The Jewish Post, July 1929.*
Thirty thousand garments workers, mostly Jews, are on strike since July 3. The Manhattan district from 23rd Street to 40th Street, called the Garment Center, is the scene of daily unrest. Nothing fundamentally dangerous, to be sure. Those who have witnessed revolutionary labor struggles in other world centers, with their direct threat to society as now constituted, will be inclined to view these events as a rather mild occurrence. The fights develop, not between the State and labor as a class, but between organized labor as a social force, constructive and state-building in the fight against this social plague, [the] antisocial forces of the sweatshops on one side and the left-wingers on the other.
The sweatshop was the enemy that stood at the cradle of the Jewish labor movement a generation ago.
The individualism and the innate sense of justice of the Jewish worker waged a fierce battle against it. Due to the energy and intellect invested in the fight against this social plague, it was by and by recognized that the abolition of the sweatshop is not only in the interest of labor but perhaps more to the benefit of the State, of industry as such, and of business in general. Under the influence of these labor struggles, social legislation was placed on the statue books[, an] example of a fair and humanitarian approach toward a solution of the problems under modern conditions.
As a result of the unfortunate 1926 strike under the left-wing leadership, the ladies’ garment workers, who were in the forefront of progress, seem again to be threatened with the sweatshop menace. The war declared against it is significant in more than one direction. It certainly has the sympathy of the enlightened New York public, who think in social rather than in narrow class terms.
The appointment by Gov. Roosevelt of our Lieutenant Governor, Colonel Herbert H. Lehman, who was Chairman of Governor Smith’s board during the 1924 strike, augurs well for a speedy and just settlement. It has a particular meaning from a Jewish point of view when it is remembered that the welfare of almost 30,000 Jewish families directly affected and about as many indirectly interested, is at stake.
A housecleaning in the New York needle industry has even greater importance from a Jewish political point of view. The outstanding feature in the Jewish mass immigration to the United States during the beginning of the twentieth century was the compulsory, rapid transformation of a large number of our people from the “Luft menschen”[1] class into a healthy and productive factor in the economic fabric of American life.
Of late, alarming signs of an increasing exodus of many workers and their children into the ranks of the lower-middle classes were beginning to be noted. This fact not only tended to undo the work of the first generation of pioneers, but also to raise many weighty economic and social questions.
The elimination of the sweatshop evil and the raising of the standard [of living] in the need industry may be a step in a direction perhaps beyond the program of the International Ladies Garment Workers’ Union and the American Federation of Labor which lends to it its support.
* Note: this essay appears to have been edited “for style,” and thus doesn’t resemble the writer’s other essays. It also doesn’t make sense and/or makes odd, unsubstantiated claims in places, which suggests that it was hacked up so that it could fit the space that was available.
[1] Yiddish expression (“air people”) for people who have no apparent means of support.
Saturday, March 3, 2012
Friday, March 2, 2012
Menahem Ussishkin
The Pittsburgh Tri-State Pinkas, 1947.
(Attributed to Z. Alroy.)
Within Menahem Ussishkin’s life span (1863-1941) many dramatic events and profound revolutionary changes occurred in the world. From the historian’s angle, these turbulent 78 years have witnessed a remarkable upward trend in the scientific, cultural, economic and political progress of the peoples that were the players in the world’s drama. Only one member of the human family has not benefited from the new development that was under way before the advent of Nazism: Jewry. Its status has not only not been improved, but has steadily been deteriorating. Two-thirds of the Jewish world population face today physical and spiritual extermination.
When Menahem Ussishkin saw the light of day in Dubrowna, Russia, in the year 1863, Alexander II ruled over All The Russias. Wilhelm I sat on the throne of Prussia. Napoleon III reigned over France. Victoria was Queen of England and the Dominions beyond the seas. Abraham Lincoln, having freed the Negroes, fought the Civil War for the principles of Emancipation. In Palestine, under the Sultan’s sovereignty, there lived but a handful of old and pious Jews who had come to the Holy Land to die there. In the United States the Jewish community numbered less than 250,000 souls.
The era of the Isms was then in its mere infancy. Only fifteen years had elapsed since Karl Marx and his associates had issued their Communist Manifesto. But in Germany, the land of Goethe and Schiller, Kant and Hegel, anti-Semitism, the forerunner of Aryanism and Hitlerism, began to raise its head in the garb of “scientific anti-Semitism.” The upper strata of West European Jewry, which had striven hard to persuade itself that the Emancipation, which had come painfully and slowly, really wrote “finis” to the Jewish Question, began to wonder whether this was really so.
