THE STATE OF THE JEWS: A CRITICAL APPRAISAL
Book ID/图书代码： 13149012B55698
English Summary/英文概要： The State of the Jews examines the current predicament of the Jewish people and the land of Israel, both of which still stand at the storm center of history, because Jews can never take the right to live as a natural right.
The volume comprises celebrations and attacks. Edward Alexander celebrates writers like Abba Kovner, Cynthia Ozick, Ruth Wisse, and Hillel Halkin, who recognized in the foundation of Israel shortly after the destruction of European Jewry one of the few redeeming events in a century of blood and shame. He attacks Israel’s external enemies—busy planners of boycotts, brazen advocates of politicide, professorial apologists for suicide bombing—and also its internal enemies. These are "anti-Zionist" Jews, devotees of lost causes willfully blind to the fact that Israel’s creation was an event of biblical magnitude. Indifference to Jewish survival during World War II was the admitted moral failure of earlier American-Jewish intellectuals, but today’s "progressives" and "New Diasporists" call indifference virtue, and mistake cowardice for courage.
Because the new anti-Semitism, tightening the noose around Israel’s throat, emanates mainly from liberals, Alexander analyzes both antisemitic and philosemitic strains in three prominent Victorian liberals: Thomas Arnold, his son Matthew, and John Stuart Mill. The main body of Alexander’s book is divided generically into history, politics, and literature. At a deeper level, its chapters are integrated by the book’s pervasive concern: the interconnectedness between the state of Israel and the spiritual state of contemporary Jewry.
Chinese Summary/中文概要： 《犹太人的生存状态》一书审视了当前犹太人们生存的困境以及以色列这片土地，由于犹太人们从未享受天赋人权住在这片土地上，所以二者将会站在历史的暴风中心。
本卷既颂扬与批判于一体。爱德华.亚历山大歌颂了Abba Kovner、 Cynthia Ozick、Ruth Wisse 以及 Hillel Halkin等作家，因为他们在欧洲实施犹太人灭绝计划后不久就承认以色列建国，从而成为百年血腥与屈辱史中仅有的几件赎罪行为之一。
作者抨击了以色列的外部敌人——联合抵制的繁忙规划者，厚颜无耻的政治谋杀提倡者、自杀性爆炸的职业辩护者——同时也批判了内部敌人。这些人都是“反对犹太主义复国运动”的犹太人，坚持认为复国注定要失败，故意对以色列的建立是具有圣经一样伟大的意义这一事实视而不见。在二战期间，犹太裔美国知识分子对犹太人生存的漠不关心是公认的道德败坏现象，但是今天“进步分子”和“新Diasporists”却把冷漠当做没得，错把胆小当做勇气。
由于紧紧拧着犹太人喉咙的新反犹太主义主要提倡者是自由派，亚历山大分析认为反犹太主义和复古犹太主义来源于三大主要的维多利亚自由主义人士：托马斯.阿诺德，其子马修.阿诺德，以及约翰.斯图亚特.米尔。本书的主要部分分为历史、政治和文学三个部分。在更深的层次上，所有章节因本书的普遍担忧而整合到一起：以色列生存状态和当代犹太人精神状态之间的相互关联性。（XMM）
Awards/获奖情况：编辑点评
“爱德华.亚历山大时而意志坚决、风度优雅，时而智慧风趣、善于辩论，他的随笔和评论因振奋人心、发人深思而吸引读者。任何想要理解”犹太人当前生存状态”的读者将会发现亚历山大是一位充满感知能力和煽动力的向导。作为一名杰出的辩论家，亚历山大在当代犹太人的主题辩论中无可匹敌。”——Alvin H. Rosenfeld，英语与犹太研究教授，印第安纳大学当代反犹太主义研究所犹太人研究欧文M.格雷泽主席和执行人。 “无论在美国还是欧洲，当今对于任何意识到高层新闻工作正在以自欺欺人的方式进行交易的人来说，这些随笔文章绝对是坚定。这些文章诙谐机智、辛辣讽刺，智慧到残忍、详尽到邪恶，不顾一切地展示了美国思维是多么生气勃勃。亚历山大探讨的范围广泛的令人嫉妒……无疑，很多随笔文章再一次表明反犹太主义是萦绕不去的知识分子话语。因为反犹太主义已经害死了那么多的人，我们有时候极不情愿地对它产生尊敬。这些文章直接揭露了其本质”愚蠢民众的幻觉；与亚历山大作品中大量体现的才智、人性、智能和庄重向违背。”
Editorial Reviews
“By turns tough-minded and elegant, witty and contentious, Edward Alexander’s essays and reviews engage their subjects in bracing and always illuminating ways. Anyone who wants to learn about ‘the state of the Jews’ will find Alexander a perceptive and provocative guide. A brilliant polemicist, he has few rivals among commentators on contemporary Jewish themes.”—Alvin H. Rosenfeld, professor of English and Jewish studies, Irving M. Glazer Chair in Jewish Studies, director, Institute for the Study of Contemporary Antisemitism, Indiana University
“To anyone conscious of the extent to which the higher journalism today, both in America and Europe, trades in willed self-delusion, these essays will come as a decided relief. Witty, pungent, brutally intelligent and wickedly well informed, they demonstrate that the American mind, in spite of everything, is alive and kicking. Alexander’s range is enviably wide. . . . Inevitably, many of these essays touch on the antisemitism once again haunting intellectual discourse. Because antisemitism has killed so many people, we tend to treat it, sometimes grudgingly, with respect. These essays reveal it squarely for what it is: a delusion of the very stupid; a standing offence against the wit, humanity, intelligence, and decency that Alexander’s work so abundantly embodies.”
About the Author/作者介绍： 爱德华.亚历山大是西雅图华盛顿大学英语系荣誉退休教授，文学学者和评论家协会（Association of Literary Scholars and Critics）、全国学者协会（National Association of Scholars）以及华盛顿学者协会（Washington Association of Scholars）的一员。他出版过《犹太人思想和他们的敌人The Jewish Idea and Its Enemies》、《大屠杀和战争思想》以及《欧文.豪：一个犹太社会主义者和评论家》。 Edward Alexander is professor emeritus of English at the University of Washington, Seattle. He has been a member of the Association of Literary Scholars and Critics, the National Association of Scholars, and the Washington Association of Scholars. He is the author of The Jewish Idea and Its Enemies, The Holocaust and the War of Ideas, and Irving Howe: Socialist, Critic, Jew.
Format:HARDCOVER
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