This is a hard book to categorize. The first part is
autobiography; Keinan was raised in the US and went to school here, but then
moved to Israel and joined the Air Force. He was the only non-Israeli fighter
pilot there. After his time with the military, he became a financial man as
well as chairing a nonprofit that lends to projects including ones by Israeli
Palestinians. The next section explores what he feels is a crisis in Judaism.
Many US and European Jews are marrying outside the faith, and not raising their
children as religious Jews. If that continues, he sees the end of Judaism as it’s
known- and been known- for centuries. Judaism survived the Diaspora, pogroms,
and the Holocaust only to face extinction by marrying out. His proposed cure
for this is program that would fund (via voluntary donations by members) long
term camps for Jewish youth, wherein they would spend one year in America and
one in Israel, learning the culture of whichever one they didn’t grow up in; it
would also pay for the college education of the children. He also proposes that
the president of Israel (largely a ceremonial position at this point) be given
power over all Jewish religious affairs- a sort of Pope for Judaism- and that
the president be elected by *all* Jews the world over, not just Israelis. Right
now, Israel has religious issue being adjudicated by ultra-Orthodox Jews, while
American Jewry is composed mainly of Reform and Conservative Jews. He feels
that the wisdom of the crowd- having all branches of Judaism involved- will
save, even though it may change it, Judaism. He doesn’t seem to take sides in a
right/left battle; he’s fairly even handed. It is an interesting look into what’s
happening to Judaism. Three and a half stars.
I received this book free from the Amazon Vine Program in return for an unbiased review. This did not affect my opinions.
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