To the Editor:

Robert Langbaum’s (“Liberal Judaism as a Living Faith,” COMMENTARY, July 1952) choice of Liberal Judaism as a living faith would be more convincing if he presented it . . . as an apologia of an individual who has reacted against aspects of the Yiddish ghetto. . . . Orthodox Judaism has existed and exists in land after land where the Yiddish culture of the ghetto is altogether unknown. It existed in Europe for centuries before there was a ghetto in Eastern Europe. It existed among free Americans in the United States for two centuries before part of that ghetto was transplanted to New York’s Lower East Side. Therefore for Mr. Langbaum to say that “The American Jews who rejected Orthodoxy were first of all rejecting slum culture; they were rejecting an immigrant status. . . .” may be a true characterization of the ignorance of Judaism and the mental confusion of many who identified historic Judaism with the unhappy sociological characteristics of the Yiddish ghetto; but factually it is an indefensible generalization.

He states further that Liberal Judaism “could be fairly judged only against an Orthodoxy—it there is such an Orthodoxy we would want to hear a great deal about it—that is facing up to the same active recognition of the American scene as is Liberal Judaism.” Mr. Langbaum could readily hear a great deal about such an Orthodox Judaism were he to acquaint himself with something of American Jewish religious history and with traditional Judaism as it has been lived in America outside of the ghetto. He would do well to come to know the historic Shearith Israel synagogue in New York, a congregation preparing for its tercentenary. In its membership he will find, from its president down, Orthodox men and women whose families living in freedom in America have been facing up to an active recognition of the American scene for more than two centuries. There and not in the Liberal Judaism that is largely an importation from Germany will he find the Judaism to which history must accord the name of American Judaism.

D. De Sola Pool
Shearith Israel
New York City

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