The situation of American Jews today is deeply paradoxical. Jews possess achieved unprecedented integration, influence, and esteem in just about any facet of American life. But this extraordinarily different community right now also encounters four critical and frequently divisive difficulties: rampant intermarriage, poor religious observance, diminished cohesion in the face of waning anti-Semitism, and deeply conflicting views about Israel.

Can the American Jewish community collectively maintain and spread towards the about The Jewish American Paradox: Embracing Choice within a Changing World next generation an adequate sense of Jewish identity in light of these difficulties? Who should count number as Jewish in America? What ought to be the relationship of American Jews to Israel?

Within this thoughtful and perceptive reserve, Robert H. Mnookin argues the answers of days gone by no more serve American Jews today. The reserve boldly promotes a radically inclusive American-Jewish community-one where being Jewish depends on personal choice and general public self-identification, not simply birth or formal religious conversion. Instead of stopping intermarriage or ostracizing those critical of Israel, he envisions a community that embraces diversity and issue, and in so doing, preserves and strengthens the Jewish identity into the following era and beyond.