Strangers and Natives; The Evolution of the American Jew From 1921 to the Present

New York, N.Y.: Delacorte Press, 1968. First Printing [Stated]. Hardcover. Good/Good. x.[2], 308 pages. Footnotes. Some paper missing inside the rear cover. DJ worn, soiled, stained, with small edge tears. Inscribed by the author on the front free endpaper. The inscription reads: To Mrs. Rose Akman--A Friend, and Very Helpful. Judd L. Teller, SEP 10/70. Includes Preface, Index, and Chapters on In Alien Corn (1921-1930); Catastrophe and Triumph (1930-1948); and The Native and His Ancestors (1948-1967). Dr. Judd L. Teller was a writer and long an adviser to national Jewish groups. Dr. Teller was director of th Institute for Policy Planning and Research of Synagogue Council of America, and Atran Lecturer at Yeshiva University. He held many professional posts in Jewish life: as political secretary of the World Zionist Organization; consultant to the Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany and on Jewish Claims Against Austria, first secretary of the Conference of Jewish Organization and executive vice president of American Histadrut Cultural Exchange Institute. He received a Ph.D. degree from Columbia. He had also served as editor of the Independent Jewish Press Service and as public relations director for the Jewish Agency for Palestine. Dr. Teller's book, "Strangers and Natives: The Evolution of the American Jew from 1921 to the Present," was a Commentary Book Club selection. His other books included "The Jews: Biography of a People," "The Kremlin, the Jews and the Mideast" and "Scapegoat of Revolution." Dr. Teller also contributed to leading journals and newspapers. This book conveys the flavor and fever of the years and events since 1921 which transformed the American Jew from stranger to native. It was in that fateful year that the whole course of American Jewish history was altered, for it was then that America for the first time introduced stringent immigrant quotas aimed particularly against the peoples of eastern and southern Europe; it was then that the followers of Louis D. Brandeis abdicated their leadership of American Zionism; and it was then that the New York State Supreme Court ruled in favor of the International Ladies' Garment Workers Union. While this book does not slight the institutions that have been prominent in the evolution of American Jewry, its principal concern is the man of flesh and blood and bone whose weaknesses and virtues, struggles and triumphs, are recounted with that passion and perception only one who both loves his subject and is a trained reporter of the flow can achieve.