Includes bibliographical references (p. 297-317).

How the Jews became liberals. The "witness" doctrine ; Ghettos ; Poets and exegetes ; Emancipation : phase one ; The enlightenment puzzle ; Haskalah ; Emancipation : phase two ; The second great puzzle ; The golden land ; Jews from Germany ; Anti-Semitism, patrician style ; Jews without money ; Emancipation : the backlash ; "Defilers" of the culture ; Enter FDR ; In Roosevelt's wake : Truman ; From 1852-1968 -- Why the Jews are still liberals. The golden age of Jewish security ; Something new under the Jewish sun ; Nixon and Israel ; Carter : "joining the jackals" ; The 1980 election ; Reagan and Israel ; Anti-"Zionism" ; The case of The nation ; The case of National review ; George H.W. Bush and Israel ; The case of Pat Buchanan ; Clinton, the Religious Right, and the Jews ; George W. Bush and Israel ; 2008 ; As liberal as ever? ; The wrong answers ; The "Torah" of liberalism.

In his brilliant and provocative examination of why Jews are liberals, Podhoretz reviews the history of Jewish political attitudes and thoroughly examines the available evidence, demonstrating that all the usual explanations--such as a passion for justice allegedly deriving from the prophets of the Hebrew Bible--are either inadequate or flat-out false. Finally he proposes his own answer to the great puzzle of why most Jews remain as committed to liberalism as ever.