• Source: The Menorah Journal

      • The Menorah Journal (1915–1962) was a Jewish-American magazine, founded in New York City. Some have called it "the leading English-language Jewish intellectual and literary journal of its era." The journal lasted from 1915 until 1961.


      History


      1920s: The journal emerged from the Menorah Society (founded 1906) at Harvard University which had been created to emphasize the best aspects of Judaism in English, so that not only Jews, but others could see the richness of the culture, the literature and the religion. Horace Kallen, who worked with Henry Hurwitz on the magazine, developed a theory of cultural pluralism, where all the different religions and cultures in the US would emphasize the best of their religion and culture so that all could appreciate those individuals different from themselves as well as their cultures. The Menorah Society expanded from Harvard to other colleges and an Intercollegiate Menorah Association arose in 1913; membership peaked in the 1920s on 80 US and Canadian colleges and universities. Hurwitz started the Journal in 1915 and for the first few years, it emphasized the best of Judaism.
      1930s: The Great Depression that started in late October 1929 led the journal to cut publishing from monthly to quarterly. At the same time, Jewish intellectuals moved left, splitting readership. "In 1931, a core of key editors and writers, including Elliot E. Cohen, Herbert Solow, and Felix Morrow joined the Communist Party and its literary journal, the New Masses. Most of these writers had abandoned the Party by 1934 for Trotskyism. Most moved away from Jewish identity (except Cohen, who became editor of Commentary of the American Jewish Committee). Solow's wife, Tess Slesinger is presumed to have described much of the Menorah scene in the guise of fiction in her book The Unpossessed (1934).
      1940s–1960s: Following World War II, nationalist Zionism become popular, but journal editor Hurwitz aligned the Menorah Journal with the American Council for Judaism (Reform Judaism) and so it was not Zionist. More specifically, Hurwitz advocated what he termed "Zakkaian Judaism" (Yohanan ben Zakkai). The journal ended shortly after Hurwitz’s death (1961).


      Founders


      Henry Hurwitz (1886–1961): long-time editor
      Harry Wolfson (1887–1974): historian, philosopher
      Horace Kallen (1882–1972): advocate of "cultural pluralism"


      Editors


      Henry Hurwitz
      Herbert Solow
      Elliot E. Cohen


      Contributors


      Writers:

      Fritz Mauthner
      Morris Raphael Cohen
      Maurice Samuel
      Lucy Dawidowicz
      I. L. Peretz
      I. B. Singer
      Chaim Bialik
      A. M. Klein
      Nina Salaman
      Randolph Bourne
      Lewis Mumford
      Isidor Schneider
      Cecil Roth
      Harry Wolfson
      Mordecai Kaplan
      Lionel Trilling
      Salo Baron
      Simon Dubnow
      Tess Slesinger
      Charles Reznikoff
      Isaac Babel
      Artists:

      Marc Chagall
      William Gropper
      William Meyerowitz
      Elie Nadelman
      Lionel S. Reiss
      Max Weber


      References




      External sources


      The Menorah Journal archive at HathiTrust
      Leo W. Schwarz (ed.). The Menorah Treasury. Jewish Publication Society. p. 963.
      Wald, Alan M. (13 July 2016). The New York Intellectuals: The Rise and Decline of the Anti-Stalinist Left from the 1930s to the 1980s. UNC Press. pp. 30–64. Retrieved 25 September 2011.

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