ABSTRACT
American Jews have been conspicuously absent from Israel during the six months since the Arab uprising (intifada) began in December 1987. The few prominent Jewish intellectuals who do keep their commitments to participate in conferences or performances are received with a beggar-like gratitude in no way diminished by their compulsive desire to bite the hand that feeds them by publicly "testifying" against Israeli policies. The continuing saga of Israel's struggle to live up to Mr. Leonard Fein's severe standards for the use of Jewish force does not end with the "hunting" passage he now quotes from his book to indicate that he had not rendered a guilty verdict against the Israelis. The Israelis who stubbornly refuse to concede that the Jews who stay away from the earthly Jerusalem may do so for "high-minded purpose in the name of a universal messianism" are viewed by Fein in very much the way that Augustine viewed stubborn, unspiritual Jews of an earlier era.
