The first thing a reader should know about this book is that it was written from Jerusalem. No Jewish city in history, certainly no diaspora city, can hope to compete with Jerusalem. Looking down from Jerusalem, New York looks decidedly grim. As Lederhendler notes with admirable brevity, the “events of May–June 1967 threw into relief the apparent gulf between Israelis (who could fend for themselves) and Jews (who could not)” (190). Diaspora condemns Jews to mere ethnic existence, to life as one group among others. In the 1960s New York Jews recognized “that Diaspora life had become existentially problematic” (190). They faced “cultural despair,” decline of community, and a loss of nerve that challenged their earlier, “utopian” optimism about urban life, its freedom, and its Jewish possibilities (87).