Edward S. Shapiro

Last May, the Anti-Defamation League made the start­ling pronouncement that one-quarter of the world’s population is anti-Semitic. The source for that charge was the ADL Global 100: An Index of Anti-Semitism, a comprehensive survey of international populations sponsored by the ADL and . . . . Continue Reading »

In his 1782 book Letters from an American Farmer, John de Crèvecœur asked the most famous and important question in American history: “What then is the American, this new man?” The authentic American leaves behind him “all his ancient prejudices and manners, receives new ones from the new . . . . Continue Reading »

The institutions of Conservative Judaism—its synagogues, its summer camps, its youth organizations, its sisterhoods and men’s organizations, its seminaries, its rabbinate—will live on. Conservative Judaism as a movement, defined as a significant number of people whose daily lives . . . . Continue Reading »

Jews have been counting themselves since the time of Moses. The Bible provided an exact figure of the number of adult male Jews who left Egypt, and while traveling in the desert the Jews were commanded by God on more than one occasion to count the population of the various tribes. It is doubtful, . . . . Continue Reading »

Jews Against Prejudice: American Jews and the Fight for Civil Libertiesby stuart svonkincolumbia university press, 364 pages, $32.50 The political behavior of American Jews has long been puzzling to political scientists, historians, and sociologists. Where the laws of political sociology posit an . . . . Continue Reading »

In her 1991 autobiography, Deborah, Golda, and Me , Letty Cottin Pogrebin argued that black-Jewish relationships rested on a common history of oppression. "Both blacks and Jews have known Egypt," she wrote. "Jews have known it as certain death (the killing of the firstborn, then the . . . . Continue Reading »

A People Divided: Judaism in Contemporary America by jack wertheimer basic books, 267 pages, $25 The slogan of the United Jewish Appeal, the most successful of all of America’s philanthropies in terms of fund-raising, is “We Are One.” The UJA’s success is due to the deep emotional ties of . . . . Continue Reading »

In November 1969, Hillel Levine, a graduate of the Jewish Theological Seminary and a doctoral candidate in sociology at Harvard, addressed the annual conference of the Council of Jewish Federations and Welfare Funds in Boston. Published later that year in the Jewish magazine Response under . . . . Continue Reading »