End of the Jews: Radical Breaks, Remakes and What Comes Next

by Dan Mendelsohn Aviv

End of the Jews: Radical Breaks, Remakes and What Comes Next explores a pattern of crisis followed by a radical break and remake as a persistent phenomenon in Jewish history. The Jewish people have collectively braved many turning points over the past four millennia and, in each instance, did so by making a radical break from past forms of worship, notions of self and nation, and sense of place in the world. In other words, the Jews have ended numerous times in their history, but not in the sense of the end, but rather an end. And yet, the Jewish people have survived due to their ability to transform those radical breaks into seeming continuities that have maintained and reinforced a sacred chain of tradition from Abraham into the present moment. The radical break is upon us, and this book explores the beginnings of the remake, dubbed by Mendelsohn Aviv as the Next Jew.

235 pages, Paperback

First published April 16, 2012