tific” basis for the Soviet denunciationsnof American imperialism.nHowever, despite his encyclopedicngrasp of his latest subject, Avineri hasnfallen below my expectations in treatingnit. He misinterprets the ties between thenJewish people and the Western world asnegregiously as many of the current leadersnof American Jewish organizations.nWestern civilization, in both its Christiannand bourgeois aspects, is made to appearnhostile to Judaism. Avineri, by stressingnthe “revolutionary socialist” character ofnJewish nationalism, leaves no doubtnwhere he wishes to have his fellow Jewsnstand in the stmggle between Westernncapitalism and Eastern collectivism. Innhis published reminiscences about a tripnto Israel, Saul Bellow records his shocknupon hearing Avineri hold forth on thensocioeconomic advances in the Easternnbloc. Bellow notes with perplexity Avineri’snlack of interest in the political oppressionnin those societies he praised.nIt is plain that Avineri would like tonassociate Jews and Israel with the non-nWestern socialist world. Like many contemporarynliberals and self-styled Jewishnspokesmen, he identifies Jews with thenputative victims of Western bigotry andneconomic exploitation. The enemy isnalways middle-class and Christian.nThis outlook may be partly derivednfrom filtered folk memories out of thenEuropean Jewish past. Most AmericannJews are descended from the former inhabitantsnof what was once the Pale ofnSettlement in Eastern Europe. Creatednunder Tsarina Catherine the Great in thenwake of the first Polish partition as anprovince for her newly acquired Jewishnsubjects, the Pale was eventually used tonrestrict the movement of Jews within thenRussian Empire. The residents were afflictednwith political and vocational disabilitiesnthat were justified on religiousnand national grounds, since Jews werenneither members of the state church nornclassified as Russians. In view of this situation,nit is hardly surprising that a disproportionatelynlarge number of EasternnEuropean Jews joined revolutionarynmovements. Among those who came ton38inChronicles of CulturenAmerica, a large number were secularnsocialists. These immigrants were far lessnWesternized and politically more radicalnthan the German and Sephardic Jews alreadynhere.nThe experience of the Holocaustnseemed to vindicate for many AmericannJews their identification with the left. Fornthose already with leftist loyalties, it wasnpossible to consider Hitler a reactionarynWestern leader who, with the complicitynof Christians everywhere, aspired to wipenout both Jews and their allies on the left.nThis distorted view can only be sustainednby ignoring certain historical facts.nThe oppression of Jews in Eastern Polandnand White Russia under tsarist rulendid not correspond to the much morenfavorable political situation that then existednfor their coreligionists in Austrianmlednsouthern Poland and in Germanheldnnorthwest Poland. And while therenhas been a tradition of Christian anti-nSemitism extending back into the MiddlenAges, the memory of prejudice whichnAmerican Jews carry with them comes,nfor the most part, out of an Eastern Europeannexperience. This hardship amongnEastern Jews was quantitatively differentnfrom the conditions prevalent amongnWestern Jews since the 18th century. Althoughnanti-Semitic sentiments foundnsocial and political expression in Westernnand Central Europe during the 19th century,nto whatever extent middle-classnvalues and capitalist institutions penetratednthat society, Jews were the onesnwho benefited most. It is entirely understandablenthat nazism was not only anti-nJewish, but anticapitalist and opposed tonsuch middle-class attitudes as respect fornproperty and the privacy of family life.nHitler and his henchmen drew upon thencumulative resentment of many of theirncountrymen, both on the left and on thenextreme right, against the achievementsnof the European bourgeoisie, particularlyntheir readiness to incorporate Jews intonthe Western world as economic and political—ifnnot always social—equals.nThe view which angst-ridden Christiansnhave hastened to embrace, that thennnnazis were the continuators of Christiannanti-Semitism, is also twisted. SomenChristian anti-Semites may have occasionallyncollaborated with nazis, butnHitler was quite explicit in rejectingnChristian morality in favor of his ownnbrand of Teutonic paganism. He activelynpersecuted churchmen and marked outnwhole Christian nations, like Poland, fornannihilation. Moreover, it was Christianncapitalist Americans and Englishmennwho resisted nazi aggression even at thenprice of an alliance with Hitler’s formerncollaborator, atheist Soviet Russia. Ecclesiasticsnthroughout the Westernnworld, and even in Germany at the risk ofntheir lives, denounced nazi racism: morenChristians died combating Hitler thannhave perished in all wars against communistnstates. Yet, unhappily, the lienpersists that nazism and right-wing anti-nSemitism are widespread endemic diseasesnof the Christian West. Some leadersnof Jewish organizations decry publicnmanifestations of Christian religiositynand warn American Jewry against thenembraces of even the most effusivelynphilo-Semitic Moral Majoritarians. Ironically,na few campaign to have the TennCommandments eliminated from thenwalls of American schools, thereby helpingnto realize Hitler’s aim of removingnthe “Jewish conscience” from Westernnmorality.n/vlthough Avineri has little use fornthe Christian West, he has even harshernfeelings for the capitalist West. In hisnconcluding chapter he vents his contemptnfor Milton Friedman, whom hendescribes as the “Jew of the Diaspora,”nwho urges other Jews to ignore the socialistnimperative of their national revolution.nCapitalism, even more than Christianity,nis seen as the source of Westernnhatred of the Jews, and Avineri hails twonradical Zionists who lived at the beginningnof the century, Nachman Syrkinnand Ber Borochov, for trying to fusenJewish nationalism with a Marxist view ofnhistory. In their understanding of thenJews as eternal proletariat, they obviouslynanticipated Avineri’s own conceptionn