Beyond Chutzpah: On the Misuse of Anti-Semitism and the Abuse of History

Book Description

In this long-awaited sequel to his international bestseller The Holocaust Industry, Norman G. Finkelstein moves from an iconoclastic interrogation of the new anti-Semitism to a meticulously researched exposé of the corruption of scholarship on the Israel-Palestine conflict.
Bringing to bear the latest findings on the conflict and recasting the scholarly debate, Finkelstein points to a consensus among historians and human rights organizations on the factual record. Why, then, does so much controversy swirl around the conflict? Finkelstein's answer, copiously documented, is that apologists for Israel contrive controversy. Whenever Israel comes under international pressure, another media campaign alleging a global outbreak of anti-Semitism is mounted.
Finkelstein also scrutinizes the proliferation of distortion masquerading as history. Recalling Joan Peters' book From Time Immemorial, published to great fanfare in 1984 but subsequently exposed as an academic hoax, he asks deeply troubling questions here about the periodic reappearance of spurious scholarship and the uncritical acclaim it receives. The most recent addition to this genre, Finkelstein argues, is Harvard Law Professor Alan Dershowitz's bestseller, The Case for Israel.
The core analysis of Beyond Chutzpah sets Dershowitz's assertions on Israel's human rights record against the findings of the mainstream human rights community. Sifting through thousands of pages of reports from organizations such as Amnesty International, B'Tselem, and Human Rights Watch, Finkelstein argues that Dershowitz has misrepresented the facts.
Thoroughly researched and tightly argued, Beyond Chutzpah lifts the veil of controversy shrouding the Israel-Palestine conflict.

Download Description

In this long-awaited sequel to his international bestseller The Holocaust Industry, Norman G. Finkelstein moves from an iconoclastic interrogation of the new anti-Semitism to a meticulously researched exposé of the corruption of scholarship on the Israel-Palestine conflict. Bringing to bear the latest findings on the conflict and recasting the scholarly debate, Finkelstein points to a consensus among historians and human rights organizations on the factual record. Why, then, does so much controversy swirl around the conflict? Finkelstein's answer, copiously documented, is that apologists for Israel contrive controversy. Whenever Israel comes under international pressure, another media campaign alleging a global outbreak of anti-Semitism is mounted. Finkelstein also scrutinizes the proliferation of distortion masquerading as history. Recalling Joan Peters' book From Time Immemorial, published to great fanfare in 1984 but subsequently exposed as an academic hoax, he asks deeply troubling questions here about the periodic reappearance of spurious scholarship and the uncritical acclaim it receives. The most recent addition to this genre, Finkelstein argues, is Harvard Law Professor Alan Dershowitz's bestseller, The Case for Israel. The core analysis of Beyond Chutzpah sets Dershowitz's assertions on Israel's human rights record against the findings of the mainstream human rights community. Sifting through thousands of pages of reports from organizations such as Amnesty International, B'Tselem, and Human Rights Watch, Finkelstein argues that Dershowitz has misrepresented the facts. Thoroughly researched and tightly argued, Beyond Chutzpah lifts the veil of controversy shrouding the Israel-Palestine conflict.

Customer Reviews:

Jewish soul-searching and anti-Semitism........2007-10-11

As one can see from the enthusiastic celebrations around this book, it is indeed a long waited for delicacy for all those who are uneasy with the idea that the Jewish People are also entitled to their national sovereignty in their ancient-new homeland. These celebrating people do not like to consider themselves anti-Semites (today it is not considered bon-ton), and are deeply offended when somebody dares to suggest that they are, but nevertheless they are convinced that the rebuilding of the Jewish State in our times is an intolerable outrage. They are passionately trying to prove that the Jewish State is illegitimate, or at least its struggle to defend itself from its sworn deadly enemies is.
And now here comes this Jewish Guru who in his new book "scholarly and methodically" analyses and proves how right they are and gives them his stamp of approval, his certificate of Kosherness. They couldn't have asked for more, "the right thing at the right time" and hence this enthusiastic welcome.

