Feld applied the "Page 99 Test" to her new book, The Threshold of Dissent: A History of American Jewish Critics of Zionism, and reported the following:
To turn to page 99 in my book is to read the tail end of my analysis of how the Six-Day War between Israel, Jordan and Syria—also called the June War—proved pivotal to unconditional American and American Jewish support for Israel and to the growth of anti-Zionism in the US and around the world. The page also captures analysis of the significance of the 1973 war between Israel, Egypt, and Syria, known as the Yom Kippur War, the Ramadan War, and the October War. Because the 1973 war was far longer and had far more tragic casualties, American Jewish support for Israel was seen as even more important at its conclusion.Learn more about The Threshold of Dissent at the NYU Press website.
Page 99 attempts to connect these two events with a key dynamic in American Jewish life: the low threshold for dissent with regard to Israel and American Zionism. The book offers new evidence for the role of American Jewish leaders in maintaining that low threshold, marginalizing and even silencing American Jews of diverse backgrounds who did not agree that unity on unconditional support for Israel kept American Jews, and all Jews, safe. In connecting global political conflicts to foreign policy and to domestic narratives of Jewish safety, page 99 offers a useful window into the book’s overarching themes.
The book rests on archival evidence, specifically on the voices of American Jewish critics of Zionism from across the twentieth century, and for this reason the page 99 test does not work well as a browser’s shortcut overall. The analysis on page 99 relies on the work of several of my smart colleagues—Shaul Mitelpunkt stands out above all—as it is setting the scene for the third chapter titled “‘Israel—Right or Wrong’: Anticolonialism, Freedom Movements, and American Jewish life.” Scholars of Israel and Cold War politics such as Mitelpunkt helped me to understand how American Jews carefully positioned themselves in the 1960s and 1970s. Israel and the US formed a Cold War partnership in these years, just as the antiwar, Civil Rights, and other anticolonialist movements gained momentum. Activists in these movements linked Western militarism and colonialism to the oppression of Palestinians in Israel, before and after the 1967 war. Page 99’s information on ideas about Israel’s vulnerability, coupled with deep faith in Israel as central to Jewish safety, is vital to understanding how American Jewish leaders and laypeople navigated these difficult decades. If page 99 is used to test the waters, I hope that readers will dive into the entire chapter and book to learn from the evidence I present.
--Marshal Zeringue
Posts
