Jews in a Free Society

Book excerpt: This volume contains the lectures which the faculty of the Cincinnati School of Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion presented to the larger community during the College Centennial Year. They are lectures by scholars moving out of the strict confines of their specialty and addressing a lay audience at large, spreading Jewish information filtered through the channels of Jewish learning and representing a discussion of contemporary problems and concerns in the light of scholarly findings. The convergence of the College Centennial and the national Bicentennial provided a unique occasion to assess the interrelationship between America and American Jewry. Each lecturer, therefore, applied the insights of his own discipline to the situation of contemporary Jewish life in America, elucidating both the challenges and the opportunities. The lectures deal with the American Jewish Experience: the history, the sociology, the artistic creativity, and the ways in which the ancient legacy of religious ideas and literature can thrive in a free democracy. The thirteen lectures published in this volume are by Professors Sheldon H. Blank, Herbert C. Brichto, Samuel Greengus, Robert L. Katz, Jacob R. Marcus, Michael A. Meyer, Eugene Mihaly, Jakob J. Petuchowski, Alvin J. Reines, Ellis Rivkin, Samuel Sandmel, Sylvan D. Schwartzman, and David B. Weisberg. Dr. Alfred Gottschalk, President of the College, contributed an introductory essay on "The Public Function of the Jewish Scholar."