The section dealing with Russia is a case in point. Chua relies a great deal on secondary sources--with no major references to Russian material--to make the case that Jews form a "market-dominated minority" in Russia and takes as her starting point the "Jewishness" of six of the seven "oligarchs." But there are several problems with this approach. Two of the six "Jewish oligarchs" are baptized Orthodox Christians; most of the others consider themselves to be Russian by language and culture, and only one has explicitly supported Russian Jewish communal life. There is no cohesive and separate "Jewish" community to which the oligarchs belong. One might also question the focus on the "seven oligarchs" given that a number of key economic-political players (among them Moscow's mayor Yuri Luzhkov and LUKoil's president Vagit Alekperov) are not listed; nor is there much discussion about the rising business class. But most importantly, in a country where Russian identity is itself in flux, juxtaposing "Jews" and "Russians" in the same way that one might juxtapose Syrians and Lebanese businessmen against native Africans is a problematic approach indeed.
While many Communists were of Jewish descent, they did not act in the interest of JEws.
Indeed, like their non-Jewish comrades they were acting in the name of "Please Allow Me To Introduce Myself, I'm A Man of Wealth and Fame....Have You Guessed My Name" under the guise of messianic humanism...the new man....devoid of religion or worldy flaws existing for the collective good of the state.
I watched that documentary on the Weather Underground a few weeks ago and the common thread admitted by the two or three that had any contrition at all, was that folks who feel they have the moral high ground often become drunk with it and it leads to excess and absolute justification whether Stalin or Mao or Pol Pot or Hitler....or even Marat or Robespierre. Only Mark Rudd (whom I recall well from the Columbia takeover)and Todd Gitlin were actually remorseful...the rest were still defiant and cheeky about it....especially that shrew from Hell....Bernadine Dorhn. They were all except Flanagan working in academia...tenured.
See Eric Hoffer's The True Believer. The mindset of a zealot is one that transcends ideology -- which explains how some folks go from being the loony left to the loony right (see Larouche, Lyndon), or from being militantly atheist to zealously religious without a stop anywhere in the middle.