Futurizing the Jews: Alternative Futures for Meaningful Jewish Existence in the 21st Century

286 Pages·2003·1.16 MB·English

by  Tsvi Bisk

Futurizing the Jews:
ALTERNATIVE
FUTURES FOR
MEANINGFUL
JEWISH EXISTENCE
IN THE 21ST CENTURY
Tsvi Bisk
Moshe Dror
PRAEGER
Futurizing the Jews

Futurizing the Jews
A F
LTERNATIVE UTURES FOR
M J E
EANINGFUL EWISH XISTENCE
21 C
IN THE ST ENTURY
Tsvi Bisk and Moshe Dror
Foreword by Gad Yaacobi
Former Israeli Ambassador to the United Nations
and Cabinet Minister
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Bisk, Tsvi, 1943–
Futurizing the Jews : alternative futures for meaningful Jewish existence in the 21st century /
Tsvi Bisk and Moshe Dror ; foreword by Gad Yaacobi.
p.cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 0–275–96908–8 (alk. paper)
1. Judaism—Forecasting. 2. Israel—Forecasting. 3. Twenty-first century—Forecasts. 4.
Jews—History. 5. Zionism—History. 6. Arab-Israeli conflict. I. Dror, Moshe, 1934– II. Title.
DS102.95.B58 2003
909(cid:1).04924083—dc21 2003042067
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data is available.
Copyright © 2003 by Tsvi Bisk and Moshe Dror
All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be
reproduced, by any process or technique, without the
express written consent of the publisher.
Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 2003042067
ISBN: 0–275–96908–8
First published in 2003
Praeger Publishers, 88 Post Road West, Westport, CT 06881
An imprint of Greenwood Publishing Group, Inc.
www.praeger.com
Printed in the United States of America
The paper used in this book complies with the
Permanent Paper Standard issued by the National
Information Standards Organization (Z39.48–1984).
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
This Book is Dedicated in Loving Memory to
Mordechai Nessyahu “Z’al”
Dr. Haim (Haimi) Nessyahu “Z’al”
Yehudit Nessyahu “Z’al”

Contents
Foreword byGad Yaacobi ix
Preface xi
Acknowledgments xiii
Introduction: The Task of the Jewish Futurist xv
Chapter 1 The World We Live In 1
Chapter 2 The Triumph of Zionism 13
Chapter 3 Zionism in the Twenty-First Century 27
Chapter 4 The Special Case of American Jewry 43
Chapter 5 Israeli Grand Strategy: A Historical Critique 53
Chapter 6 Reinventing Israeli Grand Strategy 69
Chapter 7 Reinventing Israel-Diaspora Relations 89
Chapter 8 The Future of Arab-Jewish Relations 103
Chapter 9 The Future of Ethnic Relations and Israeli Culture 115
Chapter 10 The Future of Jewish-Christian Relations 135
Chapter 11 The Future of Jewish Identity 155
Chapter 12 The Cyber World We Live In 169
Chapter 13 The Future of Jewish Spirituality 179
viii Contents
Chapter 14 The Future of Jewish Learning 199
Chapter 15 The Jewish Community in Cyberspace 215
Appendix: A Brief Introduction to the Cosmotheistic Hypothesis
of Mordechai Nessyahu 231
Glossary 235
Bibliography 245
Index 251
Foreword
This ambitious book, Futurizing the Jews, presents a comprehensive critique
of where the Jewish People are at the beginning of the twenty-first century,
how they got there, and where they should be going if they want to survive.
The book is original, iconoclastic, and in some ways revolutionary. Its
analysis treats the Jews as an integral part of what the authors call “the global
human ecology.” This approach represents a timely and forthright rejection of
what they call the “Nation that Dwells Alone Syndrome” based upon a pop-
ulist misinterpretation of the biblical injunction to be “a nation dwelling
alone...not reckoning itself among the nations” (Numbers 23:9). Timely
because it runs counter to present trends of Israeli isolationism that find ideo-
logical justification in this biblical passage.
It would be absurd to deny that the Jews and especially Israelis live in hos-
tile environments and that many international organizations and countries
“judge” Israel by a double standard unparalleled in modern times. This is a
given, but Israel and its supporters amongst world Jewry must not give in to
the temptation to respond with an emotional indignation that assumes that
“the entire world is against us.”
Indeed, the emotional anxiety with which we respond to our enemies might
be a greater danger to us than the hostility of our enemies. Clarity of mind
based upon clarity of analysis has to be the Jewish People’s greatest asset. This
book offers us a large portion of clear, realistic analysis in the sense that it
deals with the global and Jewish reality as we find them and not with ideolog-
ical wishful thinking. But it is also an idealistic book that presents a positive,
even heroic, vision of what the Jewish future could be if we choose to apply
our rational faculties to the new global reality and not give in to defensiveness.