In Eastern Europe the Poles were rising against the oppression of Czarist Russia. In Russia proper the Nihilists and the social revolutionaries were busily engaged in surreptitiously setting the stage for that process of revolt which culminated in the revolutions of 1905 and 1917. Russian Jewry, 6,000,000 strong and a reservoir of Jewish life, tradition and culture, was in the throes of an inner severe crisis which resulted from the struggle between the traditionalists and the adherents of the Haskalah (Enlightenment). It was yet to experience the pogroms, the humiliations and the oppressions of the decades that were to follow. Its confinement to an official Czarist Pale of Settlement was yet to be enacted.
It was not a happy world into which Menahem Ussishkin was born and in which he grew to manhood. So oppressive was the life of the Jewish masses on the steppes of Russia and in the adjacent lands that the misery and hopefulness that hung over it produced among the more thoughtful and forward-looking leaders of the older generation a feverish desire for a radical change. Some joined the forces of the revolution that promised release. Others sought release through national revival in accordance with a pattern that had its living roots in the deep-seated traditions of the Jewish masses and its incentive in the ancient glories of Israel.
As a youth of 18 – then a student in the Moscow Technical Institute from which he later graduated as an engineer – Ussishkin was already engaged in founding a branch of the Chovevei Zion (Lovers of Zion), the Palestine colonization movement which preceded Theodor Herzl’s Political Zionism. Stirred to the depth of his soul by the anti-Jewish pogroms of 1882 in Russia, he joined the Bilu (abbreviated Hebraic description of those who issued the slogan “House of Jacob, come, let us go!”), the first group of Russian Jewish students who abandoned their careers to take up the life of agricultural pioneers on the malaria-ridden swamps of Judea. To be admitted into the group it was necessary for Ussishkin to pay into its treasury an amount of 450 rubles. He pawned his gold watch to make the first payment, but when the day of departure arrived the leaders of the group found that only seven members could embark. There was not sufficient money to cover the traveling expenses from Odessa to Jaffa. Ussishkin, together with his schoolmate Tchlenow, who subsequently played an outstanding role as a leader of Russian Zionism, were left behind.
Thereafter Menahem Ussishkin’s life was wrapped up in ceaseless work for the realization of his Zionist idea. From 1891, when he paid his first visit to Palestine, to October 2, 1941, the day of his death, he was a vital factor in and a living symbol of Zionism and Eretz Israel. It is difficult, almost impossible, to conceive and to describe the development of Jewish and Zionist life in Europe and in Palestine without a full appreciation of Ussishkin’s predominant part in it. The saga of his labors, struggles, setbacks and achievements in the five decades is, indeed, inseparable from the story of Zionism and the upbuilding of Eretz Israel. His single-minded devotion to the cause and his unswerving loyalty to it have been universally recognized by friend and adversary alike. Admirer and opponent alike have concurred in conferring upon him the title of Zionism’s Man of Iron, a label which expressed the affection of his supporters and the respect of his opponents.
His was a simple faith in Israel and in the Land of Israel. Yet no man’s faith could be more profound. So deeply rooted was it that no storm could shake it, much less uproot it. In the annals of Zionism, there are many interesting [stories about] his lifetime, all of which would involve one in writing a condensed history of Zionism and Palestinian development during fifty years. The man became a legend even during his lifetime. There is the story about his rallying to the call of Theodor Herzl and then bitterly opposing him on the issue of Uganda versus Palestine. There is the epic of his struggle, together with Weizmann, for a Hebrew University idea; there is the intricate story of the relationship between Ussishkin and Weizmann; there is the epic of his great influence upon the masses of Russian Jewry prior to and during the World War; there is the dramatic scene of Ussishkin’s plea in Hebrew before the Supreme Council of the Peace Conference in Paris; there is the interesting and instructive part played by Ussishkin in the controversy of national versus private capital of 1921; there is the story of his determined fight against the partition plan. But, above all, there is the epic of Menahem Ussishkin’s everlasting contribution to the resettlement of Eretz Israel – the contribution which he made as the World President of the Keren Kayemeth LeIsrael (the Jewish National Fund).
In the twenty years during which he presided over the Keren Kayemeth in Jerusalem and directed the activities of our Palestine Land Fund, Menahem Ussishkin became the Keren Kayemeth of the Keren Kayemeth. After a fruitful, long and stormy Zionist career, he had been chosen at the age of 60 to head and direct that instrumentality for Palestine Land Redemption which Theodor Herzl created at the Fifth Zionist Congress and which had made but meager progress up to that date. We of the Jewish National Fund who had the great privilege of close and intimate collaboration with Menahem Ussishkin for, alas, too brief a period, are perhaps able to appreciate more fully the true significance of his contribution and the sterling qualities of his inspiring leadership.
