jewcentricity why the jews are praised blamed and used to explain just about everything
advance praise for jewcentricity p adam garfinkle punctures the myth of the omnipotence of the jews with such intelligence and reflective sweep that we still can go on discussing the exaggerations forever . leslie h. gelb former columnist for the new york times and president emeritus of the council on foreign relations p jews as the saying goes are news . why is that in this elegant witty learned insightful always interesting and occasionally alarming book adam garfinkle explains the worlds fascination with the practitioners of its oldest mono theistic religion . michael mandelbaum author of democracys good name the rise and risks of the worlds oldest form of government p one would have thought that everything that could be written or said about the relationship between jews and their environment has been written and said . it was a pleasure though hardly a surprise that adam garfinkle thinker scholar editor and iconoclast at large has been able to offer us fresh insights into this complex issue and apply his original mind to the subject matter . itamar rabinovich former israeli ambassador to the united states and former president of tel aviv university p there is a lot to argue about and ponder in this riveting manuscript . it is bound to cause a stir . robert d. kaplan author of the arabists the romance of an american elite p one way of looking at this brilliant book is to see it as an extended commentary on an old joke that defines a philo semite as an anti semite who likes jews . garfinkle shows with many examples what both characters have in common a wildly exaggerated notion of the importance of jews in the world . garfinkles argument is scholarly lucid witty and very persuasive . it deserves a wide readership . peter l. berger director institute on culture religion and world affairs at boston university