Book Notes: Anglo-Jewry in Changing Times, Israel Finestein

<plain_text><page sequence="1">Anglo-Jewry in Changing Times, Israel Finestein (Vallentine Mitchell 1999) xvi + 265 pp. ?37.50 This is the second volume of lectures by our senior Vice-President to appear within the space of six years, and its publication will be hailed with no less enthusiasm than was accorded the first. Although four of the eight papers have been printed previously, the remaining four are likely to become stand? ard authorities on their various topics. Judge Finestein's books are among those most frequently used by students in the Jewish Studies Library at Uni? versity College London, and with good reason. He is readable, he is scholarly and, above all, he is reliable. Each of us will have their favourite Finestein essay - the volume is subtitled Studies in Diversity i840-igi4 - and this reviewer's would be that on Matthew Arnold, a lecture originally delivered at Leo Baeck College in 1976. The breadth and depth of Judge Finestein's reading around Arnold's famous chapter on 'Hebraism and Hellenism' is evident in commentary of a quality that professional literary historians them? selves might well consider exemplary. Malcolm Brown</page></plain_text>