he
Intellectual Aspect are considered the advance made by secular
education among the Jews, the nature of their national intellectual
products in modern times, and the contributions they have rendered to
the progress and culture of humanity. Under the Religious Aspect are
described their ecclesiastical organization and administration, their
traditional faith and observance and the growing divergences
therefrom, and then the drift and apostasy that are assuming ever more
alarming proportions. Finally, the resultant tendency of all the
foregoing manifestations is examined under the National Aspect, the
strength of the forces of assimilation and absorption is contrasted
with the inherent force of conservation, and the realization of the
Zionist ideal is urged as the most effective means of ensuring the
perpetuation of Israel" (pp. viii-ix).

The purpose of the author is thus seen to be, first, to present the
facts of Jewish life, and secondly, to offer an interpretation of
them--"to depict the variegated life of the Jewish people at the
present day in all its intimacy and intensity, and to trace the
evolution that is being produced by modern forces" (p. viii). He is
more successful in the first of these objects than he is in the
second.

His shortcomings in interpretation, however, are negative rather than
positive; they are due to omission rather than to commission. There is
inadequate consideration of the philosophy of Jewish life; external
description has crowded out internal analysis; the point of view is
too largely objective. While, for example, the conclusion is reached
that Zionism is the only permanent and adequate solution of the Jewish
problem--with which we do not disagree--insufficient stress is laid
upon the distinctive Jewish obligation in the Diaspora; the Jewish
contributions to general culture and progress which the author
enumerates with such concreteness and detail are not distinctively
Jewish contributions. Even if Zion is the ultimate destiny of the Jew,
he must, in the meantime, justify his separate existence among the
nations; if he is to remain a Jew as well as a citizen of the world,
his contribution must be that of a Jewish citizen; in addition to the
general obligation of his citizenship, he must fulfil the special
obligation of his Jewishness. But these deficiencies of
interpretation, like the inadequacies of description arising from the
impossibility of treating exhaustively so large a fiel