“Letters to an American Jewish Friend” revisited

By Nathan Jeffay, THE JEWISH DAILY FORWARD

Back in 1977, a young writer published a bold book that tried to propel aliyah, or emigration to Israel, to the heart of the American Jewish agenda. Hillel Halkin, who had made the move himself from New York seven years earlier, didn’t mince his words, and declared the Diaspora “doomed.”

The future of the Jewish People, he told an imagined correspondent in “Letters to an American Jewish Friend: A Zionist’s Polemic,” was only in Israel.

It was a book that got under the skin of American Jews, because it wasn’t only about emigration; he presented much of the American Jewish way of life as hollow. Some of the trends he criticized have since flourished, such as Jewish rituals with a feel-good emphasis.

Halkin was — and remains — secular, but what many consider America’s flourishing Jewish creativity, he considers a distortion of Judaism. CONTINUE

I remembered the debate which took place on Commentary Magazine but never read the book. Martin Kessler, who did read the book, read it again, and enjoyed it more the second time, and sent me a copy. This time around I decided to read it. It is beautifully written with considerable erudition infusing every page.

I was particularly taken with his analysis about the then US policy and the difficulty American Jewry had then in dealing with it and and was sure to have in the future.

He writes:

“Thus in post 1973, of systematically wringing concessions from Israel which has little to offer the US and nowhere else to turn, rather than from the Arabs, is here to stay and no president in the White House could do more than soften it.”

Here are a few memorable pages.