The difficulty in this subject (one that I am really interested to see where it goes this week) is that it is nearly impossible to get at the heart of answering the question of what is representative when we say "Judaism."

 Are we talking about a strictly text/tradition based view of Judaism? That is to say, are you arguing for/against the social justice tradition withiin Jewish doctrine?

Or, rather, is it more an argument about trends within the entirety of Jewish history?

Both seem difficult to quantify in any sort of reasonsable way.  From a textual standpoint, there is the risk of picking and choosing what to concentrate on (I think which is somewhat at the heart of Steven's argument).  And from a history standpoint, that history is so vast and diverse, that it would be nearly impossible to fully and accurately characterize A Jewish history.  I don't mean to suggest that we shouldn't be wildly proud of our contributions to social justice, in particular in the modern age. I suppose what I am getting at is that the boundaries of the discussion need to be well-defined in order to come to any sort of conclusion.