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Download Full Publication & THE JEWISH JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY EDITOR Morris Ginsberg MANAGING EDITOR Maurice Freedman SECRETARY, EDITORIAL OFFICE Paul Glikson VOLUME FOUR 1962 Published on behalf of the World Jewish Congress by William Heinemann Ltd, 15-16 Queen Street, London Wi CONTENTS Alignments and Allegiances in the since 1945 by Hermann Levin Jewish Community ofShaarayim Goldschmidt 127 in Jsrael by Per.y S. Co/zen 14 Jews in Medieval Poland, The by Arieh Tartakower on Jewish Adam Vetulani 274 Society by Alexander Manor 124 Jews in the High Atlas Mountains Books Received , 2, 273 of Morocco: A Partial Recon- Chronicle by Paul Glikson ), 204 struction by Dorothy Wittner and Correspondence by Abraham A. Margot Kohis 207 Weinberg and Gustav Jahoda 297 Jews in the Soviet Union: A Note Death Rates in New York City on Students and Graduates by by Socio-economic Class and Alec Hove 107 Religious Group and by Country Minority Status• among Jews and of Birth, 1949-1951 by Herbert their Psychological Adjustment Seidman, Lawrence Garjiszkel, and by Victor D. Sanua 242 Leonard Craig 254 New Orleans Jewish Community, Demographic Development of Ita- The by Leonard Reisnnan I'D lianJewry from the Seventeenth Note on Two Conferences on Euro- Century, The by Roberto Bachi 172 peanJewry, A by Shaul Esh 294 Dutch Jewry: A Demographic Notes on Contributors 143, '9' Analysis, Part Two 47 Occupation and Social Advance- Jacob Lestschinsky—On his meat in Anglo-Jewry, by Ernest Eighty-fifth Birthday by Alexan- Krausc 82 der Manor 101 On Jewish Humour by Salcia Jewish Community of Buenos Landmann '93 Aires, The by Irving Louis Horo- Religion and Capitalism by Joseph uñtc 1 47 Ben-David 299 Jewish Migration in the Post-war Some Demographic Aspects of Kib- Period by Ilya M. DUour 72 butz Life in Israel by Alexander Jewish Population of Great Britain, Prag The by Maurice Freedman 92 Toynbee and the Uniqueness of Jewish Reconstruction in Germany Jewry by James Parke: AUTHORS OF ARTICLES Bachi, R. 172 Krausz, E. 82 Ben-David, J. 299 Landmann, S. 193 Cohen, P. S. 14 Manor, A. lOt, 124 Craig, L. 254 Nave, A. 107 Dijour, I. M. 72 Parke,, J. Esh, S. 3 294 Prag, A. - 39 Freedman, M. 92 Reissman, L. no Garfinkel, L. 254 Sanua, V. B. 242 Glikson, P. 90,204 Seidman, H. 254 Goldschmidt, H. L. 127 Vetulani, A. 274 Horowitz, I. L. 147 Willner, D. 207 Kohls, M. 207 AUTHORS OF SHORTER NOTICES Andrevski, S. Kedourie, E. 135 131, 3o5. Barnett, J. H. 310 Marshall, T H. 307 s o Cannon, I. C. 141 Parkes,J. 130, '36, 308 Cohn, H. J. 310 Perry, Y. 309 De Kadt, E. J. 138, 140 Pollins, H. 303 Fortes, M. 134 Roth, L. 307 Jahoda, G. 13 Strizower, S. 136,304 BOOKS REVIEWED Dayan, Y. ed. The Promised Land 310 Rex, J. Key Problems of Sociological Field, M. J. Search for Security 134 Theoy '4' Ginsberg, M. Evolution and Progress 305 Rosenthal, E. J. Judaism and Ginsberg, M. Nationalism—A Re- Islam o8 appraisal 305 Sarnuelsson, K. Religion and Eco- Hertz, A. Zydzi to Kulturze Potskiej 135 nouns Action 299 Isaac, J. L'enseignement du mIpTis, Sonntag, J. ed. Caravan, A Jewish vérité historique et nyt hes thiolo- Quarterly Omnibus 303 -5 307 Straus, R. ed. Urkunden und Aicten- Israel, B. J. IC/ian Bahadur Jacob stuecke zur Geschichte der Juden in Israel, A Personal Sketch 304 Regensburg, 1463-1738 SIC Johnson, H. M. Sociology 138 Tartakower, A. Jewish Society (in Katz, J. Exclusiveness and Tolerance: Hebrew) 124 Studies in Jewish-Gentile Reltitioiis Tarkakower, A. Israeli Society (in in Medieval and Modern Times 136 Hebrew) 124 MacRae, D. G. Ideology and Society 140 Umen, S. The World of Isaac Lam- Maor, H. Ueber den Wiedergut- den 309 machung der juedischen Gemeinden Unsdorfer, S. B. The Yellow Star 136 in Deutschland seit 1045 127 Watt, W. M. Islam and the Integra- Maybaum, I. The Faith of the tion of Society '3' Jea is/i Diaspora 307 Weinberg, A. Migration and Belong- Paret, R. ed. Die Welt des Islam und ing, A Study of Mental Health and die Gegenwart 308 Personal Adjustment in Israel 130 Ray, D. P. ed. Trends in Social Winter, P. On the Trial of Jesus '33 Science '4' TOYNBEE AND THE UNIQUENESS OF JEWRY James Parkes HAVE a very great admiration for the work of Arnold Toynbee. E ven if all the criticisms of detail launched by professional historians Iwere true (though I doubt if they are), The Study of Histocv is a masterpiece in which the imaginative genius of the author provides even the critic with constant flashes of insight into the nature and balance of human experience. What is more important is that its range and comprehensiveness provide a standard and a basis by which any subsequent attempt to portray even a