In this poignant, powerful volume, the influential Jewish thinker and critic Marc H. Ellis takes on the hard moral questions about Jewish support for the state of Israel. Reviewing the historical record of the past sixty years and envisioning the prospects for a just and lasting peace, Ellis makes an unyielding case—based on the most cherished Jewish values—that the present policies of the Israeli state cannot reasonably be defended. The future not only of Judaism but of Israel itself, he argues, hinges on a fundamental shift in Israel's treatment of the Palestinians and on a completely new direction in the peace process.

At a time when critics of Israeli policies are silenced with the charge of anti-Semitism, Ellis offers a prophetic Jewish alternative to the blind acceptance of Zionism, demonstrating “great courage, integrity, and insight,” according to Noam Chomsky.

Sure to be the subject of fervent debate, Judaism Does Not Equal Israel marks a major effort by a leading American Jewish thinker to make the case that condemning current Israeli policies is fully consonant with being a good Jew.