The Aryan peoples will seldom concede that the Jews are one of the most capable literary peoples that have ever lived, but there are many signs that would go to indicate that they are fully conscious of it. The French never forget to mention the fact that the mothers of Rabelais and Montaigne were Jewesses and there is a German folksong that begins with the verse: "Er hat wie Börne geschrieben Er hat wie Heine gedichtet." The humorous papers in Italy, when taking Luigi Luzzatti to task, are always cartooning him as a little Jew buried in books, and it is a current expression in Italy today that "he eats books like Luzzatti." A Jew and a book are nearly synonymous. We were and we are to the present day a bookish people. The book has been until now our greatest glory. For thousands of years we have been dreamers and writers. The book was our shield and our weapon and the only outlet for our energies. Now it seems that a great and radical change is going to take place in our lives. We may and will probably never abandon the book altogether, but we are on the verge of becoming an active people, instead of being solely a bookish people. THE FUTURE OF THE JEWISH RELIGION IN THE DIASPORA Preceding and during the religious crisis in France, which resulted in the Separation Law, a great number of books on the future of religion appeared in Paris. The largest number of writers denied that there was a future for religion, maintaining that modern economic conditions are undermining the spiritual and religious basis of the life of the masses. A minority, upholding Clericalism, foresaw a promising future for religion. A similar discussion on the future of the Jewish religion arose with the advent of Zionism. In the first decade of our century scores of books appeared in Europe, dealing with the nature and future of the Jewish religion. As in France, during the crisis, so in European Jewry, during the inception of Zionism, two distinct views were held as to the future of the Jewish religion. One view saw that Judaism could hope for no future in the Diaspora and that, if only to avert the destruction of the Jewish religion, a homeland in Palestine was needed. The other view was that Judaism, being non-political in nature, would continue to exist indefinitely and that, as a matter of fact, it was created for a Diaspora existence. Today, when the Jewish people is once more at the parting of the ways, the same question comes up again. Those who oppose Zionism hastily affirm that the Jewish religion not only does not need a homeland in Palestine, as a source of new inspiration, but that the very idea of this homeland is incompatible with the Jewish religion. The spokesmen of Zionism who, as a rule, do not worry much over questions of theology and religion, have so far failed to take a definite attitude towards the rabbis who oppose Zionism on religious grounds.