We Are Not One: A History of America's Fight over Israel by Eric Alterman (review)

Abstract

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:

Reviewed by:

• We Are Not One: A History of America's Fight over Israel by Eric Alterman
• Amy Weiss (bio)

We Are Not One: A History of America's Fight over Israel. By Eric Alterman. New York: Basic Books, 2022. 502 pp.

A little more than twenty years ago, historian Jerold Auerbach asked the question "Are We One?" in the title of his book about the identities of Jews in the United States and Israel. Eric Alterman's latest book definitively answers that question and then some by declaring "We Are Not One." In examining the history of American discourse about Israel, Alterman clearly notes these debates are centered "not in Jerusalem or Tel Aviv, but in midtown Manhattan and Washington, DC" (3). In other words, while the subjects and arguments of Auerbach's and Alterman's books differ, We Are Not One authoritatively reveals the fractures that have come to exist among Americans and their views on Israel.

The chronological organization of the book offers a clear narrative, beginning with the late nineteenth-century origins of the Zionist movement and ending with the start of the Biden administration. Alterman weaves together the multiple voices, communal organizations, and governmental agencies that comprise the "fight" over Israel. While many readers might know (or think they know) the attitudes of American Jews or the State Department toward Israel, for instance, Alterman underscores that these entities are not a monolith. Rather, the book deftly highlights the different ideological viewpoints within and across Jewish religious movements and organizations, with an eye toward the impact of the neoconservative turn in American Judaism, as well as American Christianity. The inclusion of evangelicals is a welcome addition to this history. Theologically conservative Protestant beliefs about Jews and Israel have played a prominent role not only in shaping contemporary Jewish-Christian relations but also in influencing US-Israel relations.

This is a comprehensive work. The book boasts an introduction, eighteen chapters, and a conclusion, all with enticing titles. While the chapter titled "A New 'Bible'" refers to an innovative text, it may not be what readers have in mind. The reference point is the impact of Exodus, both the 1958 book by Leon Uris and the 1960 film directed by Otto Preminger. "Given the power of American popular culture to shape perceptions of reality," Alterman argues, it is only natural that Exodus served as one of the defining moments in the debates over Israel (99). Another chapter, "'Basically, A Liberal Jew,"' referring to a quip [End Page 693] Barack Obama made about himself to an audience at Temple Emanu-El in New York, examines the Obama administration's approach toward Israel. It also analyzes the pro-Israel lobby's agenda of the twenty-first century, which Alterman summarizes with the statement "as Netanyahu went, so went AIPAC et. al." (348).

The book deviates slightly when it takes up an argument about American Jews' silence about the Holocaust in the postwar period. Alterman claims that the Holocaust "had been rarely mentioned; when it was, it was only on specific occasions" (129). According to this claim, only in the aftermath of the 1967 Arab-Israeli War did Jews openly discuss the Holocaust, in part due to the subsequent links made between Nazi atrocities and the current geopolitical situation in Israel. While this section is not central to Alterman's key arguments, it downplays the myriad ways American Jews did talk about the Holocaust, often irrespective of Israel, especially before the 1967 war.

We Are Not One is a welcome addition to the scholarship on USIsrael relations. Graduate students looking for sources for their exams as well as seasoned researchers would do well to examine the book's extensive notes. At a time when some university libraries have closed their stacks to the public, this book might just be the closest thing one has to browsing past and current work on American political and cultural ties to (and tensions with) Israel.

Amy Weiss University of Hartford Amy Weiss

Amy Weiss holds the Maurice Greenberg Chair of Judaic Studies at the University of Hartford, where she is an assistant professor of Judaic Studies and history. She is writing a book on American...