Liberal Judaism and Social Service (Classic Reprint)

Excerpt from Liberal Judaism and Social Service<br><br>The theme of these lectures is liberal Judaism in its relation to social service. I shall attempt to treat from a standpoint frankly sectional a subject of universal interest. Jews are a small minority, liberal Jews are a minority of that minority, whilst every sane thinker, whatever be his race or creed, realizes the need for a deeper sense of human fellowship. It is a pressing question for every religionist whether the faith to which he is attached supplies this need. Accordingly the Jew is led to inquire whether Judaism makes him and his coreligionists more serviceable members of the human family. Such an inquiry bristles with difficulties, for it involves not only a knowledge of facts but the power to interpret them. It is hard enough to form a dispassionate estimate of the share taken by the members of our race in the world of labor, of business, of thought, of philanthropy and of public service; but our perplexities are multiplied when we ask ourselves how far their merits and demerits in the pursuit of these activities are caused or conditioned by their Judaism. Perhaps the average Jew ought to be a thorough Jew all the time, but he is certainly nothing of the kind; he is, for better or worse, modified if not transformed by his environment.<br><br>About the Publisher<br><br>Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com<br><br>This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.