A Jew in America : My Life and A People's Struggle for Identity

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Summary: Arthur Hertzberg
Review: A Jew In America:
My Life and a People's Struggle for Identity
By Arthur Hertzberg
San Francisco: Harper (October, 2002)

Review by Elliot Fein

The late Howard Cosell, the great radio and television broadcaster at ABC Sports, used to pride himself on "telling it like it is," on saying in public on the air the absolute truth about individuals and events in the world of sports. For over six decades, Arthur Hertzberg has been "telling it like it is" about people and events in the world of contemporary Jewish life in North America, in Israel, and throughout the world.

Without the distinct Brooklyn nasal tone accent that made Cosell famous, but in a distinct voice all his own, Hertzberg has been saying and writing the absolute truth in his long and distinguished career as a rabbi, as a university professor and scholar, and as a CEO leader of various national and international Jewish communal organizations.

His book, A Jew in America: My Life and a People's Struggle for Identity, an autobiography on the famous people that he has met (usually on a first name basis) and the events that he has experienced (often as a first hand participant) is a good read because history has often proved his predictions right.

Soon after the 1967 Six Day War, Hertzberg was one of the first voices (perhaps the first American Jewish voice) that warned of the danger Israel would face if it did not return immediately most of the territories it obtained to its Arab neighbors. Hertzberg prophesized that it would rip the moral, democratic, and Jewish soul of the country if Israel attempted to keep the West Bank and Gaza and subsequently put itself in the position of occupying a growing and hostile Palestinian Arab refugee population.

Hertzberg was one of the first to fulminate against the theology that has developed among many Orthodox Jews since 1967 that the outcome of the Six Day War sets the stage for the onslaught of the world's messianic redemption. For a small country that is struggling to live among, not against, the nations of the world, Hertzberg saw from its inception how this nationalistic and fundamentalist interpretation of contemporary events could (still) easily alienate Israel among the nations of the world and lead the contemporary state on a future suicidal path.

In the early 1970's, Hertzberg was part of a contingent of American Jewish leaders who met in Israel with the then Prime Minister, Golda Meir. Golda, from a recent visit with President Nixon in the United States, wanted to talk with members of this contingent about race relations in America. She wanted to express her concern about militant African American leaders publicly articulating separatist, nationalistic, and anti-Semitic attitudes after the assassination of Martin Luther King and the decline of the Civil Rights Movement.

Hertzberg responded in this public discussion to her concern by expressing his own about Israel. He warned the Prime Minister that a 'Black Panther' problem of their own was developing in Israel, that a growing number of non-Ashkenazi Jewish citizens, recent immigrants from North African and Asian countries, were feeling estranged from mainstream Israeli life.

Hertzberg predicted that the present Labor led government coalition would pay a heavy price in future elections if it did not start to listen and formally address some of the complaints and concerns of these Edot Ha Mizrachi Jews who perceived their citizenship status as second class.

Golda and her Labor party did not seem to heed the advice. In 1977, Menachem Begin and his Likud Party, with the overwhelming support of this ethnic constituency, dethroned the Labor establishment for the first time in Israel's history and formed its own coalition to lead the Knesset, Israel's parliament.

Being able to read the present and make educated predictions about the future is a gift that Hertzberg possess. It is a gift, though, that does not always translate into effective leadership. It is questionable, when reading the book, whether Hertzberg, as a pulpit rabbi or as the head of a Jewish communal organization, looks beyond the realm of symbolism in the various leadership roles he has assumed throughout his career.

Hertzberg demonstrates an uncanny ability to look at the big picture, to see the forest through trees. He is able to articulate goals and a direction that the institution or organization that he leads ought to travel. He never seems to follow through on the dreams and direction that he envisions and proposes.

Perhaps he does not feel it worthy in his latest book to write about the day-to-day work he did with other professional staff members and volunteer lay leaders trying to put his dreams into practice. Or, during his long leadership career, he perhaps felt it was beneath his dignity to engage in the mundane work after he articulates the grand vision.

Many rabbis of Hertzberg's generation have been known to take a patriarchal attitude towards their career and calling, where they look at themselves as separate from and not simultaneously as a part of the people that they lead. Hertzberg, in this regard, does not hesitate to assert without conflict his independence.

Since this patriarchal attitude usually does not succeed in the often corporate and collaborative world of contemporary Jewish life today, it is not surprising that Hertzberg has chosen in his later years to abandon the pulpit and the Jewish communal world for a university professor position where he can focus his individual energies exclusively on teaching, research, and writing.

I worked for fifteen years as a Jewish Educator in a synagogue. I had a hard time getting excited reading about the study and outside activities that Hertzberg engaged in throughout his distinguished career. It took effort for me to stop asking the question of who was tending to the store of his synagogue or Jewish communal agency while he was involved in so many endeavors that went beyond the realm of his leadership position.

I am glad I did make the effort. From reading A Jew In America, I gained a more profound understanding of where we as Jews have come from in America and a strong sense (as Hertzberg would confidently argue) where we as Jews ought to travel.

Elliot Fein teaches Jewish Studies at the Tarbut V'Torah High School in Irvine.