The shaky state of American Jewry

(JNS) — To describe the state of American Jewry after the warm spring of the 1950s through the early 1970s is akin to watching a shriveled brown leaf fluttering aimlessly in the wind in the midst of a cold and bitter winter.

At mid-century, the images of the Holocaust were still seared into the consciousness of the American public. Today, young students and even congressional staffers I meet on Capitol Hill dismiss it as “ancient history.” The moral memory that once anchored U.S. society has been steadily eroding.

A major turning point came in 1979, when Edward Said revolutionized the study of...