The paperback version of "I am Jewish: Personal Reflections Inspired by the Last Words of Daniel Pearl" is out. There are some essays in it that are worth the price of the book alone. (All royalties benefit the Daniel Pearl Foundation).
Some of the best essays are by Ruth Wisse, Lawrence Summers, Natan Sharansky, Cynthia Ozick, and Martin Peretz. There are more than 100 others (a list of the contributors is here).
Here is an excerpt from Leon Wieseltier’s eloquent essay, "When I Say that I am a Jew, I Mean to Say that a Jew is What I Desire to Become." He is reflecting on the historical accident of being born Jewish:
[T]he facticity of my identity, the accidental truth that it is what I have inherited, rather embarrasses me. I wish I could have chosen it. I pray that I would have chosen it. Accident is not an adequate foundation for a life.
I envy converts, once the sons and daughters of their parents and now the sons and daughters of Abraham and Sarah. They are Jews as a consequence of their own reflection and their own freedom. They became Jews out of inner necessity. But I must transform outer necessity into inner necessity.
It is an important book — a collective picture of the Jewish people, written by professors, politicians, journalists, authors, rabbis, actors, entertainers, and young people. Out of a barbaric act, a lasting, living memorial — and more.
