In The Future of the Jews, Stuart E. Eizenstat, a senior diplomat of international reputation, surveys the major geopolitical, economic, and security challenges facing the world in general, and the Jewish world and the United States in particular. These forces include the shift of power and influence from the United States and Europe to the emerging powers in Asia and Latin America; globalization and the new information age; the battle for the direction of the Muslim world; nontraditional security threats; changing demographics, which pose a particular challenge for Jews worldwide and the rise of a new anti-Semitism that seeks to delegitimize Israel as a Jewish state. He also discusses the enduring nature of and challenges to the strategic alliance between the United States and Israel. In an extensive new foreword to the paper edition, Eizenstat addresses crucial developments affecting the Jewish people since the book first appeared in 2012, including increasing tensions in the Middle East, the digital revolution and NSA revelations, declining optimism on the Arab Spring, the Israeli-Palestinian peace process, the revival of anti-Semitism. In addition, he reflects on the changing identify of American Jews as revealed by the Pew Center Survey of U.S. Jews (2013). Eizenstat’s provocative analysis will be of interest to everyone concerned about the future of Jews worldwide and in Israel and the United States’ role in a world that is confronting unprecedented simultaneous, cataclysmic changes.
