Judaism as a Civilization: Toward a Reconstruction of American-Jewish Life is a 1934 work on the Jewish religion and American Jewish life by Rabbi Mordecai M. Kaplan, the founder of Reconstructionist Judaism.The book is Kaplan's most notable work and has influenced a number of American Jewish thinkers. Kaplan work centers around the concept that Judaism ought not to be defined as the religion of the Jews, but the sum of Jewish religion, culture, language, literature and social organization.