In retrospect it appears that the twenty years that had elapsed between the founding of the Keren Kayemeth and the assumption of its leadership by Menahem Ussishkin were merely a preliminary measure for the new advance that was to follow.
The stage for the new advance was set at the London Conference of 1920 which restored to the Keren Kayemeth its original character as that of a Palestine Land Fund which is to collaborate with its sister fund, the Keren Hayesod, which was entrusted with the task of serving as the fiscal instrument of the Jewish Agency for Palestine and the colonization fund of the Zionist movement.
How great is the progress that has been made since that turning point? Great as it is, it was not satisfactory enough for Menahem Ussishkin. The extent of the advance must be measured, however, against the background of the events that crowded that eventful twenty-year period between the San Remo decision to award the Mandate over Palestine to Great Britain and the outbreak of World War II. The entire development of the Jewish National Home in the course of the two decades is inconceivable without the land foundation which Ussishkin and the Keren Kayemeth laid. His first large-scale accomplishment for Geulath Ha-aretz – a purpose to which he had been singularly devoted even while other phases of the movement occupied his attention and energies – was the purchase of the first extensive land tract in the Valley of Jezreel. It was a venturesome enterprise which was opposed by some but which has been proved in the light of history as the act of a great man of vision and action.
Superficially, it may appear that the task which was entrusted to Menahem Ussishkin when he was called to the presidency of the Palestine Land Fund was a job calling for administrative skills only. Actually, the implementation of the Geulath Ha’aretz program, as a national enterprise which is based upon the principles of national land ownership and social justice, is predicted upon consideration[s] of much greater scope than ordinary real estate transactions, which are based on business and financial considerations alone. In the truest meaning of the term, the task was that of nation- and homeland-building, requiring high talent and inexhaustible energies in properly evaluating and coping with historical, political, strategic and psychological elements and phases of the complex Palestine problem. Only a man of great stature, whose roots have struck deep into the core of the Jewish soul and soil, could be equal to the task. Ussishkin proved his great capacity to perform the historic mission which he undertook at an age when most people might be inclined – and justifiably so – to rest on the laurels of their past achievements.
The Jewish people in all parts of the world, including our own United States, have instinctively sensed the intrinsic value of the great leader and the urgency of his mission. Responding to his exhortations, pleadings and demands, the broad mass of our people has contributed in ever-increasing measure to the Jewish National Fund. Under his administration, the Keren Kayemeth was entrusted with new resources amounting to LP 5,100,000 or approximately $25,000,000. The bulk of this amount has not been the gift of the well-to-do, but the mite of those who have not been blessed with too much of worldly goods.
What has Menahem Ussishkin accomplished with the resources the Jewish masses have placed in his trust? Although the epic of Keren Kayemeth achievements during the past two decades is pretty well-known in a general way, it will be refreshing to glance here at but a few figures. When he took the helm, the Keren Kayemeth’s world income amounted to LP 667,000 or approximately $3,335,000. At the same time our national land holdings in Palestine stood at 19,000 dunams. Only a score of agricultural settlements existed on National Fund land at that time. On October 3, 1941, when Ussishkin’s mortal remains were carried for burial in Nicano’s Cave, Mt. Scopus, Jerusalem, the national land possessions had been brought by the Jewish National Fund to the formidable height of 550,000 dunams, and on these strategically located land tracts in Palestine’s four principal valleys there stood 81 Moshavim and Moshavoth, 70 Kibbutzim, 57 workers’ camps, 15 rural quarters, 16 urban quarters and 12 agricultural schools – the very backbone of the Jewish National Home and its bastions of strength and hope. This is not the record of a mere administrator’s job, but the achievement and the life work of a trailblazer, a man of vision and action, a statesman, a nation-builder whose memory will long be cherished.
What was the driving power behind this man of vision and action? His simple but unshakable faith; his long historic memory of what Eretz Israel meant to the Jewish people in the past and what it will mean in the future; his deep human sympathy for the suffering of the broad mass of Jewry and the recognition that the pattern offered by the Zionist idea is a way of salvation; and his anxiety for progress before it is too late. One need not delve into the numerous essays, programs, exhortations and reminiscences which this man of action wrote, although he was not a writer, to appreciate the magnitude of the force that drove him on. The key to his mind is found in the 38 recorded epigrams that were uttered by Ussishkin at critical periods in the life of the movement and of Palestine. They embody his testament to his people. He said:
Because Menahem Ussishkin lived as he did, labored, fought and achieved as he did, the answer to the call of distress of the Jewish people can be given not in terms of a theory or an idealist’s exhortation, but as a practical method of salvation. This method rests on the firm foundation of an experience of sixty years of successful colonization and on the tangible assets of land and colonies. These colonies and the Jewish National Home which they compose have served as a laboratory for colonization and social progress and, in a world which is to be reconstructed on the basis of individual liberty and national freedom, will serve as an example of a modern design for Jewish living.
