4859. The Island Within, by Ludwig Lewisohn (read 10 Sep 2011) This is fiction, published in 1928, when the author, born in 1882 in Berlin, Germany, and formerly a Methodist, could see only dismay for Jews who were non-observant. Hanging over one's consciousness as I read was the realization that the Nazi horror was about to occur, making the medieval horrors the book tells of pale into lesser crime.. I did not get the idea that the author thought belief was important, but rather that Jews could not be happy if they were non-observant. A thought-provoking book ( )