1920s: The journal emerged from the Menorah Society (founded 1906) at Harvard University[5] which had been created to emphasize the best aspects of Judaism in English, so that not only Jews, but others could see the richness of the culture, the literature and the religion.
1930s: The Great Depression that started in late October 1929 led the journal to cut publishing from monthly to quarterly.
"In 1931, a core of key editors and writers, including Elliot E. Cohen, Herbert Solow, and Felix Morrow joined the Communist Party and its literary journal, the New Masses.
[1][2][8][9] Solow's wife, Tess Slesinger is presumed to have described much of the Menorah scene in the guise of fiction in her book The Unpossessed (1934).
More specifically, Hurwitz advocated what he termed "Zakkaian Judaism" (Yohanan ben Zakkai).