(Attributed to Z. Alroy.)
Within Menahem Ussishkin’s life span (1863-1941) many dramatic events and profound revolutionary changes occurred in the world. From the historian’s angle, these turbulent 78 years have witnessed a remarkable upward trend in the scientific, cultural, economic and political progress of the peoples that were the players in the world’s drama. Only one member of the human family has not benefited from the new development that was under way before the advent of Nazism: Jewry. Its status has not only not been improved, but has steadily been deteriorating. Two-thirds of the Jewish world population face today physical and spiritual extermination.
When Menahem Ussishkin saw the light of day in Dubrowna, Russia, in the year 1863, Alexander II ruled over All The Russias. Wilhelm I sat on the throne of Prussia. Napoleon III reigned over France. Victoria was Queen of England and the Dominions beyond the seas. Abraham Lincoln, having freed the Negroes, fought the Civil War for the principles of Emancipation. In Palestine, under the Sultan’s sovereignty, there lived but a handful of old and pious Jews who had come to the Holy Land to die there. In the United States the Jewish community numbered less than 250,000 souls.
The era of the Isms was then in its mere infancy. Only fifteen years had elapsed since Karl Marx and his associates had issued their Communist Manifesto. But in Germany, the land of Goethe and Schiller, Kant and Hegel, anti-Semitism, the forerunner of Aryanism and Hitlerism, began to raise its head in the garb of “scientific anti-Semitism.” The upper strata of West European Jewry, which had striven hard to persuade itself that the Emancipation, which had come painfully and slowly, really wrote “finis” to the Jewish Question, began to wonder whether this was really so.
In Eastern Europe the Poles were rising against the oppression of Czarist Russia. In Russia proper the Nihilists and the social revolutionaries were busily engaged in surreptitiously setting the stage for that process of revolt which culminated in the revolutions of 1905 and 1917. Russian Jewry, 6,000,000 strong and a reservoir of Jewish life, tradition and culture, was in the throes of an inner severe crisis which resulted from the struggle between the traditionalists and the adherents of the Haskalah (Enlightenment). It was yet to experience the pogroms, the humiliations and the oppressions of the decades that were to follow. Its confinement to an official Czarist Pale of Settlement was yet to be enacted.
It was not a happy world into which Menahem Ussishkin was born and in which he grew to manhood. So oppressive was the life of the Jewish masses on the steppes of Russia and in the adjacent lands that the misery and hopefulness that hung over it produced among the more thoughtful and forward-looking leaders of the older generation a feverish desire for a radical change. Some joined the forces of the revolution that promised release. Others sought release through national revival in accordance with a pattern that had its living roots in the deep-seated traditions of the Jewish masses and its incentive in the ancient glories of Israel.
As a youth of 18 – then a student in the Moscow Technical Institute from which he later graduated as an engineer – Ussishkin was already engaged in founding a branch of the Chovevei Zion (Lovers of Zion), the Palestine colonization movement which preceded Theodor Herzl’s Political Zionism. Stirred to the depth of his soul by the anti-Jewish pogroms of 1882 in Russia, he joined the Bilu (abbreviated Hebraic description of those who issued the slogan “House of Jacob, come, let us go!”), the first group of Russian Jewish students who abandoned their careers to take up the life of agricultural pioneers on the malaria-ridden swamps of Judea. To be admitted into the group it was necessary for Ussishkin to pay into its treasury an amount of 450 rubles. He pawned his gold watch to make the first payment, but when the day of departure arrived the leaders of the group found that only seven members could embark. There was not sufficient money to cover the traveling expenses from Odessa to Jaffa. Ussishkin, together with his schoolmate Tchlenow, who subsequently played an outstanding role as a leader of Russian Zionism, were left behind.
Thereafter Menahem Ussishkin’s life was wrapped up in ceaseless work for the realization of his Zionist idea. From 1891, when he paid his first visit to Palestine, to October 2, 1941, the day of his death, he was a vital factor in and a living symbol of Zionism and Eretz Israel. It is difficult, almost impossible, to conceive and to describe the development of Jewish and Zionist life in Europe and in Palestine without a full appreciation of Ussishkin’s predominant part in it. The saga of his labors, struggles, setbacks and achievements in the five decades is, indeed, inseparable from the story of Zionism and the upbuilding of Eretz Israel. His single-minded devotion to the cause and his unswerving loyalty to it have been universally recognized by friend and adversary alike. Admirer and opponent alike have concurred in conferring upon him the title of Zionism’s Man of Iron, a label which expressed the affection of his supporters and the respect of his opponents.
