What is a Jew? [antikvár]

Foreword Of books there is a surfeit. Of books about Jews, there are-well, to put it mildly, a great many. What distinguishes Rabbi Kertzer's What Is a Jew is clarity, grace, good sense, and a rare serenity. This is a wise survey of all those beliefs and customs, those ancient values and practices, those persisting traditions and inner commitments which, taken together, constitute what it is that lies at the heart of Judaism. (You would be surprised by the number of Jews who do not comprehend the majesty and the misery encompassed by those seven letters.) And Rabbi Kertzer does all this without an iota of ambivalence. He cuts no corners and creates no bogey-men, evades no netdes. He strikes no poses. He hurls no anathemas. He gives us—Jew and non-Jew—patient, understanding answers to the most simple and complex questions. So this is a most sensible and humane (because so keenly aware of the human) illumination of that much-discussed, oft-confused, forever tantalizing topic: "Jewishness." Leo Rosten