What It Means to Be Jewish: The Voices of Our Heritage

In this collection of past and present story-telling, scholarship, and spiritual autobiography, the many facets of the Jewish identity—both ancient and modern—are illuminated by a multitude of writings and recollections on history and exile, literature and art, selfhood and victimization, immigration and opportunity, and thought and belief. Indeed, such a vast array of first-person voices forms a chorus that both documents and contextualizes the history, tradition, and culture of the Jews.

As Rabbi Alexander M. Schindler points out in his Foreword to this wise, well-assembled, wide-ranging anthology, What It Means to Be Jewish "takes us on a journey from biblical times to today, intertwining the words of Hillel and Louis Brandeis, Mark Twain and Winston Churchill, Martin Buber and Philip Roth, Golda Meir and Yitzhak Rabin into a multicolored tapestry of literary and ethnic diversity that reflects the rich and universal texture of Jewish living and Jewish life.