Nevertheless, I would like to remind everybody a well known idiosyncrasy of the Jewish people, which may help to bring this whole issue in the right perspective. The Jews have a singular tendency to soul-searching which characterizes them since ancient times (remember the Prophets?). We have a strong tendency to demanding from ourselves uncompromising high standards of conduct which we are not always succeeding to live up to, and this leads to very harsh and very frequently unfair self-criticism. You can find it in articles written by Jewish reporters in Israeli newspapers as well as abroad. You can find it also in books like the subject one. Sometimes this self-criticism becomes unreasonably harsh and unfair, bordering with insanity, and sometimes it is outright insane. Even though the motives are diametrically opposite, this insanity is very similar to another soul pathology called anti-Semitism.

In a way, this insane level of the characteristic Jewish soul-searching and the anti-Semitic pathology are related, and feeding each other. On one side the anti-Semite is more than happy to concur with the Jewish self criticism, especially when it is sufficiently insane. On the other side, the insane Jewish leftist is convinced that as soon as we become angels, the anti-Semites will suddenly realize how nice people we are, and will instantly fall in love with the Jews.

This is in a nutshell my explanation to this biased, tendentious, one-sided and unfair anti-Semitic hate-pamphlet written by a deranged self-hating Jewish intellectual, and the enthusiastic way it is welcome by anti-Semites worldwide, Jewish and non-Jewish.

an attempt at analysis.......2007-09-19

this is an attempt at honest analysis of this issue.
however,the various author are so angry at each other that often are more
attent at respond to each other and the objectivity suffers.
this does not mean to imply that this particular book is misleading. it tries very hard to be impartial and it almost often succeeds

a must read.......2007-09-10

This is a must read, specially for those who support Israel and Zionism. Norman Finkelstein raises questions that we should all contemplate. Regardless of your political views, you can only gain from this book. Sadly, Prof. Finkelstein has already paid the price for his views.

Finkelstein vs. Chomsky.......2007-07-16

This reads like a thesis. Almost every paragraph starts with why Chomsky, another professor at a prestigious university, is wrong.

I couldn't stand it.

Some authors write books on history. Others re-write history in books. .......2007-06-21

Falsities, distortions, omissions, insults and biasness are things you'll find in this book. Objectivity, balance and honesty are things you won't find in Beyond Chutzpah, a book on the Israel-Palestine conflict.

For example, in regards to the Palestinian refugee problem, the author states that "The scholarly consensus is that Palestinians were ethnically cleansed in 1948." Yet there is no truth to this statement since various historians have reached various conclusions. The author also attempts to prove that there was no such thing as Arab radio broadcasts urging Palestinians to leave their homes prior to or during the 1948 war, summarizing it as a Zionist lie. However, there is other evidence, which shows that Arab authorities - through means other than radio broadcasts - urged Palestinians to leave their homes, which the author neglects to mention.

Another example of dishonesty is when the author refers to the Palestinian people as "indigenous", when in fact they originated from the Arabian Peninsula and other parts outside of Israel/Palestine. That's like claiming that Spaniards are the indigenous people of Mexico! Equally absurd is the author's fanciful and historically inaccurate comparison of Palestinians to American Indians, whose territories were conquered and colonized by Europeans, and the European conquerors, he compares to Zionists. This comparison is completely nonsensical, considering the fact that Jews have lived in Israel/Palestine for some 2,000 years before Arabs even settled there! In fact, the name "Palestine" was given by the Romans who ruled the region during the second century (five centuries before Arabs begin settling there) in order to wipe off the region's Jewish identity. Thus, the author has it all wrong: The Jews are the indigenous people of Israel/Palestine, not the Arabs. Sure enough, the author mentions the Arab population in Palestine before 1948, but entirely dismisses the Jewish population, as though Jews simply did not exist there, or as he puts it; "two millennia of non-Jewish settlement in Palestine." Now how could one publish such explicit lies and get away with it? These are not facts, but mere fabrications.

