Rabbis and Lawyers

Renowned legal historian Jerold S. Auerbach examines the special contributions of rabbis and lawyers to American Jewish acculturation. Based on extensive reading and research in American and Israeli archives, his analysis of how lawyers displaced rabbis as community leaders at the beginning of this century illuminates a decisive moment in American Jewish history. The author of Unequal Justice (1976), the landmark study of the legal profession in history, turns to the more specific issue of the development of the lawyer class in the U.S. and its role in changing the way Jewish Americans assimilated and were perceived by others.