Claudia Chavez – Psychologist and Progressive Jewish Activist
Given the immense challenges facing the Jewish people today, a book entitled The Optimistic Jew would seem to be either a bad joke or wishful thinking. But it isn't. The title and the content grew from decades of deep thinking and study by futurist Tsvi Bisk, who points to a truly possible future for the Jews - if we dare to hope for one and commit to making it happen. The author isn't stuck on his version of a future, and invites the reader to create a positive future that includes her/his own self-actualization. His conceptual frameworks derive from values dear to the Jewish people: breadth and depth of learning, the courage to hold a redemptive vision, and down to earth practicality. Analyzing present world trends, understanding Jewish history, and rooted in the Zionism and the pragmatism of Ben Gurion, Tsvi Bisk shows us a path forward.

Some of us work to understand and mitigate the present threats to Israel's survival as a vibrant country and society, and the threats to Jews' sense of security and dignity in a world again rife with anti-Semitism. I call this work the "anti" work. Hard and painful as it is, it is essential work. But it acquires new meaning when we also work as cultural creatives - I call this the "pro" work. With the very real freedom we have today as Jews, and preserving our internal freedom from encroachment by hopelessness and apathy; with the enormous strength, inspiration and learning we can draw from our history and ancestors, and with the wisdom and learning we draw from other peoples and traditions, we can create a beautiful and powerful future.

Some of us work in this "anti" and "pro" directions not just relative to the future of the Jewish people, but of humankind, of the planet and all sentient beings. This book focuses on the first of these but doesn't exclude the others. Tsvi Bisk sees them as complementary. Depending on how comfortably and consciously Jewish identity fits for any individual Jew with the other levels of his/her identity, so will focusing on the future of the Jewish people complement their work for a positive future for all.

In my own experience of pointing out a path forward - a path which integrates but is not held back by the present obstacles - I have found that people very rarely dare to vision, and therefore also rarely dare to commit and act in a timely way. Staying within the herd seems to be a more powerful force for humans in general, than ensuring a good future for all. Leaders are generally far more interested in personal glory (requiring herd approval) than leading towards a good future for all. As a consequence, a bad future arrives - a deterministic future: determined by the forces that were at work in the present when people opted for inertia, apathy, divisiveness, powerlessness. Tsvi Bisk tells us that it doesn't have to be that way.

Just reading his understanding of Zionism is a balm to the heart and health food to the mind. (Zionism being a word so distorted and maligned in the world, that many Jews have become "closet Zionists"). Tsvi not only brings it with dignity out of the closet, but he is one of our best teachers on Zionism for the many Jews who know little about it and lack the sense of historical perspective. (His other book, Futurizing the Jews, goes into more depth relative to the historical origins of Zionism as a movement).

Bisk realizes that most Jews today live in a highly individualistic world. Collectivist cultural values and norms are on the wane in the experience of most Jews. (He likes the way the pendulum has swung. Others of us may prefer other combinations of individualistic and collectivistic cultural habitats). Zionism always held as one of its highest values Hagshama Atzmit (self-actualization), but the mix of individualistic and collectivistic values and feelings that brought about self-actualization for Jews 50 to 100 years ago is a different mix today. This is a fact, and Tsvi Bisk modernizes Zionism by acknowledging the real and potent integration possible today between what is meaningful for individual Jews and creating a good future for the Jewish people by way of creating a good future for humanity in general.