The Jew's Heritage

Press, Volume CI, Issue 29832, 26 May 1962, Page 3

The Jew's Heritage

The Jewish Mind. By Gerald Abrahams. Constable. 420 PP.

Jews are not distinguished in terms of physical characteristics, and indeed the anthropologists are definite in asserting that there is no such thing as a Jewish race. If there is anything which identifies the Jews, Mr Abrahams declares, it is to be found in Jewish thinking and the intellectual heritage to which he is heir. History has made the Jews the intellectuals of the world and there is no realm of thought in which they have not made substantial contributions. When free of anti-semitic pressures, intellectual activity is a manifestation of freedom; when confined to the ghetto, it is a means of escape; when faced with antagonism and persecution it is a weapon in the struggle for survival.

“The Jewish Mind” is an attempt to give a comprehensive account of the cultural heritage to which the contemporary Jew is heir.. This heritage has roots deep in the past, in the old books

and records of ancient lives, but the traditions are living and vital, enriching every generation and providing guidance in the contemporary world. The author describes the Jewish traditional attitude to the Bible, aesthetics, philosophy, law and ethics. This is an ambitious task and contains a great deal which will surprise and indeed reproach the gentile reader. There is, for example, the advice of the Rabbi David Halevy to the Jews not to drink red wine at the Passover Seder because of the long-standing popular belief that the Jews seek gentile blood for use, either sacrificially, medicinally or ritually, at the Passover. Mr Abrahams is deeply interested to show the way in which Jewish ways of life and thought have been conditioned by history, but there is nothing antiquarian in his approach. Throughout this survey of a cultural heritage, stress is placed on those elements which the author believes are relevant to contemporary Jewish life.