History shows us that the Jews have lived in Palestine longer than any other people, for some 3,500 consecutive years. Granted, the Jewish population greatly diminished to the point where Arabs outnumbered them, but at no time during the Zionist movement was Palestine ever an Arab nation. When the Zionist movement began in late 19th century, the Turkish Ottoman Empire ruled the region. After WW1, it was the British. Moreover, during those periods, Jerusalem's population was predominantly Jewish. But the author does not provide the reader with such information. His approach, instead, is to blame everything - literally everything - on Zionists and the State of Israel, even for "Sadam (Hussein) to embark on a nuclear weapons program"!

But these are not the only important facts the author omits. There are many others. Like the fact that in 1922, the British government gave some three quarters of Palestine to the Hashemite Kingdom to create an exclusively Arab state, or the fact that the 1948 war was initiated by six Arab nations. Nope. Instead, the author writes about how in 1948, under the 1947 UN Partition Plan, the Arabs were offered "only" half of Palestine, as though they should have been entitled to all of it and makes it sounds like Israel is the one who started the war.

Other examples of biasness, include the author's mentions of Israeli atrocities against Palestinians, such as the Deir Yassin massacre in 1948, yet completely ignoring Palestinians atrocities against Jews, like the 1929 massacre in Hebron, or the 1938 massacre in Tiberias, or the killings between 1936-1939, or the 1970 school bus massacre in Avivim, or the 1974 massacre in Maalot, etc, etc. In addition to all of this, you will find insults and ridicule, like when the author ponders rhetorically, "Shouldn't Chesler (author of The New Anti-Semitism...) first have consulted the idiot's guide to the Middle-East?" Very funny. And of course, none of this would be complete without a few anti-Semitic clichés like; "Zionist fabrication," "Zionist propaganda," and "Zionist fairy tale."

Speaking of anti-Semitism, the author persistently asserts that Jews are and have been misusing anti-Semitism as a political tool to gain advantages, and therefore, somehow instigating anti-Semitism themselves. Yet at the same time, the author manages to downplay the reality of the new anti-Semitism. Granted, it is true that Jews have used anti-Semitism as a political tool, there's no question about that. But if you understand the history anti-Semitism and put things in proper context, it only makes sense for Jews to use anti-Semitism as a political tool. Being a tiny minority in every country outside Israel and having suffered so much throughout history, it is, to a certain extant, a tool for self defense; to ensure that they are treated properly without prejudice or hostility so that history does not repeat itself. Just as it is proper for African Americans to use the "race card", as whites call it, as a political tool to ensure equality and fair treatment in society, it's proper for Jews to do the same, as long as they don't go overboard. And sure, some individual Jews and Jewish Organizations have gone overboard, but the author takes this whole idea entirely out of context and blows it completely out of proportion making one feel like they are reading excerpts from The Protocols of The Elders of Zion.

Another issue I have with this book is that the author's attempt to compel the reader into believing that anyone who criticizes Israel is automatically labeled an anti-Semite. That is not true. In fact, if that were the case, then the majority of Israelis would be anti-Semites, according to the author's own logic (or lack of). However, there is a visible difference between criticism and attacks, which the author fails to see. When someone slanders and insults Jewish people, why can't it be called by its real name; anti-Semitism? The author is simply trying to play a game of reverse psychology in hopes to silence Jews from defending themselves.

Other subjects in this book include Israel's human rights abuses, which he greatly emphasizes. But when it comes down to Palestinian human rights abuses, he ignores it. He also ignores Lebanon's, Syria's and Jordan's human rights abuses towards Palestinians, which shows you how biased this book is. The author believes that the first Intifada was "largely non-violent" (sure, perhaps when compared to the second Intifada, where suicide bombing was a weapon of choice) but Israel's response he calls a "brutal repression." Yet the author refuses to mention Palestinians' own brutal repression towards their own people, like when hundreds of Palestinian civilians suspected of "collaborating" with Israel were tortured and executed by Palestinian militants during the first Intifada.

