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Jews and Human Rights: Dancing at Three Weddings. By Michael Galchinsky. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2008. x + 256 pp.
A rich American Jewish historiography has developed over the past thirty years, one that has detailed the construction of ethnic communities and identities. Yet, as historians Hasia Diner and Tony Michels have written recently, scholars should focus more attention on the international political dimensions of the Jewish experience.1 More studies are needed that take what we know of complex transnational Jewish identities and examine their rich relations with the state, including intergovernmental organizations such as the United Nations. In Dancing at Three Weddings, Michael Galchinsky marries the two.
The "three weddings" refer to Jews who "dance" in the worlds of nationalism, internationalism, and pluralism. In other words, modern American Jews are citizens of the world, citizens of multicultural America, and "imagined" citizens of Israel. These overlapping loyalties have influenced how Jews in general have approached human rights. After the Holocaust a generation of determined Jews blended many commitments: to core religious values such as tikkun olam, to international human rights, to Israeli nationalism, to American-style pluralism, and to an acute interest in self-preservation. The result was a clear mission and a desire to help draft the Universal Declaration of Human Rights at the new United Nations, to create the state of Israel, to promote domestic civil rights, and to detect genocide around the globe. Whether acting because of, or in spite of, the absence...