DAVID MITTELBERG, The Israel Connection and American Jews (London andWestport, Conn.: Praeger, 1999.) Pp. 209. $55.00 cloth.

Abstract

The Israel connection whose impact on American Jews David Mittelberg examines is that engendered by a visit to Israel by an American Jew, not that of any special relationship between the nation-state of Israel and of the United States. The book's conclusions, then, are not offered with an eye toward Israeli or American foreign policy. Instead, they are offered as a possible contribution to those “formulating strategies and allocating resources which will have an impact on Jewish education and community survival” (p. 2) in the United States. Mittelberg advises those engaged in such activities that the survival of an American Jewish identity requires not only a religious component, but also an ethnic one based in a Jewish community. Moreover, that community “must choose to exist not mainly for the sake of philanthropic, social welfare, and political activities, but as an end unto itself [whose] boundaries include all of Jewish history and Jewish peoplehood” (p. 133).