Looking back on Israel's fortieth birthday, one of the issues which the existence of the state has created is that of who is a Jew. The issue is a legal one, but it is also an existential issue in the widest sense, which concerns anyone who is a Jew--whet
About the Author
Elie Kedourie is professor of politics at the London School of Economics and a Fellow of the British Academy. He is the author of, among other works, Islam in the Modern World and England in the Middle East (reissued recently by Westview Press), and the editor of The Jewish World: History and Culture of the Jewish People (Abrams). The present essay is based on the seventh annual State of World Jewry Address which Mr. Kedourie delivered in December 1987 at the 92nd Street YM-YWHA in New York.