Jews and the New American Scene / / Seymour Martin Lipset, Earl Raab.

Will American Jews survive their success? Or will the United States' uniquely hospitable environment lead inexorably to their assimilation and loss of cultural identity? This is the conundrum that Seymour Lipset and Earl Raab explore in their wise and learned book about the American Jewish expe...

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Superior document:Title is part of eBook package: De Gruyter HUP e-dition: American History eBook Package
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Place / Publishing House:Cambridge, MA : : Harvard University Press, , [2013]
©1995
Year of Publication:2013
Edition:Reprint 2014
Language:English
Online Access:
Physical Description:1 online resource (239 p.)
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Description
Other title:Frontmatter --
Acknowledgments --
Contents --
Introduction. America’s Tribal Dilemma --
1. An Old People in a New Land --
2. The Promise of Double Freedom --
3. The Downside of Exceptionalism --
4. The Riddle of the Defensive Jew --
5. Israel, the X-Factor --
6. Still on the Left --
7. The Fragile Remnants --
Index
Summary:Will American Jews survive their success? Or will the United States' uniquely hospitable environment lead inexorably to their assimilation and loss of cultural identity? This is the conundrum that Seymour Lipset and Earl Raab explore in their wise and learned book about the American Jewish experience. Jews, perhaps more than any ethnic or religious minority that has immigrated to these shores, have benefited from the country's openness, egalitarianism, and social heterogeneity. This unusually good fit, the authors argue, has as much to do with the exceptionalism of the Jewish people as with that of America. But acceptance for all ancestral groups has its downside: integration into the mainstream erodes their defining features, diluting the loyalties that sustain their members. The authors vividly illustrate this paradox as it is experienced by American Jews today--in their high rates of intermarriage, their waning observance of religious rites, their extraordinary academic and professional success, their commitment to liberalism in domestic politics, and their steadfast defense of Israel. Yet Jews view these trends with a sense of foreboding: "We feel very comfortable in America--but anti-Semitism is a serious problem"; "We would be desolate if Israel were lost--but we don't feel as close to that country as we used to"; "More of our youth are seeking some serious form of Jewish affirmation and involvement--but more of them are slipping away from Jewish life." These are the contradictions tormenting American Jews as they struggle anew with the never-dying problem of Jewish continuity. A graceful and immensely readable work, Jews and the New American Scene provides a remarkable range of scholarship, anecdote, and statistical research--the clearest, most up-to-date account available of the dilemma facing American Jews in their third century of citizenship.
Format:Mode of access: Internet via World Wide Web.
ISBN:9780674424449
9783110353464
9783110353488
9783110442212
DOI:10.4159/harvard.9780674424449
Access:restricted access
Hierarchical level:Monograph
Statement of Responsibility: Seymour Martin Lipset, Earl Raab.