But providing such detail would ruin the author's squeaky-clean image of Palestinians, which brings us to another fine virtue the author exemplifies; Hypocrisy. He accuses Joan Peters' book Time Immortal of being a "colossal hoax" where "sources were mangled, key numbers in demographic study falsified, and large swaths plagiarized from Zionist propaganda." Sounds to me like he learned a lot from Peters' alleged tactics, since Finkelstein himself mangles sources. For example, he quotes from Benny Morris (also a controversial author who calls himself a "new scholar" and who has been accused of twisting facts and even fabricating them) who Finkelstein calls a racist psychopath! Yet Finkelstein has no problems quoting "facts" from a racist psychopath. Ironically enough, this racist psychopath later complained that Finkelstein misused his sources through selective quoting!

The second half of the book deals specifically with Alan Dershowitz (not exactly an acclaimed scholar either) and his book "The Case for Israel." Here, the author's role here is to expose Dershowitz as a complete fraud. I admit that when one looks at the content of his analysis at face value, it looks very impressive. Yet when you read very closely, you will notice that the author uses a very simple method of boldly dismissing everything and anything Dershowitz wrote and replacing it all with his own personally revised "corrections" - through selective sources and quoting, of course. The author's superbly confident, often arrogant, and bully-like tone is sure to convince anyone of anything he writes. His attempt to prove that Dershowitz plagiarized is not all that fantastic either; whenever Dershowitz quotes from Peters, he uses quotation marks or citations, or at least makes some sort of attributions in one way or another.

So there you have it: A spectacular one-sided book on the Israel-Palestine conflict. If you are looking for an all-out attack on the State of Israel to serve for your hungry appetite, Mr. Finkelstein will provide you with the most satisfying meal.

The Rise and Fall of the House of Barneys: A Family Tale of Chutzpah, Glory, and Greed

Average customer rating:

How the third generation Pressmans blew their fortune.
Should be read by anyone with a FAMILY business
Fascinating
Why businesses don't succeed when passed to kids
A Cautionary Tale for Expansionist Managements

The Rise and Fall of the House of Barneys: A Family Tale of Chutzpah, Glory, and Greed
Joshua Levine
Manufacturer: William Morrow & Company
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

Company Profiles | Biography & History | Business & Investing | Subjects | Books

General | Business & Investing | Subjects | Books

Retailing | Industries & Professions | Business & Investing | Subjects | Books

General | Reference | Business & Investing | Subjects | Books

General | Reference | Subjects | Books

Look Inside Nonfiction Books | Trip | Specialty Stores | Books

Look Inside Reference Books | Trip | Specialty Stores | Books
Similar Items:

Confessions of a Window Dresser
The House of Gucci: A Sensational Story of Murder, Madness, Glamour, and Greed
Chasing Cool: Standing Out in Today's Cluttered Marketplace
Deluxe: How Luxury Lost Its Luster

ASIN: 0688155022

Amazon.com

The history of Barneys is the history of America itself in the 20th century. Barney Pressman was a hard-working nobody who sold mostly second-hand clothing in a nowhere neighborhood in Manhattan. From those humble beginnings rose a store that became famous for the sheer volume of its suits, and the discount prices for which they were sold. But Barney Pressman's son, Fred, had a different vision. He wanted his store to be more upscale, even if it couldn't be uptown, like Bloomingdale's. He pulled that off, but his sons--Barney's grandsons--wanted even more. They envisioned a plush uptown store, franchised around the world, with no expenses spared. And so they spent $267 million on their Madison Avenue store--$600,000 alone for a hand-assembled marble-chip floor--sinking the three-generation family business in a mere 10 years.

Levine shapes this story less as a tragedy than a lesson in hubris--and in business. All of Barney and Fred Pressman's business savvy corrupted into snobbery when Fred's sons took over. Barneys became "too New Yorky for most New Yorkers." There's an old saying that no one goes broke underestimating the taste of Americans. The converse is that fortunes are easily lost going the opposite direction. Barneys may be the most fascinating proof of that adage in American history. --Lou Schuler

Book Description

This is a rags to riches to rags story.

It took three generations to build Barneys into the world's most fabulous clothing store--and less than a decade to tear it down. This fascinating book is at once a family saga, a cautionary business tale, and a riveting, superbly detailed behind-the-scenes account of how a secondhand store founded on pluck and chutzpah grew into a glittering international retail empire, only to founder on greed and hubris.

