When Joshua Leifer’s new book, Tablets Shattered: The End of an American Jewish Century and the Future of Jewish Life, was ready to go to press, he feared he wouldn’t be invited to speak about it in synagogues. Instead, to his unaccountable surprise, a Brooklyn bookstore canceled an event because it featured Leifer and a Zionist interlocutor. In his book, Leifer argues that American Jewry is in decline because of the collapse of the non-Orthodox denominations, its abandonment of its labor-movement Lower East Side roots and entry into the bourgeoisie (fulfilling the hopes of those Lower East Side Jews for their children), and its strong ties to Israel, which he finds morally bankrupt.

Allan Arkush, in his review of “this sometimes exasperating yet frequently insightful and elegantly written book,” notes how greatly Leifer misunderstands the connection to Israel:

On the basis of his account, it would seem that American Jews paid scant attention to Israel before the Six-Day War. But then “everything about American Jewish identity changed in the flash of an Israeli Mirage fighter jet scraping over the Sinai Desert,” as Israel quickly and decisively defeated Egypt, Syria, and Jordan.

Leifer underestimates, to begin with, the extent to which the Holocaust was on American Jews’ minds at the time. He says nothing at all in his book about the impact of the horrifying testimony in the nationally televised Eichmann trial in 1961. . . . Eichmann, and [Leon Uris’s novel] Exodus, and concern for their own relatives and friends in Israel were foremost in the minds of large numbers of American Jews in May and early June of 1967 as they watched the siege of Israel grow more threatening and read about bloodthirsty marches through Arab capitals calling for its annihilation, while the world failed to come to Israel’s aid.

I remember well how more than a thousand deeply worried people congregated in the social hall of our synagogue in the evening of June 5, 1967, who roused themselves to volunteer unprecedented sums for Israel. I know that what they (and others like them all over the country) were soon to feel was not merely a burst of pride at the exercise of Jewish might but an almost incredulous sense of having this time finally escaped the noose.

Yet, writes Arkush, despite “his focus on Zionism and Israel, Leifer’s more fundamental concern is with American Judaism, which he wishes above all to wrench free from the liberal capitalist culture that he argues has weakened, if not ruined, it in all of its forms, with the partial exception of separatist Orthodoxy.”

Considering the current state of Israel-Arab relations, Ghaith al-Omari writes

First and foremost, no ceasefire will be possible without the release of Israeli hostages and commitments to disarm Hamas and remove it from power. The final say on these matters rests with Hamas commanders on the ground in Gaza, who have been largely impervious to foreign pressure so far. At minimum, however, the United States should insist that Qatari and Egyptian mediators push Hamas’s external leadership to accept these conditions publicly, which could increase pressure on the group’s Gaza leadership.

Washington should also demand a clear, public position from key Arab states regarding disarmament. The Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas endorsed this position in a June letter to Saudi Arabia and France, giving Arab states Palestinian cover for endorsing it themselves.

Some Arab states have already indicated a willingness to play a significant role, but they will have little incentive to commit resources and personnel to Gaza unless Israel (1) provides guarantees that it will not occupy the Strip indefinitely, and (2) removes its veto on a PA role in Gaza’s future, even if only symbolic at first. Arab officials are also seeking assurances that any role they play in Gaza will be in the context of a wider effort to reach a two-state solution.

On the other hand, Washington must remain mindful that current conditions between Israel and the Palestinians are not remotely conducive to . . . implementing a two-state solution.