His was a simple faith in Israel and in the Land of Israel. Yet no man’s faith could be more profound. So deeply rooted was it that no storm could shake it, much less uproot it. In the annals of Zionism, there are many interesting [stories about] his lifetime, all of which would involve one in writing a condensed history of Zionism and Palestinian development during fifty years. The man became a legend even during his lifetime. There is the story about his rallying to the call of Theodor Herzl and then bitterly opposing him on the issue of Uganda versus Palestine. There is the epic of his struggle, together with Weizmann, for a Hebrew University idea; there is the intricate story of the relationship between Ussishkin and Weizmann; there is the epic of his great influence upon the masses of Russian Jewry prior to and during the World War; there is the dramatic scene of Ussishkin’s plea in Hebrew before the Supreme Council of the Peace Conference in Paris; there is the interesting and instructive part played by Ussishkin in the controversy of national versus private capital of 1921; there is the story of his determined fight against the partition plan. But, above all, there is the epic of Menahem Ussishkin’s everlasting contribution to the resettlement of Eretz Israel – the contribution which he made as the World President of the Keren Kayemeth LeIsrael (the Jewish National Fund).
In the twenty years during which he presided over the Keren Kayemeth in Jerusalem and directed the activities of our Palestine Land Fund, Menahem Ussishkin became the Keren Kayemeth of the Keren Kayemeth. After a fruitful, long and stormy Zionist career, he had been chosen at the age of 60 to head and direct that instrumentality for Palestine Land Redemption which Theodor Herzl created at the Fifth Zionist Congress and which had made but meager progress up to that date. We of the Jewish National Fund who had the great privilege of close and intimate collaboration with Menahem Ussishkin for, alas, too brief a period, are perhaps able to appreciate more fully the true significance of his contribution and the sterling qualities of his inspiring leadership.
In retrospect it appears that the twenty years that had elapsed between the founding of the Keren Kayemeth and the assumption of its leadership by Menahem Ussishkin were merely a preliminary measure for the new advance that was to follow.
The stage for the new advance was set at the London Conference of 1920 which restored to the Keren Kayemeth its original character as that of a Palestine Land Fund which is to collaborate with its sister fund, the Keren Hayesod, which was entrusted with the task of serving as the fiscal instrument of the Jewish Agency for Palestine and the colonization fund of the Zionist movement.
How great is the progress that has been made since that turning point? Great as it is, it was not satisfactory enough for Menahem Ussishkin. The extent of the advance must be measured, however, against the background of the events that crowded that eventful twenty-year period between the San Remo decision to award the Mandate over Palestine to Great Britain and the outbreak of World War II. The entire development of the Jewish National Home in the course of the two decades is inconceivable without the land foundation which Ussishkin and the Keren Kayemeth laid. His first large-scale accomplishment for Geulath Ha-aretz – a purpose to which he had been singularly devoted even while other phases of the movement occupied his attention and energies – was the purchase of the first extensive land tract in the Valley of Jezreel. It was a venturesome enterprise which was opposed by some but which has been proved in the light of history as the act of a great man of vision and action.
Superficially, it may appear that the task which was entrusted to Menahem Ussishkin when he was called to the presidency of the Palestine Land Fund was a job calling for administrative skills only. Actually, the implementation of the Geulath Ha’aretz program, as a national enterprise which is based upon the principles of national land ownership and social justice, is predicted upon consideration[s] of much greater scope than ordinary real estate transactions, which are based on business and financial considerations alone. In the truest meaning of the term, the task was that of nation- and homeland-building, requiring high talent and inexhaustible energies in properly evaluating and coping with historical, political, strategic and psychological elements and phases of the complex Palestine problem. Only a man of great stature, whose roots have struck deep into the core of the Jewish soul and soil, could be equal to the task. Ussishkin proved his great capacity to perform the historic mission which he undertook at an age when most people might be inclined – and justifiably so – to rest on the laurels of their past achievements.
The Jewish people in all parts of the world, including our own United States, have instinctively sensed the intrinsic value of the great leader and the urgency of his mission. Responding to his exhortations, pleadings and demands, the broad mass of our people has contributed in ever-increasing measure to the Jewish National Fund. Under his administration, the Keren Kayemeth was entrusted with new resources amounting to LP 5,100,000 or approximately $25,000,000. The bulk of this amount has not been the gift of the well-to-do, but the mite of those who have not been blessed with too much of worldly goods.
