Jews -- Periodicals; Jews -- United States -- Periodicals
A work which like the present aims to present the Jew in every
important phase of life, which describes the social, political,
economic, and intellectual aspects of Jewish life, as well as the
religious, deserves commendation because of its mere scope and
completeness. But Mr. Cohen has gone further. He has not fallen into
the error of many of the spokesmen for the cultural or historical
unity of Jewry of denying or even minimizing the potency of religion
as a factor in Jewish survival. Indeed, he everywhere recognizes that
the primary or motor force in the organization of the Jewish
community, which is the concrete expression of Jewish solidarity, is
religious, springing from the desire for public worship. But while
religion is the underlying factor, it is not the only factor. There is
a sane coordination of the leading aspects of Jewish life, a clear
grasp of the relationship between them.
Finally, the work is significant because it seeks to represent the Jew
in all lands, to paint Jewish life in all its diversity. Mr. Cohen, an
Englishman intimately acquainted with conditions in his own country,
travelled extensively on the continent in preparation for his task.
But his knowledge of American conditions was derived from study of
American books and newspapers, and from correspondence, instead of
from personal experience. This accounts for such minor lapses, with
regard to American conditions, as the statement that the Jews are
"excluded from . . . the principal hotels on the east coast of the
United States" and hence "take their holiday in the well-known resorts
of central and southern Europe" (p. 110). On the whole, however, the
attempt to describe Jewish life in all its diversity, as it is lived
by Jews in all lands, is crowned with marked success, and the author
has ample justification for his claim that he has brought "within the
covers of a single book the fullest description yet attempted of all
the main aspects and problems of Jewish life in the present day."
_The Various Aspects of Jewish Life_
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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