American novelist, critic, and outstanding writer on modern Jewish problems. Between 1920 and 1924, a great personal change transformed Lewisohn from an assimilated Jew to one deeply absorbed in his Jewishness. He became an active Zionist. With The Island Within in 1928, he emerged as primarily a Jewish writer. In this book he analyzed the problems of the assimilated Jew, the difficulties of intermarriage, and the spiritual enrichment that flowed from a rediscovery of Judaism. The last years of Lewisohn’s life were spent at Brandeis University where as Professor of Comparative Literature, a Jew, a Zionist, and a literary stylist, he influenced young minds.