Norman Finkelstein

Finkelstein may be seen, in this respect, as the Howard Stern of Jewish studies, a sarcastic, loud-mouthed Jewish kid from Brooklyn, eager to tell anyone willing to listen his sanctimonious family’s dirty secrets. THE HOLOCAUST INDUSTRY Reflections on the Exploitation of Jewish Suffering By Norman G. Finkelstein Verso. 150 pp. The Holocaust Industry is inspired, above all, by its relentless, blinding class resentments.

It cries out — like a politicized rant of the 1930s — at the Jewish “alrightniks” with familial fury and self-righteous indignation.Years ago, writing about Portnoy’s Complaint, Philip Roth proposed that some of the shocked response to that wild, brilliant novel was based on its depiction of a Jew doing precisely what Jews weren’t supposed to do. Roth managed to render neurosis as a potent, vivid metaphor, and a neurotic as an intriguing cultural totem.

But real life is, so often, so much stranger and grayer than fiction. In real life, obsessions aren’t thrilling, or liberating, or even interesting. Usually they’re downright dull. And so is this awful book.Steven J. Zipperstein is Koshland professor and director of the program in Jewish Studies at Stanford University. He is the author, most recently, of “Imagining Russian Jewry: Memory, History, Identity.

Years ago, writing about Portnoy’s Complaint, Philip Roth proposed that some of the shocked response to that wild, brilliant novel was based on its depiction of a Jew doing precisely what Jews weren’t supposed to do. Roth managed to render neurosis as a potent, vivid metaphor, and a neurotic as an intriguing cultural totem. But real life is, so often, so much stranger and grayer than fiction. In real life, obsessions aren’t thrilling, or liberating, or even interesting.

Usually they’re downright dull. And so is this awful book.Steven J. Zipperstein is Koshland professor and director of the program in Jewish Studies at Stanford University. He is the author, most recently, of “Imagining Russian Jewry: Memory, History, Identity. Steven J. Zipperstein is Koshland professor and director of the program in Jewish Studies at Stanford University. He is the author, most recently, of “Imagining Russian Jewry: Memory, History, Identity.