As always, my quibbles first. The intro and epilogue are fictional letters by the author to a fictional relative in Israel. And one more quibble, not with the book but the likely audience, is that the book is basically "preaching to the choir." In other words, the bulk of the readers are not going to be the politically liberal Jewish people to whom this book is directed.

This work is a well-written, pointed statement about the failure of Jews to stand up for their own interests. The Jews typically side with their enemies. This echoes the pathetic history of the Jews' alliance with the Communist movement in Russia during the early 1900's. This echoes the pathetic history of the Jews in fanatically supporting the Presidency of Franklin Delano Roosevelt. FDR was perfectly happy to watch the Jews walk the gangplank from the ship the St. Louis, in many cases indirectly into the Eisensatzgrupen and the gas chambers.

Ruth Wisse traces the path of Jewish short story writers in Israel who impugn the moral credentials of the efforts of the State of Israel to defend itself and fail to even note the vicious primitivism of their enemies.

The book makes a lot of points that need making; too bad they will fall on ears that thoroughly agree with her. ( )