part of his vast structure can see a whole scaffolding in place, so that it canjudge what to strengthen, to omit, or to change. All writing of history will for the foreseeable future be influenced by what Toynbee tried to do and by what he did. More- over to know him is to know someone who is incapable of insincerity or deliberate prejudice; wherefor I have long been troubled by the apparent exception to everything which I have said when I read his writings or hear his speeches on the subjects of Jews, Judaism, and Israel. It is not that I am still open to be converted to his views on these three topics. I know enough about the subject to make that impossible, and I think I know enough about Toynbee to realize that whenever he reaches this point in his progress, something extraneous comes in and distorts his vision. That majestic tricycle (whose wheels are knowledge, intuition, and integrity) on which he moves confidently through the mazes of the whole human story and the .geography of all contitients meets some stone in its path which causes it to wobble wildly, and ulti- mately throw its rider, once Jews, Judaism and Israel rise over the horizon. If I have any complaint, it is that it is not until page 620 of Volume 12 (Reconsideration.s, ig6i) that he tells us what that stone is; and this is a little late to confess and expound so important a limitation. We reach it at last in the heading of the First Sçction of the Fourth Chapter (Effects of being what one is) of the Annex (Ad Hominem) to main Chapter Two (The Relativity of a 'Human Observer's Approach to Human Affairs) of main: Section A (Philosophical Considerations). The heading is: IRREVERENCE TOWARDS PRETENSIONS TO UNIQUENESS. So there is the nub of thejewish offence. JAMES PARKES But that is not all. Toynbee speaks very sincerely and wisely of the inevitable bias of a personal background and of the tradition in which a man is brought up. He is himself by birth a Protestant middle-class Londoner. Although a traditional Christian he reacts as vigorously against the claim of the Church that Jesus of Nazareth is 'unique' as he does against the claim that the Jews are 'the chosen people'. But his definition of what a 'higher religion' is, and his choice of the characteristics which it should show, are, quite unconsciously, those precisely of a Protestant middle-class Englishman. He omits the principal characteristic ofJudaism by defining the purpose of all higher religions as being to bring the individual into contact with Absolute Reality. When further he defines the corporate expression of religion as being by its nature separate from the natural community, he extrudsJudaism still more firmly from any balanced consideration. He first aroused a storm of criticism from Jewish quarters by his description of Judaism as a 'fossil' of the Syriac civilization, and the footnotes and references in his twelfth volume show that he has since done a great deal of reading, and of reading the right books. George Foot Moore and Travers Herford are quoted extensively, as well as the American scholar and Conservative rabbi, Jacob B. Agus, with whom he has evidently carried on quite a correspondence. Yet the two fundamental matters of debate still remain untouched. Is a society or system to be thrown out of court without further consideration the moment it declares itself; or is declared, unique? and: Is the fact that the natural community is fundamental to Jewish thinking about the purpose of God automatically a blemish? These are the two issues which Toynbee still leaves untouched; and they give rise to the further question: Is Toynbee's substitute for the traditional values of Judaism, that it is a universally significant means of preserving cultural auto- nomies in diaspora, meaningful and valid? There is obviously a sense in which we must rightly say that no man or society can claim to be unique in the universe. The extent of human ignorance about the universe makes any such claim inherently absurd. But is there no resting point between that extreme and the casual appli- cation of the word 'unique' to anything that is either excellent or un- usual? There is a second question: Must we rule in advance that Reality (in which Toynbee avows his belief) is prohibited by its uni- versal responsibility from any action which is not immediately univer- sally apprehended or apprehensible? I would reject as fiercely as Toynbee that whole section of the tradi- tional doctrines of the 'Judaic monotheisms' which condemns to a hell the majority of created beings because they do not accept a particular— let me use the word at the moment without explaining it—'revelation'.
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