At Home in Exile: Why Diaspora Is Good for the Jews - Hardcover

Alan Wolfe

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0807033138 ISBN 13: 9780807033135

Publisher: Beacon Press, 2014

Synopsis

An eloquent, controversial argument that says, for the first time in their long history, Jews are free to live in a Jewish state—or lead secure and productive lives outside it
 
Since the beginnings of Zionism in the twentieth century, many Jewish thinkers have considered it close to heresy to validate life in the Diaspora. Jews in Europe and America faced “a life of pointless struggle and futile suffering, of ambivalence, confusion, and eternal impotence,” as one early Zionist philosopher wrote, echoing a widespread and vehement disdain for Jews living outside Israel. This thinking, in a more understated but still pernicious form, continues to the present: the Holocaust tried to kill all of us, many Jews believe, and only statehood offers safety. 
 
But what if the Diaspora is a blessing in disguise? In At Home in Exile, renowned scholar and public intellectual Alan Wolfe, writing for the first time about his Jewish heritage, makes an impassioned, eloquent, and controversial argument that Jews should take pride in their Diasporic tradition. It is true that Jews have experienced more than their fair share of discrimination and destruction in exile, and there can be no doubt that anti-Semitism persists throughout the world and often rears its ugly head. Yet for the first time in history, Wolfe shows, it is possible for Jews to lead vibrant, successful, and, above all else, secure lives in states in which they are a minority.
 
Drawing on centuries of Jewish thinking and writing, from Maimonides to Philip Roth, David Ben Gurion to Hannah Arendt, Wolfe makes a compelling case that life in the Diaspora can be good for the Jews no matter where they live, Israel very much included—as well as for the non-Jews with whom they live, Israel once again included. Not only can the Diaspora offer Jews the opportunity to reach a deep appreciation of pluralism and a commitment to fighting prejudice, but in an era of rising inequalities and global instability, the whole world can benefit from Jews’ passion for justice and human dignity.
 
Wolfe moves beyond the usual polemical arguments and celebrates a universalistic Judaism that is desperately needed if Israel is to survive. Turning our attention away from the Jewish state, where half of world Jewry lives, toward the pluralistic and vibrant places the other half have made their home, At Home in Exile is an inspiring call for a Judaism that isn’t defensive and insecure but is instead open and inquiring.

About this title

Review:

"Mr. Wolfe quotes Christopher Hitchens's remark that 'Israeli Jews are a part of the Diaspora, not a group that has escaped from it.' Jews have found ways of living in exile, even thriving in it, but nothing forces them to live in exile from their ideals. Alan Wolfe's book is an expression of allegiance to those ideals and the people who have wrestled with them--keeping them alive wherever they may live."
--New York Times

"It's good for the Jews that Wolfe has tackled this subject. He has long been one of America's best nonfiction book reviewers and deploys that talent again and again in At Home in Exile."
--New York Times Book Review

"[Wolfe's] thoughtful argument gradually and powerfully supports his position that a symbiotic relationship between Israelis and Jews living elsewhere (mostly in the U.S.) is good for both."
--Publishers Weekly

"Wolfe, a secular Jew who teaches at Boston College, has made an important contribution to our understanding of contemporary Jewish life. At Home in Exile is one of the most important secular Jewish books of the year."
--The Jewish Advocate

"[Wolfe's] book is a nothing short of a call to arms."
--Jewish Journal

"Has the Diaspora been good for the Jews? Alan Wolfe, with the deftness and erudition of a born academic contrarian, answers with a resounding yes. He makes a powerful case that the Jewish people would never have become a protean cultural force had they been confined to one biblical enclave throughout their history: Jews have been enriched by other cultures as well as having enriched them, in spite (and sometimes because) of the persecutions endured. The epigraph for this provocative book might be, 'If we forget thee, oh New York, let our right hands lose their cunning.'"
--Susan Jacoby, author of The Age of American Unreason

"For the last two thousand years, the Jewish people have lived almost entirely in the Diaspora. Zionism is about 130 years old, and the State of Israel just sixty-six, but between them they overwhelmingly dominate the modern Jewish agenda. In this wide-ranging and meticulously researched book, the author serves up a feisty defense of Diaspora living and its crucial importance for Jewish continuity."
--Dr. David J. Goldberg, OBE, rabbi emeritus of the Liberal Jewish Synagogue, London

"Alan Wolfe's meditation on the Jews and their diaspora(s) is simultaneously erudite, thoughtful, and frequently quite moving. One can disagree on occasion, but this is most often because of Wolfe's generosity to his subjects and his willingness to assume the best about the motives of those with whom he disagrees. A minor flaw--if it can be called that--in a major work. The book earns my admiration as a scholar and my gratitude as a Jew."
--Eric Alterman, columnist for The Nation and author of Why We're Liberals

"In this energetic examination of contemporary Jewish debates, the distinguished political thinker Alan Wolfe gives us a sharp and insightful analysis that is original, critical, and refreshingly straightforward."
--Susannah Heschel, Eli Black Professor of Jewish Studies, Dartmouth College

"Arguing for a radical reconsideration of exile as a potentially empowering political condition, Wolfe makes a provocative and moving case for a Jewish universalism that recognizes the virtues of minority status. He reminds us of the richness of Jewish political debates in the past around Zionism, in the process joining and furthering much-needed discussion. Gracefully and compellingly written, At Home in Exile will surely raise hackles, but it deserves sober consideration."
--Deborah Dash Moore, general editor of City of Promises: A History of Jews in New York

About the Author:

Alan Wolfe is professor of political science and director of the Boisi Center for Religion and American Public Life at Boston College. The author and editor of more than twenty books, he is a frequent contributor to the New York Times, Harper's, and the Atlantic. He lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

About this edition

• Publisher: Beacon Press
• Publication date: 2014
• ISBN 10: 0807033138
• ISBN 13: 9780807033135
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 296