It is a tragicomedy of truly Greek proportions, featuring a full cast of larger-than-life heroes and villains and fools, spun in dramatic, novelistic style, and written in evocative prose by a distinguished editor at Forbes. Patriarch Barney Pressman started small in 1923, but within two decades he was selling more suits than anyone in the world. By the time his son, Fred, took over in the 1960s, Barneys was a thriving institution, and Boys Town at Barneys was the site of every New York boy's clothing rite of passage. But Fred had loftier ambitions; he was never comfortable with the crass discounter image. He staked the family fortune on European fabrics and design, wound up transforming the entire world of men's fashion, and made a killing along the way.

But it was Fred's sons, Gene and Bob, who really wanted it all--not just a store but a grandiose temple of ultimate chic. Instead, through extravagance, flamboyance, greed, and an arrogant disregard for sound business principles, they raced heedlessly into one of the most spectacular business flameouts in retail history.

A tasty mix of high fashion, high finance, and overweening family ambition, The Rise and Fall of the House of Barneys is a book every bit as stylish and well tailored as any suit the Pressman dynasty ever sold.

This is a rags to riches to rags story.

Customer Reviews:

How the third generation Pressmans blew their fortune........2006-11-05

This is a typical story of a rich family running the family business into the ground. Barney and Fred Pressman spent their entire lives building up their suit store. They spent all their hours nurturing this business and they turn it over to their two sons and two daughters. The grand children have grand plans of expanding the store nationwide along with opening a megastore on Madison Avenue. Cost overruns, and the market result in doing in the business. They took a Japanese outfit along for the ride causing them to lose several hundred million dollars.

Levine does a good job of detailing the rise and fall of this retail empire. Barneys did a lot for mens fashions. However arrogant and greedy grandchildren caused the fall of this store. Family owned businesses should read this story for the caution it may give to family members.

Should be read by anyone with a FAMILY business.......2001-07-20

Don't be put off by what may appear to be a look at one business and one family's way of doing business. This book actually explores far deeper subjects and questions such as : Why is it that so many successful family businesses fail when passed on to heirs? Why do so many solid companies with loyal customers, proven merchandise and a promising future just fall by the wayside? To those who don't know Barneys, it was started by Barney Pressman, a smart, ambitious man who built his business into a thriving industry, selling more suits than anyone in the world by the 1960's.But what makes the book interesting is what happened to his business when his sons came into the picture and the intrigue, scandal and greed that tore apart the company. I can't help wondering: Why don't the patriarchs (or matriarchs) of family businesses teach their children to run the companies just as well? Is it possible to mix family and business and do it well? The Barney's sage, of course, is not yet over and the store is still in existence. So the end of this story remains to be seen.

Fascinating.......2000-08-14

A very enjoyable book. You pull for the Pressmans when the snobs snub them in the beginning. You jeer at them when their position goes to their heads and they behave very, very badly. But the really interesting part of the book concerns how fashion and retailing REALLY work. They appear to be just an elaborate hoax on the consumer. This book should be read in conjunction with Teri Agin's "The End of Fashion" which shows the comsumers are getting more and more skeptical and dissects the public offerings of fashion stock (if you're fond of your money and want to keep it, don't buy). Hooray.

Why businesses don't succeed when passed to kids.......2000-05-27

A fascinating case study on the history of a well known American business. The behind the scenes look shows the evolution through 3 generations. Looking deeper, it says a lot about the values of each of the generations which explains some of the troubles in America today. Maybe we've become too soft.

I can't recommend this book enough if you enjoy shopping or business books. I continue to shop occasionally at NY and Beverly Hills. You can't go into the stores without better appreciating the history of the store. BUY THIS BOOK.

A Cautionary Tale for Expansionist Managements.......1999-09-19

It seems everyone talks to Levine because as Barney Pressman once told Fred, "The Pressmans have no friends." What emerges is not only a morality play but also a case study on how not to raise your children and how not to expand your business. Hubris is a horrible thing. Time and again though during this decade, with Wall Street money plentiful, retail managements successful in one locale expand their businesses to places that don't want them. A concept that works in NY doesn't seem to play in Peoria, or with Barneys, in Texas. While with public companies, it's only money; with Barneys, privately held, it's family and lives. Maybe that's what makes the Barneys' tragedy a fascinating read.

