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5423972_10_1_0392.xml
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<bibl><title>Daily Jewish Courier</title>,
<date when="1920-03-07">Mar. 7, 1920</date>.
<title level="a">Jewish Learning in America</title><title level="a" type="sub">(Article in English)</title></bibl>
</title>
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<publicationStmt>
<publisher>The Newberry Library</publisher>
<pubPlace>Chicago, Illinois</pubPlace>
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<addrLine>60 West Walton</addrLine>
<addrLine>Chicago, IL 60610</addrLine>
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<note>Transcribed from digital images contributed to the Internet
Archive by the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.</note>
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<bibl><title>Chicago Foreign Language Press Survey</title>, <date>1936-1941</date>,
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<catRef target="#grp-jewish"/>
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<div type="group">
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<item>JEWISH</item>
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<item>III H</item>
<item>III G</item>
<item>I A 1 a</item>
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<bibl><title>Sunday Jewish Courier</title>,
<date when="1920-03-07">Mar. 7, 1920</date>.
<title level="a">JEWISH LEARNING IN AMERICA</title><title level="a" type="sub">(Article in English)</title></bibl>
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<body>
<p>American Jewry has not, to be sure, the very best of reputations abroad as an intellectual force, though the number of Jewish intellectuals in this country exceeds the number of Jewish intellectuals elsewhere, even though Jewish learning is in the ascendency in America. For the past fifteen years American Jews have been respected abroad for their broadmindedness and charitable inclination, for their business ability and practical genius, but not for their intellectual qualities and for their relation to the book. This seems to be more surprising since no other Jewish group in the world sends so many of its youth to the universities. According to conservative estimates not less than fifteen thousand Jewish young men and women are now receiving a university training in America. Forty million Frenchmen send thirty five thousand youths to the university, sixty five million Germans have their universities populated with forty five thousand students, the <pb facs="5423972_10_1_0393.jpg" n="2"/>population of the Russian Empire consisting of 180 million people would send seventy thousand of its youth to academic establishments. When three million American Jews send fifteen thousand of their young to universities they certainly live up to the standard of cultured peoples. Taking these figures as a basis, there should be no reason for complaint against the relation of Jews to matters intellectual. But, nevertheless, as an intellectual force, they are not held in good grace by their brethern in Europe.</p>
<p>Just as Jewish intellectuals in Europe think little of the intellectual standard of American Jewry, so have European Jewish scholars little respect for Jewish learning in America. Many young and promising Jewish scholars in Europe, whose path in life is not strewn with roses, are afraid of coming to this country because they fear that America is no place for Jewish scholars. The prejudice in Europe about Jewish learning in America is so general that Jewish scholars frequently express deep regret upon hearing that the one or the other colleague is leaving for America. Even scholarly <pb facs="5423972_10_1_0394.jpg" n="3"/>productions of American Jews are approached with a biased mind. The plain facts, however, are that no other Jewish group in the world has in recent times done so much to further Jewish learning as did American Jewry. Efforts are constantly being made to organize and to co-ordinate all the Jewish scholarly forces in this country. There are at present in America three rabbinical seminaries and all three of them are seats of Jewish learning. The Dropsie College, in spite of its many shortcomings, is unique in its way and can only be compared to the "Tubinger Stift" that has produced a Hegel and a David Friedrich Strauss. The Jewish Historical Society and other pioneer organizations are all doing good work; America shelters a greater number of Jewish scholars of reputation than any other country. When all these facts are taken into consideration, it is rather hard to understand the disrespect in which the Jewish scholarly efforts of this country are held by European Jewish scholars just as it is hard to understand why Jewish intellectuals in Europe should underestimate the intellectual energies of American Jewry.</p>
<pb facs="5423972_10_1_0395.jpg" n="4"/>
<p>If we can offer an explanation of this peculiar attitude of European Jews to Jewish intellectual life in this country and to American Jewish scholarship in particular, then the explanation is that European Jewry is accustomed to think of America as a place of refuge for all those Jews in Eastern Europe who could not fight successfully the struggle for existence in the old world and emigrated to the United States mainly to "make a living". People who leave their home and surroundings for good and cross the Atlantic with the object of making a living are not supposed to be very much absorbed by intellectual interests. The truth of the matter is that most of the Jewish immigrants from Eastern Europe who came here before the outbreak of the war belonged to the lower classes, such as skilled and unskilled laborers, small tradesmen, and all kind of "Luftmenschen." Judging from the human material that has flown to America, European Jewish Intellectuals arrived at the conclusion that American Jewry consists of a mass of ignoramuses and moneymakers who could not possibly be interested in books and in abstract thoughts. Besides, people "over there" look upon America in general as a country populated by business-people, where everybody is interested in the <pb facs="5423972_10_1_0396.jpg" n="5"/>dollar only. European Jews, therefore, argue this way: Since America is in itself a materialistic country, since the Jews are always trying to be more papal than the pope and since the immigrants, belonging to the uneducated classes, left for America mainly with the purpose of making a living, American Jews must consist of a lot of more or less successful dollar-makers, with little or no interest in matters intellectual. Believing that there is no intellectual atmosphere in American Jewry, the European Jewish scholars are very sceptical about Jewish learning in this country and pity their colleagues who leave Europe for America.</p>
<p>But our people in Europe forget that American Jewry does not consist of poor immigrants only, and that a great number of good European Jewish families with intellectual traditions settled in this country because they could not adjust themselves to the condition of their native country. They also forgot that not all poor Jewish immigrants are ipso-facto ignoramuses. Knowledge of Judaism and Jewish learning was always spread more among our poorer than among our wealthier classes. Thousands of poor Jewish <pb facs="5423972_10_1_0397.jpg" n="6"/>immigrants from Eastern Europe brought with them a vast knowledge of Judaism and cultivated Jewish intellect. As soon as they recovered economically they recalled again the book so dear to them ever since their childhood and began to page it.</p>
<p>It is true that in the first decade of Jewish immigration to this country there was not much of an intellectual atmosphere in American Jewry. The newcomer was absorbed by purely economic and the older settler by philanthropic and social interests. Today things are quite different. American Jewry has settled down to work out its salvation and not being disturbed by constant newcomers, is engaged in organizing its forces, and especially in organizing its intellect. A new, American-born generation has arisen that displays a thirst of knowledge and is invading the universities and the other academic establishments. Already today there are more Jewish intellectuals in this country than anywhere else, and just as intellectual life of American Jewry is progressing, so is Jewish scholarship progressing. Signs are accumulating that American Jewry will not only soon be on the same intellectual level <pb facs="5423972_10_1_0398.jpg" n="7"/>with European Jewries but that American Jewry will become a very important center of Jewish learning--if not the most important in the diaspora. It is, therefore, to be expected that European Jews will change their mind about American Jews and consider them their equals in every respect.</p>
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