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     Writing in the 1970s, Goodman is, to some extent, on a mission of definition. He describes Jewish secularism in America at the time as religious secularism. He claims he uses the word religious as John Dewey did, to describe "any activity pursued in behalf of an idea, and against obstacles, and in spite of threats of personal loss because of conviction of its general and enduring values"; he claims he does not mean by religious anything that smacks of dogmas, institutions, rituals, precepts, and practices. Goodman also claims that this Jewish secularism evolved directly from the Haskalah, the period known as the Jewish Enlightenment, which began in the late 18th century.

     The rest of Goodman's book is an anthology of works by other leading Jewish secular thinkers. For example, Abraham Golomb (1888-1982) talks at length about "the secular origin of religion among Jews." His argument is that the religion of the Jews started not as a religion per se but as a body of secular folkways. "Jews," he stresses, "were a people before they received the Torah with all its commandments." With the passage of time, he believes, what has come down to us has been labeled religious, and the new new thing is called secular.

[Notes by Francine Weinberg, a member of The City Congregation for Humanistic Judaism, New York City; March 2001]

New York: Ktav, 1976.

out of print but available in some libraries

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