What has Menahem Ussishkin accomplished with the resources the Jewish masses have placed in his trust? Although the epic of Keren Kayemeth achievements during the past two decades is pretty well-known in a general way, it will be refreshing to glance here at but a few figures. When he took the helm, the Keren Kayemeth’s world income amounted to LP 667,000 or approximately $3,335,000. At the same time our national land holdings in Palestine stood at 19,000 dunams. Only a score of agricultural settlements existed on National Fund land at that time. On October 3, 1941, when Ussishkin’s mortal remains were carried for burial in Nicano’s Cave, Mt. Scopus, Jerusalem, the national land possessions had been brought by the Jewish National Fund to the formidable height of 550,000 dunams, and on these strategically located land tracts in Palestine’s four principal valleys there stood 81 Moshavim and Moshavoth, 70 Kibbutzim, 57 workers’ camps, 15 rural quarters, 16 urban quarters and 12 agricultural schools – the very backbone of the Jewish National Home and its bastions of strength and hope. This is not the record of a mere administrator’s job, but the achievement and the life work of a trailblazer, a man of vision and action, a statesman, a nation-builder whose memory will long be cherished.
What was the driving power behind this man of vision and action? His simple but unshakable faith; his long historic memory of what Eretz Israel meant to the Jewish people in the past and what it will mean in the future; his deep human sympathy for the suffering of the broad mass of Jewry and the recognition that the pattern offered by the Zionist idea is a way of salvation; and his anxiety for progress before it is too late. One need not delve into the numerous essays, programs, exhortations and reminiscences which this man of action wrote, although he was not a writer, to appreciate the magnitude of the force that drove him on. The key to his mind is found in the 38 recorded epigrams that were uttered by Ussishkin at critical periods in the life of the movement and of Palestine. They embody his testament to his people. He said:
“Do not say ‘we shall buy land in Palestine tomorrow’; tomorrow may be too late.”
“If the soil of Palestine will be ours a dozen (Lord) Passfields will not prevail against us; if not – a dozen Balfours will not help us.”
“Jewish capital may redeem the land of our fathers; Jewish intellect may build the Jewish homeland, but only Jewish labor has it within its power to make the land the permanent possession of the Jewish people.”
“When the People of Israel will redeem the Land of Israel, the Land of Israel will redeem the People of Israel.”
“When Eretz Israel went up in flames, the Jewish people went into Diaspora; when [the] Diaspora goes up in flames, the Jewish people must return to Eretz Israel.”
“I once told Professor Einstein: it is much easier for the Jewish people to produce a dozen Einsteins than a single genuine and efficient farmer.”
“Sentiment and reason are often at variance; Will is, however, supreme over both. There is nothing that stands in the way of the Will.”Contrasted with the Jewish tragedy of 1941 and with the problems of Jewish homelessness that will confront Jewish leadership even after Nazism will have been crushed, the sufferings of Jews in the 19th century and in the first three decades of the 20th appear to have been relatively tolerable. When the practical phases of the Zionist program were being formulated by Ussishkin and his colleagues, the Jewish people needed a homeland but it could still count on a margin of safety in the Diaspora. Today, with two-thirds of the Jewish population of the world either homeless wanderers or slowing starving to death behind the barbed wires of the concentration camps and the ghetto walls, the vision of a Homeland is not an answer to a nostalgic prayer, but a stark and urgent necessity.
Because Menahem Ussishkin lived as he did, labored, fought and achieved as he did, the answer to the call of distress of the Jewish people can be given not in terms of a theory or an idealist’s exhortation, but as a practical method of salvation. This method rests on the firm foundation of an experience of sixty years of successful colonization and on the tangible assets of land and colonies. These colonies and the Jewish National Home which they compose have served as a laboratory for colonization and social progress and, in a world which is to be reconstructed on the basis of individual liberty and national freedom, will serve as an example of a modern design for Jewish living.
Thursday, March 1, 2012
Four Decades of Geulath Ha’Aretz: Program, Achievements and History of the Jewish National Fund Briefly Described
The Pittsburgh Tri-State Pinkas, 1947.
JEWISH NATIONAL FUND (English name for the Keren Kayemeth Le Israel), Palestine land-purchasing agency of the Zionist World Organization. Headquarters: Keren Kayemeth Building, Jerusalem, Palestine.
AIMS: (1) To acquire the soil of Palestine as national and inalienable property; (2) To carry on drainage work on the land it has acquired; (3) To carry on afforestation; (4) To install in the settlements modern water-supply systems; (5) To give the soil under a 49-year hereditary lease for cultivation to settlers as individuals or as collective groups.
PRINCIPLES: Underlying the work of the Jewish National Fund since its inception was the urge of the Zionist movement to reestablish the union between the People and the Land of Israel. Concepts of social justice were woven into the Jewish National Fund program. These concepts found their most tangible expression in a set of principles adopted for the development of a national land-acquisition program. The principle of the Mosaic Law (“And ye shall grant redemption to the land” – Leviticus, XXV: 24) governing the transfer of land to its original owners after each fifty-year cycle, lent a continuity and the halo of ancient tradition to the advanced doctrine. These principles were adopted not merely because it is obviously right that land bought with money raised through popular contributions should remain national property, but also because it represented the best way for preventing abuses which often arise out of private land ownership.
