Thank you Hillel Halkin like the fellow who sent you the post card in 1986 I too came home because of your book Hardcover

Letters to an American Jewish friend: A Zionist's polemic By Hillel Halkin

0827600933

9780827600935

English

246

Hardcover

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Hillel Halkin born 1939 is an American born Israeli translator biographer literary critic and novelist who has lived in Israel since 1970 site_link Hillel Halkin born 1939 is an American born Israeli translator biographer literary critic and novelist who has lived in Israel since 1970 site_link site_link.

.Happily I found my way home to Israel 3