Chutzpah

Boston, MA: Little, Brown and Company, 1991. First Edition. Sixth Printing. Hardcover. Good/Good. 378, illus., notes, index, stamp & scratches to fore-edge, sm stains ins fr bd & flylf, stray blue mark p. 378, DJ soiled & sm tears. Sticker residue on DJ. Dershowitz's personal reminiscences about growing up Jewish in America, and his reflection on his generation of Jews in America--the changes they have witnessed, the changes they have created, and the changes that must still take place. Derived from a Kirkus review: Flamboyant Harvard Law professor and appellate advocate Dershowitz writes engagingly and bluntly of the unique problems and challenges of being Jewish in general, and being Jewish in America in particular. With all the persuasiveness and `chutzpah'' for which he has become renowned in his criminal-defense work, Dershowitz assails the view that American Jews are merely `guests'' in a predominantly Christian America, and that American Jews must defer to views and sensibilities of non-Jewish citizens. He also rejects the notion that American Jews are `second-class Jews'' simply because they live in the heterodox US and have not migrated to Israel. American Jews, he says, `need not compromise either...Americanism or...Jewishness.'' Using as starting points personal anecdotes of his own childhood in the Orthodox community of Brooklyn, his education at Brooklyn College and Yale Law School, his brief period of law-firm practice, his Supreme Court clerkship, his academic career, and his involvement with such cases as the Jonathan Pollard spy case and a libel case against the anti- Semitic Polish Cardinal Glemp, Dershowitz explores issues of anti-Semitism, discrimination against Jews, and loyalty to Israel. Proudly, he urges American Jews to assert their own self- interest without guilt or fear. His narrative is absorbing, his discussions lively, and his arguments often convincing. An energetic and stimulating exposition of the primary political and cultural issues confronting Jewish Americans.