Non­fic­tion

Future Tense: Jews, Judaism and Israel in the Twen­ty-First Century

  • Review
By – October 3, 2011

Chief Rab­bi of the British Com­mon­wealth and a pro­lif­ic writer, Sacks is one of the lead­ing pro­po­nents of mod­ern Ortho­doxy. He is con­ver­sant with polit­i­cal and social the­o­ry, Jew­ish his­to­ry and, of course, Jew­ish law. He writes that we live in chal­leng­ing times which demand chal­leng­ing solu­tions. The State of Israel and all open soci­eties in a post 9/11 soci­ety must pro­tect their cit­i­zens and del­i­cate­ly inter­act with­in a glob­al­ized society. 

Orig­i­nal­ly pub­lished in the UK, Rab­bi Sacks’ book argues force­ful­ly for a type of détente with world polit­i­cal lead­ers and seems cer­tain that soon­er, rather than lat­er, peace and the long-await­ed mes­sian­ic era will arrive. Rab­bi Sacks is a strong pro­po­nent of tikkun olam, repair­ing a rather frag­ment­ed world. Notes and a com­pre­hen­sive list of sug­gest­ed books for fur­ther read­ing round out this fine book.

Mor­ton Merowitz holds degrees from Yeshi­va Uni­ver­si­ty, the Drop­sie Col­lege for Hebrew and Cog­nate Learn­ing, and the State Uni­ver­si­ty of New York at Buf­fa­lo. He was involved in Jew­ish edu­ca­tion for some ten years and cur­rent­ly reviews non-fic­tion lit­er­a­ture which may be of inter­est and rel­e­vance to stu­dents and teach­ers of Jew­ish studies.

Discussion Questions