mondoweiss (affinity for other jews, coen brothers)

Phil- You are way off base. As if you can convince those Jews who feel an affinity for other Jews and thus for the Jewish state, based upon Shlomo Sands’ book. Those Jews like yourself who wish to assimilate and disappear are doing so whether or not there is a genetic or cultural basis to the concept of the Jewish people. Those Jews who feel the affinity will continue to do so no matter what Shlomo Sands wrote in his book. The process of undoing Jewish affinity for other Jews (and thus for the Jewish state) has been accomplished by the pull of Western society and the push of the discomfort of sitting in synagogue, seeing Hasidic Jews on the street or reading about Israel in the Times. As in “A Serious Man” by the brothers Coen, the Hebrew teachers who teach the validity of the Jewish affinity are undone by the sounds of Grace Slick on the radio. If the Brothers Coen still feel such an affinity forty years later despite their marrying out and integration into American society, then maybe there is something deeper to the affinity after all. But in any case it won’t be a book by Shlomo Sands that undoes the affinity and the idea that it will is truly silly.