Discusses Christianity's rise to power in the 4th century, with concomitant Jewish powerlessness, as decisive factors in forming Torah Judaism, which was the Jewish way of life until the impact of secularism. Ch. 6 (pp. 225-253), "Zionism: Reversion to an Invented Past, " stresses Jewish self-emancipation as a response to the failure of Europe's promise to emancipate the Jews. Zionism called for a Jewish state, where all Jews could live and be free of antisemitism. Claims that history proved that Zionism was right regarding the danger that led to the Holocaust; thus, Zionism increasingly gained adherents, especially after World War II. Ch. 7 (pp. 254-284), "The American Judaism of Holocaust and Redemption, " focuses on the centrality of the "myth" that connects the Holocaust and the State of Israel. Against the background of American antisemitism in the 1930s-40s and the lethal Nazi antisemitism, stresses how third-generation Jewish Americans construct their identity and way of life. American Jews accept their Jewishness, since antisemitism has proved there is no escape from being a Jew. After the Holocaust, American Jews view themselves as being among the "saved" but do not believe they need to make aliyah, as the Zionist response to antisemitism requires. Instead, they busy themselves with sacred activities related to surviving as Jews, especially preserving Israel as a refuge from antisemitism.

The changed situation of Western Jewry in the 19th-20th centuries caused Jews to revise their conceptions of Jewry as a community and of its place in the world. Six Judaic systems emerged. Discusses each one in detail. While the 19th-century trends (Orthodox, Reform, and Conservative) developed in response to the needs of integration with the non-Jewish world, the 20th-century Judaisms (Zionism, Jewish Socialism and Yiddishism, and the American Judaism of Holocaust and Redemption) were a response to aggressive antisemitism and to the crisis caused by the rapid social and economic restructuring of Central and Eastern Europe. The events of May-June 1967 in the Middle East brought about a new trend - Holocaust and Redemption Judaism, in the center of which are the Holocaust (mythicized and perceived as a metaphor for absolute evil) and the State of Israel (perceived as the redemption for the Holocaust). This Judaism contains a salvific myth and possesses all the traits of a religious system. The exposition is accompanied by excerpts from books and articles.