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Title: The Optimistic Jew
Review: The recently deceased Rabbi Wine presents a critical philosophical and historical overview of Jewish identity with clear and straightforward alternatives accessible to the modern Jew. Wine takes Mordechai Kaplan's views (the Reconstructionist Movement) to what I believe are a logical conclusion - Judaism has no need of the God hypothesis. The Society for Humanistic Judaism, like Reconstructionism, is an authentic American creation. Yet like Reconstructionism it has not become a mass movement of choice of American Jews. In my own book "The Optimistic Jew: a Positive Vision for the Jewish People in the 21st Century" I posit that if they applied their energies to the "secular" Israeli they would have an opportunity to make their approach to Jewish identity a major social and cultural force in Israel. This in turn would oblige a greater number of American and European Jews to reflect on their approach to Jewish identity. A must read for the concerned modern Jew.
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