'Jewish Civilization and Its Discontents: A post-October 7 Primer & Polemic' - Now Available via Amazon
What literate Jewish people and Philo-Semites Should Know
I get that you may not want to know what is going on. You may not want to know how we got here.
The news is relentless, deflating, and wearing. Trump. Elections. Exit polls. Gaza. Lebanon. Iran. Gallant. Haredim. Netanyahu.
Some 1,754 war dead — civilians and members of the security services — since October 7, 2023.
Houthie ballistic missiles over the Dead Sea this Friday morning. Hezbollah rockets over Haifa also this morning. Yesterday, Hamas rockets over Netiv HaAssara.
Overnight, Thursday into Friday, a Jew-Hunt in Amsterdam as Arabic-speaking marauders carry out *organized* attacks on Israeli soccer fans. The Israelis are told to scramble back to their hotels and lockdown until the rescue planes from Israel arrive in Amsterdam (let that sink in) to bring them home.
When the world iconizes Anne Frank, fetishizes and universalizes the Holocaust while demonizing and scapegoating Israel as “the Jew among countries” — presto, you have indeed “globalized the intifada,” or as my Bubba Leah called it in plain speak, you make “a pogrom.”
So here is my pitch.
Jewish Civilization and Its Discontents: A Post-October 7 Primer & Polemic underscores the intersection between politics and Jewish civilization. It is written by me, a Baby Boomer, for Millennials and Zoomers. But also for you, their parents, and grandparents. In unequal parts, it is a polemic, primer, and memoir.
My roots are in the Lower East Side — a world of its own. Now, I am a Jerusalem-based political scientist. My book argues that democracy must be crafted to take human nature into account; that raw majority rule does not necessarily deliver on democratic values; that Israel lies at the core of Jewish civilization whether you consider yourself a Zionist or not.
Along the way, I endeavor to supply many of the fundamentals necessary for Jewish civilizational and political literacy.
You can read the prologue and scan the TOC on Amazon.
Order Jewish Civilization and its Discontents in paperback or e-book format (or both) from Amazon. It is available only via Amazon. The advantage of the e-book is that footnotes are hyperlinked.
Shabbat Shalom
Elliot
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Jewish Civilization and its Discontents in paperback or e-book only via Amazon.