ABSTRACT
"The history of the Jews must for ever be interesting", James Madison remarked in a private letter in 1820. The record of the American encounter with self-government has continued to justify the belief that here, unlike elsewhere in the Diaspora, minority rights and individual liberties would be secure. In the past two decades or so, Jews have chaired the Council of Economic Advisors, the Federal Reserve Board, and the National Security Council, and headed the Department of Defense as well as the American delegation to the United Nations. The openness of the public culture to the aspirations of individual Jews and to the practice of Judaism is astonishing enough, in contrast to the melancholy history of earlier Diaspora communities. The sharp criticism of Israel voiced in international forums, particularly the United Nations, has nevertheless vexed and angered so many American Jews that anti-Zionism has appeared a greater menace than traditional versions of anti-Semitism.
