#whatireadovershabbat Ludwig Lewisohn's What Is This Jewish Heritage? (1954; Schocken, rev. ed. 1964)
Ludwig Lewisohn was a leading light of American letters, friend of Theodore Dreiser and Gertrude Stein, before being largely forgotten after his death in 1955.
A factor in the eclipse of his reputation was his turn from stylishly written, controversial fiction, dealing with sex and relationships in the seedy, American Naturalist vein of Dreiser and Frank Norris, to Jewish subjects. Few knew what to make of this turn. It didn't help that his views on Jewish subjects clashed with those of assimilationists and doctrinaire Jewish community leaders alike. In the end, Lewisohn boasted many readers, both haters and admirers, but there was no movement to champion his work.
What Is This Jewish Heritage? is a late work, published the year before Lewisohn's death, and written for the Hillel Little Book series. It was republished by the Jewish publishing house Schocken a decade later in a revised and expanded edition.
As a Hillel professional, the existence of this book and the series in which it appeared have for a while now intrigued me. It was a pleasure, then, to read What Is This Jewish Heritage? over Shabbat and discover the compelling voice within that must have commended it to countless readers before me, not least the higher-ups at the B'nai B'rith Hillel Foundation.
Lewisohn’s short book aims to stir the soul of its readers to an appreciation of the Jewish heritage. And stirring it is. Lewisohn compresses into a few dozen pages a vision of being Jewish that feels both deeply rooted and defiantly countercultural. It is a vision founded in humanism, Zionism, and the libertarian spirit. Not everyone will share Lewisohn’s outlook, but no one who has honestly read this book can help being moved by it.
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