There are many versions of the saying “two Jews, three opinions.” So too might there be “two Jews, three ideas about what it means to be Jewish.” After all, the story of the Jewish people is a story about a constant reimagining of Jewish practice and ideas about independence and assimilation, community, and state. In Noah Feldman’s estimation, past conceptions of Jewish life and ideas — even those just a few decades old — no longer accurately reflect what he perceives to be the current landscape of Jewish practice and thought. A leading public intellectual, the Felix Frankfurter Professor of Law at Harvard University, and the founding director of the Julis-Rabinowitz Program on Jewish and Israeli Law, Feldman seeks to create a new map, which he’s broken into three areas of Jewish thought: God, Israel, and community. The result is an impressive, insightful assessment of the complexities of modern Jewish existence.
Feldman doesn’t set out to tell the reader how to be Jewish, or what makes someone a “good” or “bad” Jew. In his view, there are no bad Jews; rather, there is great diversity of Jewish practice, as there always has been. Feldman’s intent is to help the reader chart their own path and understand those of the Jews around them. Feldman himself also looks back on the Jewish journey he’s taken thus far.
While much has been written about Israel and Zionism, Feldman’s approach — first exploring different Jewish ideas about God, and only after that turning to Jewish ideas about Israel and Zionism — is different. He explains that “by figuring out where you lie on the map of Jewish beliefs about God and religion, you will be able to understand much more clearly where you stand on Israel and Jewish peoplehood.” The reverse is also true: the way one thinks about Israel at least in part informs how one might think about community and peoplehood. In an era in which many Jews no longer define their Jewish nature by how or what they think about God and spirituality, To Be a Jew Today implores us to consider the ways in which most Jews’ identities are fundamentality related to individual ideas about the nature of God — whether they believe in a “traditionalist” view of God, a God of social justice, a God of evolving law in a changing world, or no God at all.
Feldman argues that a unifying theological worldview among Jews is best categorized by the biblical name for Israel, Yisrael: “one who wrestles or struggles with God.” So too, in many ways, do Jews wrestle with Israel itself. To Be a Jew Today does not provide a history of the Jewish state. Rather, Feldman meditates on various Jewish ideas about and relationships with Israel — generationally, spiritually, and sometimes to an extreme — alongside a particularly interesting section on anti-Zionism that is not often covered with this level of thought and depth. Although Feldman introduces divisive topics, he consistently holds multiple truths at once, with an authentic commitment to conveying the diversity of the contemporary Jewish world.
In To Be a Jew Today, Feldman combines his own insightful descriptions of Jewish life with those of many great writers and thinkers throughout Jewish history. His book isn’t necessarily for beginners, given all the rabbis and scholars he references. But it’s incredibly relevant in a post – October 7 world, and offers an extensive notes section for those wanting to read more. In an homage to Maimonides, Feldman describes his pursuit: to assist others as they grapple with perplexity, and to do so in a substantial and scholarly way.
Joy Getnick, PhD, is the Executive Director of Hillel at the University of Rochester. She is the author of the Melton School of Adult Jewish Learning Beyond Borders: The History of the Arab-Israeli Conflict, has taught history at area colleges, and previously worked in the JCC world and as the director of a teen Israel travel summer program.
