A New Book Laments American Jewish Success and Commitment to Israel

When Joshua Leifer’s new book, Tablets Shattered: The End of an American Jewish Century and the Future of Jewish Life, was ready to go to press, he feared he wouldn’t be invited to speak about it in synagogues. Instead, to his unaccountable surprise, a Brooklyn bookstore canceled an event because it featured Leifer and a Zionist interlocutor. In his book, Leifer argues that American Jewry is in decline because of the collapse of the non-Orthodox denominations, its abandonment of its labor-movement Lower East Side roots and entry into the bourgeoisie (fulfilling the hopes of those Lower East Side Jews for their children), and its strong ties to Israel, which he finds morally bankrupt.