Fundamentally, though, the book rests on an empty vision: that Jews can define themselves solely through progressive activism, and by opposing those who hate them. It is a version of peoplehood without a core; it lacks the distinctiveness for which Weisman, and so many other Jews, seem to yearn. Weisman is clearly struggling to make meaning out of this new experience of feeling marginalized, this discovery that he, too, is despised for being Jewish. Yet he is unsure what being Jewish really means.