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SARNA / THE JEWISH PUBLICATION SOCIETY
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ever. The Society’s broad cultural and educational mission for
American Jews, its general goal of promoting a more learned and
culturally vibrant community, as well as its specific efforts to fu r
ther Jewish unity, to improve community relations, to stimulate
the Jewish consciousness of young people — all of these are time
less concerns that no Jewish community can long afford to
ignore. Others may publish Jewish books occasionally, to make a
profit, or for prestige, but none do so for the same community-
minded reason that the Society, now with one hundred years of
experience to back it, holds up as its goal: “to provide significant,
worthwhile, and informative books of Jewish interest in the Eng
lish language, so that the Jewish religion, history, literature, and
culture will be understood, and read, and known.”17
17
A List of Books Issued By the Jewish Publication Society o f America, 1890-1978
(Philadelphia, 1979), p. 1. For earlier evaluations o f the Society’s work, see
Maurice Jacobs, “Generations o f Jewish Literary Labor
,"Jewish Book Annual
7
(1948), pp. 89-100; and Solomon Grayzel, “Two Generations o f Anglo-Jewish
Book Reading,”
Vivo Annual
9 (1954), pp. 109-125.