More Unfinished Business

Agar Adamson is the author of Letters of Agar Adamson, 1914–19 and former chair of the Department of Political Science at Acadia University in Nova Scotia.

Rabbi Plaut is one of Canada’s leading authorities on Judaism. In
1981, he published the first volume of his memoirs, Unfinished Business.
This second volume is, as the jacket states, “a book of doings and
musings rather than a detailed analysis of events.”

That Plaut is a liberal, in both religion and politics, is apparent in
a series of essays on such topics as aging, the Canadian mosaic, Israel
after the death of Yitzhak Rabin, and the future of Judaism. His support
for Rabin and for the Oslo Agreement is pronounced, as are his
reservations concerning the policies of Netanyahu and his Likud party.
He is equally fearful of the escalation of “the religious against the
seculars.”

The book would have had greater impact had Plaut devoted more attention
to public-policy issues in Canada and Israel and less attention to
family and other personal matters. Still, this is a thought-provoking
book by a teacher who succeeds in educating his readers.