cover image Where Are We?: The Inner Life of America's Jews

Where Are We?: The Inner Life of America's Jews

Leonard J. Fein. HarperCollins Publishers, $19.95 (329pp) ISBN 978-0-06-015872-9

In this bold inquiry into how American Jews define themselves, Fein touches many raw nerves. For example, he charges that the Holocaust and the saga of Israel have become substitutes for the shared meanings that once solidified the interrelatedness of Jews. He ponders the Israeli ""search for exoneration, for reassurance that they have not gone military.'' Author of Politics in Israel, Fein examines sensitive issues in this open-ended exploration. ``One does not have to take God literally in order to take God seriously,'' he declares, then goes on to argue that the U.S. Jewish community can only survive if it becomes a wellspring of values and moral standards. Dismissing as myth the alleged rightward political turn of America's Jews, he questions the verities of liberalism, which he dubs a ``political religion.'' His probing report mixes soul-searching and sociological analysis. (April)