Average customer rating:

At least the title is honest
utter bunk
An interesting discussion of Jews in the world today
A very long "rant"
Too much venting, too little substance

Chutzpah
Alan M. Dershowitz
Manufacturer: Touchstone
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

General | Ethnic & National | Biographies & Memoirs | Subjects | Books

Jewish | Ethnic & National | Biographies & Memoirs | Subjects | Books

General | Biographies & Memoirs | Subjects | Books

Lawyers & Judges | Professionals & Academics | Biographies & Memoirs | Subjects | Books

General | Specific Groups | Biographies & Memoirs | Subjects | Books

Contemporary | General | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books
Similar Items:

The Case for Peace: How the Arab-Israeli Conflict Can be Resolved
The Vanishing American Jew : In Search of Jewish Identity for the Next Century
The Best Defense
Why Terrorism Works: Understanding the Threat, Responding to the Challenge
The Case for Israel

ASIN: 0671760890

Book Description

The acclaimed #1 New York Times bestseller, written by a brilliant legal mind, on what it means to be a Jew in America today. Dershowitz discusses the changes they've witnessed, changes they've created, and the changes that must still take place. He examines anti-Semitism, the Holocaust, assimilation, Zionism, civil rights, changes in eastern Europe, and turmoil in the Middle East. 8-page photo insert.

Customer Reviews:

At least the title is honest.......2007-05-16

Mr. Chutzpah is a Harvard Law professor. Called on his attributing the Joan Peters' awful neologism "turnspeak" to Orwell Mr. Chutzpah publicly attributed it to Huxley. The less said about the (lack of) erudition of Harvard Law professors the better it seems.

Dean Elena Kagan of Harvard, a tireless defender of Mr. Chutzpah, who seems to have never walked when she could crawl instead, may wish to revise Harvard advertising to put in disclaimers with respect to the law school: that Harvard's general reputation notwithstanding, she makes no assurances as to the quality of present faculty like Mr. Chutzpah.

Mr. Chutzpah, when he is not defending pornographers and the like of O.J. Simpson, works with his lawyers at Cravath, Swain and Moore to suppress books critical of him and his shoddy "scholarship". Such as Norman G. Finkelstein's devastating takedown Beyond Chutzpah: On the Misuse of Anti-Semitism and the Abuse of History.

utter bunk.......2005-08-14

Norman Finkelstein conclusively demonstrates that Dershowitz is a plagiarizer and that his claims about Israel's "superb" human rights record are complete bunk. All reputable human rights organizations support Finkelstein's arguments and not Dershowitz's. Dershowitz's book merits a minus 10, but the lowest grade one can give it is one star. The fact that one can find copies of this book for sale for 1 cent indicate its scholarly and moral usefulness. Dershowitz is now involved in a concerted campaign to have Finkelstein shut down, pressuring Harvard Bookstore and the Barnes and Noble bookstore at DePaul University in Chicago to cancel speaking engagements by Finkelstein. Harvard cancelled its invitation for fear of "economic retaliation," Barnes and Noble said the book was "too controversial," and invited Dershowitz to speak about his "book" instead.

An interesting discussion of Jews in the world today.......2005-05-04

Plenty of Jews exhibit chutzpah (nerve). But there is a flip side to this, the fear of "shanda fur de goyim" (embarrassment in front of the gentiles).

Dershowitz analyzes the discrimination he's seen against Jews. In some places, it is non-existent. In others, it is significant. In yet others, it is striking. He begins with his experiences in trying to find employment as a summer hire in various law firms. Of course, discrimination against people on the basis of race, religion, gender, and (if known) sexual preference is now much less than it used to be. But we see some of the history of it among law firms and at Harvard.

