Description
Book SynopsisProfessor George Jochnowitz and his daughter Miriam were teaching in China at the time of the Tiananmen Massacre in 1989. The experience drastically changed the author''s way of thinking about Marxism. Professor Jochnowitz saw that the rulers of China were acting in the spirit of Karl Marx, whose writing logically led to dictatorship and famine. Many people have expressed negative views about communism. Some have harsh words for Marxism as well. Almost nobody, however, will take the next step and relate the cruelty of Marxism to the words of Marx. Living and teaching in China led Professor Jochnowitz to cross this line and examine his experience and new outlook in The Blessed Human Race. Having crossed this political line, Professor Jochnowitz crossed others as well. His thoughts about faith of any sort, religious or political, became negative. The idea of justification through faith became morally offensive. He concluded that this world has too many idols that go unquestioned. Questi
Trade Review[These] essays are truly magnificent! I have been reading them with enormous pleasure, given their scope and depth and given how surprisingly resonant are our range of interests from classical music to Torah study to popular culture, politics, travel, etc. Jochnowitz's sojourn in China is fascinating as is his playful, witty, but very serious writing on a wide variety of matters including happiness, homosexuality, Israel, etc. This is a joy, so well written, so sophisticated. Jochnowitz is a learned and charming man and his ideas, reconsidered, are both delightful and truly informative. Reading this volume is like visiting with a Renaissance intellectual who has invited you for tea. He is as familiar with Chinese and China as he is with the Bible, Plato, Mozart, Shakespeare and Marx-and that's just for starters. -- Phyllis Chesler, Emerita Professor, Author of Women and Madness, Woman's Inhumanity to Woman, The New Anti-Semitism, and The Death of Feminism, B
Topics are connected by the running theme of reconsiderations, the author's reflections and re-evaluations of his understanding of and relationship to the world about him....the ideas come together: the reconsider-ation of a New York Jewish liberal who realizes not before time that what he really values has to be preserved. * Mentalities *
Jochnowitz, throughout the essays, is animated by the cool precision of logic....[His] essays are scintillating, amusing, and provocative. * Midstream: A Quarterly Jewish Review, February 2009 *
George Jochnowitz's essays on politics, art, religion, and human nature are original, thought-provoking, and a pleasure to read. -- Steven Pinker, Professor of Psychology, Harvard University, and author of The Language Instinct, How the Mind Works, and The Blank Slate
Table of ContentsPart 1 Acknowledgements Part 2 Preface Part 3 I: Learning to Reconsider Chapter 4 Baoding Revisted Chapter 5 Beijing Spring Chapter 6 We Flee China Chapter 7 Marx, Money, and Mysticism after Mao Chapter 8 China, Marx, and Islam Chapter 9 Happiness in Chinese Culture Part 10 II: Reconsiderations Chapter 11 Reconsidering Marx Chapter 12 Reconsidering Salvation through Faith Chapter 13 Reconsidering Abraham Chapter 14 Reconsidering 20th-century Music Chapter 15 Reconsidering The Magic Flute Chapter 16 Reconsidering Così Fan Tutte Chapter 17 Reconsidering Shakespeare Chapter 18 Reconsidering Dark Restaurants Chapter 19 Reconsidering Tipping Chapter 20 Reconsidering Wasting Food Chapter 21 Reconsidering Santa Claus Chapter 22 Reconsidering Sports Chapter 23 Reconsidering Gay and Jewish Success Chapter 24 Reconsidering the Blessed Human Race
