Britain’s Jews: Confidence, Maturity, Anxiety

Freedman (Leonard Cohen: The Mystical Roots of Genius) takes stock of British Jewry in this uneven treatise. Noting that Britain is home to the longest running modern Jewish community on the planet, Freedman mines interviews with members of Modern Orthodox, Masorti, Liberal, reform communities, and others to uncover what Jewish identity means to them. In examining Jewish issues of recent decades—antisemitism, Zionism, religious observance, and affiliation breakdowns—Freedman emerges with a survey of problems facing Britain’s Jews that will sound all too familiar to their American counterparts: a population thinned by assimilation, and a ramped-up antisemitism that’s linked to widespread delegitimization of the Jewish right to a state. But the fruit of Freedman’s work isn’t quite ripe: he notes the optimism of those who believe there will always be a baseline level of British Jews, for example, without providing much in the way of context or analysis. As well, inconsistencies crop up—at one point, Freedman suggests London is “one of the most inhospitable Jewish cities in the world” despite elsewhere pointing out the richness of its Jewish life. This entry tackles a worthy topic, though it fails to fully do it justice. It’s a missed opportunity for a richer study. (Feb.)