ABSTRACT
Jews in Diaspora tried to retain control over their national destiny by accepting responsibility for political failure. They devised a strategy of accommodation to defeat and to dependency on local rulers for protection. Ruth Wisse shows, the Jewish problem is really the problem of nations that must blame their dysfunction on Jews. The creation of Israel has not solved the problem of the Jews' relation to political power. Truly to be moral, Wisse argues, modern Jews, who are largely without faith in the power of the Almighty, must themselves supply the missing dimension of power; otherwise, they are signing a suicide pact with each new enemy that comes along. Although Wisse does not explicitly reproach Jews for the political strategy they adopted during centuries of exile, she insists that by the end of the nineteenth century it was clear that they needed an alternative to a failing strategy.
