ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses that a religious faith apparently abandoned could exercise a far more powerful hold over a man than new, secular faiths adopted. Irving Howe was like Peretz in searching for a secular version of Jewishness which would not only stiffen the Jews' collective wish to survive, despite the price to be paid for survival, but also the individual's will to live and to adhere to an ethical code. Irving's ability to recognize, over the years, the dangers in the Jewish tradition of passivity and his ability to "become friends" with opponents were but two of the signs of his extraordinary disinterestedness. Although Howe tended to associate secular Jewishness, the creed he now adopted, with Polish Jewry between the two world wars, and with the immigrant quarters in America, its history may be traced back to a much earlier time.
