To the Editor:
May I say that I read Rabbi Gerson D. Cohen’s review of Professor A. I. Katsh’s Judaism in Islam (February 1955) with a great deal of pain. It reads not like an academic criticism but a vendetta. The spirit as well as the style is deplorable. I found Dr. Katsh’s book to be sufficiently well written for the average man; sufficiently learned to be appreciated by the scholar. What the reviewer calls “swollen notes” represents indeed the fruit of careful study and a fine moral sensitiveness giving credit to all his sources. . . .
In my own thesis I used Geiger’s famous opus as well as the Arabic commentaries cited in Judaism in Islam. I would unhesitatingly describe Dr. Katsh’s book as a real contribution to Judeo-Islamic learning and of great importance in the study of comparative religion. The running commentary in particular deserves much praise.
My objection is based not only on your reviewer’s ungracious failure to acknowledge the solid value of the study, but on dikdukei aniyut—the stressing of five-and-ten-cent items as if they had basic significance. . . .
(Rabbi) Leo Jung
New York City
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Correction
To the Editor:
I wish to correct the erroneous statement made in my article “Storm Over the Investigating Committees” (February 1955) that the National Lawyers Guild is on the subversive list and to express my regret for this unfortunate error.
James Rorty
Flatbrookville, New Jersey
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