Aspects of Jewish Life and Thought (The Letters of Benammi).
(T. Fisher Unwin. 10s. 6d. net.)—Many of these essays, re- printed from the Jewish Chronicle, are admirable expositions of Jewish ethics and traditions. Those which deal with politics are less satisfactory because of their vagueness. The author devotes a chapter to refuting the Spectator's contention that Lord Reading should not have been appointed Viceroy because he is "a man of the Jewish religion and therefore necessarily a man with a double allegiance." We do not mind Benammi's hard words, but we are bound to point out that his claim for full citizenship in the British Empire is irreconcilable with his repeated suggestions elsewhere that the Jews constitute a separate nationality—as, for example, in Poland (p. 93). We have no ill-will towards the Jews—far from it—but we are conscious, as many thoughtful Jews must be, of the anomalous position of people who want on the one hand to be British citizens and on the other hand desire to be citizens of a Jewish National Home in Palestine. Benammi touches on the question in "What is a Jew ? " and in other essays, but never really faces it.
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