One issue that I found intriguing was that of the Carmelite convent at Auschwitz. Now, I do not see any reason for Jews or anyone else to consider Auschwitz, of all places, holy ground. But I am well aware that many people do consider it as such, and I respect their views on the matter. And it was up to the Catholic authorities whether or not to make a deal with the Jews to not have a Carmelite convent at Auschwitz. But once the Catholics made that deal and a bunch of nuns broke it, a rabbi and six other Jews were totally within their rights to ask the nuns to explain what they were doing there, and even "trespass" on convent grounds to pray. And it was certainly out of line for Polish Cardinal Glemp to make a totally wild and preposterous accusation, namely that these Jews were trying to murder the nuns and destroy the convent. I think Dershowitz was right to take the case against Glemp for defamation here.

There is an good chapter about Zionism. That includes a discussion of Jewish antizionism. Dershowitz explains the pressure on Jews to be antizionist and to oppose Israel as Jews. He thinks they are wrong to do so. I agree. I think everyone ought to support Israel's (or any other nation's) right to exist as a human being, or oppose it as a human being! Or be neutral as a human being.

I recommend this book.

A very long "rant".......2004-08-26

I was initially engrossed while reading about the history of the Dershowitz family and their lives in Brooklyn. As the book progressed, it was more like a very long "rant" about anti-Semitism, and the miserable plight of American Jews. As an American Jew living in the rural western US, I cannot relate to the discrimination described and felt by the author. As with any religion outside the mainstream of the popular culture, Jews will always be considered as "different". We set ourselves apart from others by our values, moral beliefs, and our observances.

Too much venting, too little substance.......2001-08-01

Overall, I am a huge fan of Dershowitz's books. I thoroughly enjoyed the Best Defense, From Genesis to Justice, and even his novel, A Just Revenge. I felt, though, that Dershowitz went a little overboard with his views of Jews in America. In many ways, I am almost embarassed to be viewed in the same light as him (As a Jew) because of his extreme views. He made it seem as if the world was out to get Jews, even in America. He does make many good points about Jewish identity in America, but to me he comes across as whining more than discussing.

He does use some great arguments and has a pretty clear account of Jewish history in America. His description of his family and neighborhood is nice to read to understand where he grew up and what his background is. I especially liked his description of his own family as I was reminded in many ways of my own.

I gave the book 2 stars but that is compared with his other books. It is not a bad book or a bad read. In many ways, I found it very informative but I would choose one of his other books rather than this one.

Chutzpah
Average customer rating:
Chutzpah
Dershowitz
Manufacturer: Little Brown and Company
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000BY52T4

Average customer rating:
Chutzpah
Alan M. Dershowitz
Manufacturer: Little Brown & Co
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000OLC4NQ

Average customer rating:
Chutzpah

Manufacturer: Little, Brown & Co.
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: B000GPSE6G

Average customer rating:
Chutzpah
Alan M. Dershowitz
Manufacturer: Little, Brown & Company
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

General | Religion & Spirituality | Subjects | Books
ASIN: B000NZW1AO

The Chutzpah Connection SIGNED
Average customer rating:
The Chutzpah Connection SIGNED
Idora Silver
Manufacturer: Chutzpress
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: B000LCMAZK

THE CHUTZPAH CONNECTION: Blueprint for Success
Average customer rating:
THE CHUTZPAH CONNECTION: Blueprint for Success
Idora SILVER
Manufacturer: Chutzpress
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: B000VSZZLU

Average customer rating:

Inspiring

The Chutzpah Connection: Blueprint for Success : Real Life Stories of Inspiration and Achievement
Idora Silver
Manufacturer: Chutz Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

General | Self-Help | Health, Mind & Body | Subjects | Books
Personal Transformation | Self-Help | Health, Mind & Body | Subjects | Books
Success | Self-Help | Health, Mind & Body | Subjects | Books
General | Psychology & Counseling | Health, Mind & Body | Subjects | Books
Inspirational | Spirituality | Religion & Spirituality | Subjects | Books
ASIN: 0965258203

Customer Reviews:

Inspiring.......1998-12-03

This is an impeccable work, by an extrordinary author!

Books:

Books Index

Books Home

Recommended Books