In Simon Dubnow's 'New Judaism', Seltzer traces a shtetl youth's rejection of traditional Judaism and the impact of European intellectual currents on the most eminent East European Jewish historian of his time (1860-1941) and exponent of Jewish cultural nationalism.

Robert M. Seltzer, PhD (1970) Columbia University, is professor of history, Hunter College of the City University of New York. He is author of Jewish People, Jewish Thought: the Jewish Experience in History (1980) and writes extensively on Jewish intellectual history.