public life (no other kind of national hostility, however chronic or violent, has a special term attached to it—unless one counts “racism,” which is comparable but not tribe-specific). At the same time and for the same reason, Israel became a country to which standard rules did not apply. The Zionist attempt to create a normal European nation-state resulted in the creation of the most eccentric of all European nation- states. One consequence was substantial freedom of speech and action; the other was growing isolation. The two are connected, of course: freedom from convention is both a cause and an effect of isolation, and pariah status is as closely linked to exceptionalism as is heroism. In an act of tragic irony, the Zionist escape from strangeness has led to a new kind of strangeness. From being exemplary Mercurians among Apollonians, the Israeli Jews have become exemplary Apollonians among universal (Western) Mercurians. By representing violent retribution and undiluted ethnic nationalism in a world that claims to value neither, they have estranged themselves from the states they wanted to join. Chava’s choice has proved successful in that her grandchildren are proud Jews in a Jewish state. It has proved a failure insofar as Israel is still a stranger among nations. Either way—because it has succeeded or because it has failed— the Zionist revolution is over. The original ethos of youthful athleticism, belligerence, and single-mindedness is carried on by a tired elite of old generals. Half a century after its founding, Israel bears a distant family resemblance to the Soviet Union half a century after the October Revolution. The last representatives of the first Sabra generation are still in power, but their days are numbered. Because Zionism is a form of nationalism and not socialism, Israel will not die when they do, but the new generals and civilians who come after them may choose to strike a different balance between normality and ethnic self- assertion. Of the three options available to Tevye’s daughters at the turn of the Jewish Century, the least revolutionary one proved the most successful. At the century’s end, the great majority of Tevye’s descendants seemed to agree that Beilke’s choice had been the wisest. The choice that Tevye had despised (“where else do all the hard-luck cases go?”); the place that had attracted the least educated and the least idealistic; the Promised Land that had never promised a miracle or a permanent home (just the hope for more luck at the old game)—this was the option that ended up on top. America had virtue as well as riches, and it contained enough riches to make even Tevye a wealthy man. It represented Mercurianism in power, service nomadism without strangeness, full freedom of