The choice between extolling uncritically whatever Israel decides to do to others, and maintaining the Jewish commitment to justice, has created, for Jews, a profound moral crisis. Are Jews to adopt a form of Judaism that uncritically reveres Israel as the only safeguard against genocide? Or should Jews retain their ancient belief that only where human rights are respected for all can Jews find true security and equality?In this landmark collection of contemporary Jewish thought, Polner and Merken have drawn on the work of a wide variety of thinkers and activists in Israel and the USincluding charity workers, political demonstrators, conscientious objectors, prison workers, animal rights advocates, mothers and fathers, refuseniks, rabbis, soldiers, journalists, and professorsto answer this important question.These voices support the second choiceto pursue human rights as the key to securitya view nourished during two millennia of the Diaspora, and which has proudly seen Jews at the forefront of struggles for civil rights, labor rights, anti-militarism, and compassion for the most vulnerable among us: the poor, the hungry, the helpless, the oppressed.

Murry Polner is an editor, publisher and was founding editor of Present Tense magazine. He served in the U.S. Army. He lives in Great Neck, New York. His published books include: No Victory Parades: The Return of the Vietnam Veteran; Rabbi: The American Experience; and Branch Ricky: a Biography.

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Stefan Merken is an activist, short-story writer, and a novelist. He was an American Fulbright Scholar in Japan from Columbia University. A conscientious objector in the mid 1960s and a draft counselor and West Coast representative of the Jewish Peace Fellowship from 1978 to 1995, he also served on the National Council of the Fellowship of Reconciliation for more than twenty years. With his wife, Betty, he has written two books: Wall Art and Three Plays for Quarter.

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