Books, Arts & Manners: The Right Books

In the late Sixties and early Seventies the question of a perceived tendency on the part of Jewish college students toward radical and revolutionary politics was debated, rather skittishly by rabbis and college counselors, much more bravely and openly by writers like Nathan Glazer and Midge Decter. In those days critics and champions alike of “Jewish radicalism” took for granted an historical predisposition on the part of Western Jews toward the warmer end of the political spectrum. Then came the brunt of the Seventies— the Arab oil embargoes and, at home, “affirmative action” with its system of racial and ethnic quotas. Last year a very indignant book called Jews without Mercy administered a hard shellacking to Jews of the neo-conservative stripe for supposedly betraying Judaism’s humanitarian impulse. It was clear from reading the book that the author sensed a powerful conservative tide moving beneath the American Jewish community at large, and deplored this.

W. D. Rubinstein, a professor at Deakin University in Victoria, Australia, confirms the notion of a Jewish slide into political conservatism, not only in America but in all Western countries. In The Left, the Right, and the Jews (Universe, 381 Park Avenue South, New York, N.Y. 10016; $18.20), Rubinstein argues that the notion that Jews have a “natural affinity” for left-wing politics is, of all the fallacies about them, “the biggest fallacy of all”:

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Chilton Williamson Jr.

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In the late Sixties and early Seventies the question of a perceived tendency on the part of Jewish college students toward radical and revolutionary politics was debated, rather skittishly by rabbis and college counselors, much more bravely and openly by writers like Nathan Glazer and Midge Decter. In those days critics and champions alike of “Jewish radicalism” took for granted an historical predisposition on the part of Western Jews toward the warmer end of the political spectrum. Then came the brunt of the Seventies— the Arab oil embargoes and, at home, “affirmative action” with its system of racial and ethnic quotas. Last year a very indignant book called Jews without Mercy administered a hard shellacking to Jews of the neo-conservative stripe for supposedly betraying Judaism’s humanitarian impulse. It was clear from reading the book that the author sensed a powerful conservative tide moving beneath the American Jewish community at large, and deplored this.

W. D. Rubinstein, a professor at Deakin University in Victoria, Australia, confirms the notion of a Jewish slide into political conservatism, not only in America but in all Western countries. In The Left, the Right, and the Jews (Universe, 381 Park Avenue South, New York, N.Y. 10016; $18.20), Rubinstein argues that the notion that Jews have a “natural affinity” for left-wing politics is, of all the fallacies about them, “the biggest fallacy of all”: