, made their houses centers of the
most cultured influence.]

[Footnote E: No adequate or connected account has yet been given of
the part taken by the Jews in the revolution of 1848. Incidentally a
good deal of information is contained in the last volume of Georg
Brandes, _Main Currents in Nineteenth Century Literature_, vi, "Young
Germany."]

[Footnote F: They got their altruistic tendencies from their family
connections. Their uncle Jacob Rodrigues Pereire (1750-80) was the
first teacher of deaf mutes.]

[_The second in a series of articles on The Meaning of Judaism_]

What Is Judaism?

BY MORDECAI M. KAPLAN

WHAT is Judaism if not an ethical monotheism? The answer is that it is
not an "ism" at all, despite the last syllable in its name. It is a
living soul or consciousness; it is the soul or consciousness of the
Jewish people. We are not interested in names, and we should not
quibble about terms; it is reality that we are after. We want to know
what is involved in being a Jew and living a Jewish life. The main
reason for our finding fault with the usual presentation of Judaism is
that it does not enlighten or inspire us. If the term Judaism does not
direct our minds at once to the living energy that operates in the
Jewish people, if it has not the power to launch us upon the stream of
Israel's active thought and spiritual striving, then it is a word
without content, and had better be deleted from our vocabulary. We did
well enough without it until very recently, and should it prove an
insuperable obstacle to the solution of our spiritual problems, we
shall have to throw it into the scrap-heap of obsolete terminology. We
shall begin to call our religion "Jewishness" instead of Judaism. The
former designation has at least the advantage of connoting
consciousness, and nothing is so important for understanding the
essence of any religion as the identification of it with a form or
state of consciousness. If Jewishness will mean to us Jewish
consciousness and not merely "gefillte fisch" or some other Jewish
dish, it will serve our purpose.

Let us not lose sight of the main issue in these discussions. We Jews
refuse to have our life quest confined to the satisfaction of our
material needs. Our souls are hungry; and whether we call it
Jewishness or Judaism, what we want is religion that will help us get
our bearings in the world, that will keep down the beast in us and
spur us on to worthy endeavor in the