HIS BROTHER’S KEEPER

Israeli Minister of Justice Beilin maintains that Judaism is in jeopardy on account of the assimilation of American and other Diaspora Jews, through attrition by intermarriage, and due to the fact that immigration to Israel is not the first choice—America is—for any but the most desperate.

It is Beilin's opinion that Israel is the "solution for Jewish life." Since American Jews, not surprisingly, consider themselves Americans and have no feeling that they have yet to find the promised land, it is not easy to get them to immigrate to Israel. The author maintains that the question of "who is a Jew" is now moot in Israel because the Orthodox have influenced the legal definition through the addition of one pernicious phrase. That definition used to include anyone "who was born to a Jewish mother or who converted, and is not a member of another religion." Now, it accepts only Orthodox conversions as valid. Beilin implies that the change of wording hasn't helped Israel's cause, and he proposes several solutions. One is an Israeli-sponsored program that would supply a free ticket to Israel for every teenaged Diaspora Jew in the world. The other is the creation of an organization (to be called House of Israel) that would focus on the maintenance of Jewish life regardless of the nation of origin or degree of orthodoxy of the participants. This organization would prospectively disband in 20 years, should its function overlap with the already numerous organizations that do essentially the same thing.

A repetitive, somewhat tedious volume, with no imminently practical solutions for what appears to be the Jewish destiny.