WHY THE JEWS?

In this seminal work that has spent more than 30 year in print, Dennis Prager and Joseph Telushkin explain the reasons behind antisemitism, the world's preoccupation with the Jews and Israel, and why now more than ever, the world needs to confront anti-Jewish sentiment.

Why have Jews been the object of the most enduring and universal hatred in history? Why is the Jewish state the most hated country in the world today? Drawing on extensive historical research, Dennis Prager and Joseph Telushkin reveal how Judaism's distinctive conceptions of God, Law, and Peoplehood have rendered the Jews and the Jewish state outsiders and labeled them as threatening. But as Prager and Telushkin are quick to point out, antisemitism is not just another ethnic or racial prejudice, and it is not caused--as so many people falsely believe--by Jewish economic success or the need for scapegoats. Rather, antisemitism today, as in the past, is a reaction to Judaism and its distinctive values.

Prager and Telushkin examine in detail how antisemitism is a unique hatred (no other prejudice has been as universal, deep, or permanent), and how the concept of the Chosen People idea spawned that hatred. They also explore the role of non-Jewish Jews, such as Karl Marx and Noam Chomsky, in provoking anti-Jewish animosity.

In Why the Jews?, Prager and Telushkin identify the seven major forms of antisemitism--pagan, Christian, Muslim, Enlightenment, Leftist, Nazi and anti-Zionist--and explain why it is impossible in today's world to be an anti-Zionist without being an antisemite. With an eye on the larger picture, Prager and Telushkin express why anti-Semitism threatens more than just Jews, and what kind of hangs are necessary to achieve a world without hatred.

In addition to updating the text with compelling, contemporary statistics, authors Prager and Telushkin have written a new introduction for this reissue of Why the Jews? that firmly establishes the need to discuss anti-Semitism in today's world--now, more than ever.