I know that whenever I meet someone who says he’s proud to be Jewish or that he has "Jewish values," I know I’m dealing with a Judaic ignoramus. Judaism is a prosaic religion of endless daily demands rather than showy professions.
The Judaism of Stars of David: Prominent Jews Talk About Being Jewish author Abigail Pogrebin must be thin gruel for her to consider Wieseltier "Super Jew." She describes Alan Dershowitz as "America’s Uber Jew." The only person who could regard Dershowitz as "America’s Uber Jew" is someone who can’t read Hebrew.
Abigail writes:
I tell [Wieseltier] that many of the people I’m talking to feel great pride in being Jewish, whether or not they’re students of Judaism. "Generally in American Jewry, pride exists in inverse proportion to knowledge. So you will often find that the more learned or knowledgeable Jewish individuals are, the less strident and hoarse with self-admiration they tend to be. And the ones who know very little are looking for anti-Semites everywhere, because they need enmity to sustain their Jewishness." "Judaism hasn’t failed. The Jews have failed Judaism." (pg. 157)
There’s almost nothing Jewish about most of the Jews in Pogrebin’s book.