The national capital was employed in a manner that benefited not merely the individuals settling upon the soil, but the community. Hence the decision to apply the funds for the purchase of land that shall forever remain the inalienable property of the Jewish people. Out of these principles flow the conditions under which the Fund places its land holdings at the disposal of settlers, to wit: (1) The settler receives the land on hereditary lease only and has not, in any way, either direct or indirect, to refund the value of his holding. He is given the land in usufruct alone. (2) The settler is expected, after the expiration of the first five years from the date of his release, to pay the Fund an annual rental equivalent to 1 to 2 percent of the assessed value of the land he occupies. At the end of fifteen years, the land is reappraised and the rent adjusted to the then-current value. (3) The lessee is obliged to reside in the holding and to cultivate it regularly. (4) The lessee is obliged to execute, with Jewish labor only, all works in connection with the cultivation of the land.
ACHIEVEMENTS: Up to January 1, 1944, the Jewish National Fund acquired 670,400 dunams of land (a dunam equals one-quarter of an acre) in all parts of Palestine. Of these, 197,600 dunams were acquired during the war years (since September, 1939). Upon the Fund’s land there have been established by the Keren Hayesod, the Palestine Foundation Fund, and by individual settlers and groups, 190 agricultural settlements, comprising 68 percent (of a total of 276 Jewish agricultural settlements) of the number of Jewish villages in the country. Thirty-three settlements were founded on the land of the Jewish National Fund since the beginning of the war. The colonies established on the land of the Jewish National Fund are either (a) Kvutzoth or Kibbutzim, communal or collective villages; or (b) Moshevi Ovdim, smallholders’ settlements.
In the 42 years of its operations, the Fund has invested about LP 7,000,000 in land redemption. By draining swamps, the Fund reclaimed more than 300,000 dunams of land and transformed them into fertile areas. The Fund has reforested more than 14,000 dunams by planting thereon over 3,000,000 trees.
In the settlements established on the land of the Jewish National Fund there live and work 72,500 men, women and children. Fifty-one thousand, constituting 44 percent of the Jewish rural population and 66 percent of the actual agricultural working population of the country, live in the settlements on Jewish National Fund land. Twenty-one thousand five hundred live in urban and suburban residential quarters on the land of the Fund. Settlements on Keren Kayemeth land provide 63 percent of all the Jewish output of milk, 73 percent of poultry and eggs, 62 of cereals, 75 percent of vegetables, and 82 percent of potatoes. All the land acquired by the Jewish National Fund during the war has been put under cultivation and has thus served to increase the production of food in the country. Before the war, Jewish agriculture provided 34 percent of the Yishub’s requirements of milk; today it supplies 58 percent. Its egg production has risen from 37 percent to 64 percent, and vegetable production from 44 percent to 63 percent of consumption. Jewish production of potatoes, a crop which was introduced only on the eve of the war, now satisfies 55 percent of the Yishub’s needs.
The Fund has also installed modern water-supply systems in 57 agricultural settlements and provided the sites for the Hebrew University on Mt. Scopus, for hospitals, synagogues and schools. Fifty industrial enterprises have been founded on the land belonging to the Fund.
By reason of its land policies and achievements in the field of colonization, the Jewish National Fund is regarded as the backbone of the structure of the Jewish National Home which was reared in Palestine in the era following World War I, and on the basis of the Balfour Declaration of November 2, 1917 and the League of Nations Mandate of July 24, 1922.
FINANCIAL OPERATIONS: The Jewish National Fund, conceived and fashioned as one of the two (the other is the Keren Hayesod) financial instruments to translate into reality the Zionist program in Palestine, has enlisted the support of large numbers of Jews in all parts of the world. A variety of popular fundraising methods and special campaigns have been put into operation since the Fund’s inception forty years ago. Up to October 1, 1943, a total of LP 7,812,800 was contributed by the Jewish communities toward the Jewish National Fund. Before September, 1939, branches or committees, manned and directed by representatives of the public at large, were engaged in raising funds for the Jewish National Fund in fifty-two countries. Following the outbreak of World War II, the major part of the financial support became the responsibility of US Jewry, the Jewish communities in the British Empire and Palestine Jewry itself.
