New Jews: The End of the Jewish Diaspora

By Aviv, Caryn and David Shneer
New York University Press, 2005, Paperback, 256 pp., ISBN: 0814740189, $20.00

For many contemporary Jews, Israel no longer serves as the Promised Land, the center of the Jewish universe and the place of final destination.

In New Jews, Caryn Aviv and David Shneer provocatively argue that there is a new generation of Jews - the eponymous "New Jews" - who don't consider themselves to be eternally wandering, forever outsiders within their communities and seeking to one day find their homeland.

Instead, these New Jews are at home, whether it be in Buenos Aires, San Francisco, or Berlin, and are rooted within communities of their own choosing. In this sense Shneer and Aviv argue that Jews have come to the end of their diaspora; wandering no more, today's Jews are settled.

In this wide-ranging book, the authors take us around the world to Moscow, Jerusalem, New York, and Los Angeles, among other places, and find vibrant, dynamic Jewish communities where Jewish identity is increasingly flexible and inclusive, not something to be hidden but a part of one's identity to be proud of. In the process the authors focus on new elements of Jewish life, lke the heritage industry, the emergence of a distinct queer Jewish community, the increasingly complicated relation to Israel, and the central role America, especially New York, plays in global Jewish life. New Jews offers a compelling portrait of Jewish life today.