Volume 36, Number 18 · November 23, 1989
What Future for American Jews?
By Arthur Hertzberg
After the Six Day War in 1967, Jews in America were freer, and more powerful, than Jews had ever been before in the Diaspora. Yet, at the same time, the Jewish community was eroding. Those who had grown up in the 1930s remembered Hitler and Father Coughlin, but their children had much less sense of themselves as being imperiled or embattled as Jews. Some worked for Jewish causes, such as fighting for the rights of Soviet Jews or rallying to support Israel. Those who took part in the 'student struggle for Soviet Jewry' or in organizations that supported Israel may have felt both virtuous and important, but many of them and their parents suspected that American Jews would eventually run out of causes. They would have to face the question of what it meant to be a Jew. American Jews no longer felt that their progress was being blocked by Gentiles, but they did not quite know what to do with themselves.
Feature, 4638 words
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