ABSTRACT
The amazing strength of the churches in America in the face of the prevailing secularization of American life cannot be explained unless one realizes that the religious institution is the constitutionally guaranteed guardian of ethnicity, its protective canopy. American civilization, obviously, exerts a powerful assimilating influence, much more so than any other civilization. A comparison of the history of German settlements in Brazil with those in Missouri will serve to prove the point. American Jews in B'nai B'rith or in B'nai Abraham do precisely what other Americans do in the Knights of Columbus, the Rotarians, Kiwanians, the Exalted Order of the Elks, and other fraternal organizations. They do not differ in behavior patterns, in ritual, in professed ideals, in activities of all sorts, except for this one very significant thing, that they prefer to associate among themselves. The new German-Jewish immigration seems to have much more in common with the native-born children of East European immigrants.
