The role of Jews as a people is becoming an issue again in ways that were thought to be consigned to history. Throughout the second half of the twentieth century two major issues appeared to have been settled. The revulsion generated by the Holocaust rendered anti-Semitism untenable in mainstream political culture in most countries. The creation of Israel secured Jewish political independence, and its legitimacy was not open to serious challenge in the West. The success of liberal democracy, the end of communism, and the signing of the Oslo Accords seemed to secure these assumptions.

In the past several years, events-especially those surrounding the al-Aqsa Intifada, the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, and the American interventions in Afghanistan and Iraq-have combined to call these assumptions into question. Although there is as yet no basis for talk about a new "Jewish Problem," it is possible to identify a number of unsettling Jewish Questions on the horizon. <...

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