Who Is A Jew?: Conversations, Not Conclusions

"Who Is a Jew?": Conversations, Not Conclusions is a collection of interviews with religious, academic, and political leaders from the U.S., Israel, and England. Journalist Meryl Hyman has a sharp ear for the nuances of their answers, and she's presented them here in her subjects' own words. "Who Is a Jew?" covers many aspects of this question and the wildly diverse answers offered by more than 30 Orthodox, Reform, Conservative, and Reconstructionist leaders. The validity of non-Orthodox conversion and of patrilineal descent, as well as the variety of perspectives on who should be able to immigrate to Israel are among the vital issues covered in Hyman's conversations. The answers given by this book are passionate and insightful. Most strikingly, they are always fluid, without ever relaxing into easy relativism. --Michael Joseph Gross