This passage introduces Rabbi Lionel Bengelsdorf, one of the novel’s most complex, unknowable characters and one of its primary antagonists. Bengelsdorf’s insistence on assimilation as a “priority” for Jews makes him hated by many. Members of Philip’s family and community see Bengelsdorf’s rhetoric as being designed to please the Gentile establishment—not designed to enhance the education, spiritual life, and well-being of his congregation as a rabbi’s agenda should be. Bengelsdorf shares Lindbergh’s allegiance to America over allegiance to his own people.