These funds which are raised under the slogan “Geulath Ha’aretz” (the redemption of the soil) have been and are being obtained largely through the medium of popular methods which are calculated to obtain the cooperation of all classes within Jewry. Chief among these are the widely known Jewish National Fund methods: (1) Stamps; (2) Blue-White Boxes; (3) The Golden Book; (4) Sefer Ha’Yeled; (5) Tree Planting; (6) Semi-annual street collections known as Flower Day and Flag Day; (7) Dunam Land Contributions; (8) Bequests and Living Legacies; (9) Nachloth – the acquisition of a specifically delineated tract of land for the establishment of colonies bearing the names of outstanding personalities or of geographical units.
HISTORY: The idea of a Jewish National Fund was first conceived by Dr. Herman Schapira, Professor of Mathematics at the University of Heidelberg, Germany. He proposed its establishment in a telegram dispatched to the first conference of Chovevei Zion which met in Kattowitz on November 6, 1884, but no action was taken. He proposed it again to the First Zionist Congress convoked by Dr. Theodor Herzl at Basle, Switzerland, in the summer of 1897. But it was not until December, 1901, when the Fifth Zionist Congress met at Basle, Switzerland, that the proposal was adopted on the recommendation of Johann Kremenezky of Vienna and Dr. Theodor Herzl, the President of the Congress. The Jewish National Fund was incorporated in England, as a Limited Liability Company under the Companies’ Act, complete and permanent control over it being vested in the World Zionist Congress. The Fund is being administered by a Board of Directors of nine members who are elected by the Actions Committee (General Council) of the Zionist Organization, which is in turn elected bi-annually by the Zionist World Congress. One-third of the Directors resign each year in rotation.
During Dr. Herzl’s presidency of the Zionist Organization, when the administration of the Zionist movement had its seat in Vienna, the head office of the Jewish National Fund was also located in that city, with Johann Kremenezky as President of its Board of Directors. In 1905, when David Wolffsohn succeeded Theodor Herzl as President of the Zionist Organization, Zionist headquarters, including the head office of the Jewish National Fund, were removed to Cologne, Germany, with Dr. Max Bodenheimer as President of the Board of Directors. Upon the outbreak of the World War in 1914, the Jewish National Fund headquarters were removed to The Hague, Holland. Nehemiah de Lieme, an outstanding Dutch Zionist, became the Fund’s President. At the close of the war, the head office was removed to London, England, which then became the headquarters of the World Zionist Organization. In 1921, at the Zionist World Conference held in London, England, a new Board of Directors was chosen with Menachem Ussishkin as President, a post he held until his death in October, 1941. In 1922, the head office of the Jewish National Fund was transferred to Jerusalem, and on May 6, 1930, it moved into its own home which is now a part of the group of Jewish Agency buildings in Jerusalem. Ussishkin’s assumption of the leadership of the Fund inaugurated a new era in the Fund’s fundraising and land-acquisition activity. Under his guidance, the Fund’s resources grew from $4,177,000 in 1921, to $29,825,000 in 1941, and from its meager land holdings of 19,000 dunams in 1921 to 550,000 dunams in 1941. Since Menachem Ussishkin’s death, the affairs of the Keren Kayemeth Le Israel have been administered by a Presidium of three, namely, Dr. A. Granovsky, Rabbi Meyer Berlin and Berl Katznelson. The world income for the last fiscal year which ended on September 30, 1943, amounted to LP 1,145,500.
A recent tabulation of disbursements shows that the Fund’s receipts were expended in the following ratios: 72 percent on land for rural settlement; 7 percent for afforestation; 7 percent on drainage of swamps; and 6 percent on water supply.
[Note: though published in 1947, this text was clearly finished in early 1944.]
JEWISH NATIONAL FUND (English name for the Keren Kayemeth Le Israel), Palestine land-purchasing agency of the Zionist World Organization. Headquarters: Keren Kayemeth Building, Jerusalem, Palestine.
AIMS: (1) To acquire the soil of Palestine as national and inalienable property; (2) To carry on drainage work on the land it has acquired; (3) To carry on afforestation; (4) To install in the settlements modern water-supply systems; (5) To give the soil under a 49-year hereditary lease for cultivation to settlers as individuals or as collective groups.
PRINCIPLES: Underlying the work of the Jewish National Fund since its inception was the urge of the Zionist movement to reestablish the union between the People and the Land of Israel. Concepts of social justice were woven into the Jewish National Fund program. These concepts found their most tangible expression in a set of principles adopted for the development of a national land-acquisition program. The principle of the Mosaic Law (“And ye shall grant redemption to the land” – Leviticus, XXV: 24) governing the transfer of land to its original owners after each fifty-year cycle, lent a continuity and the halo of ancient tradition to the advanced doctrine. These principles were adopted not merely because it is obviously right that land bought with money raised through popular contributions should remain national property, but also because it represented the best way for preventing abuses which often arise out of private land ownership.
The national capital was employed in a manner that benefited not merely the individuals settling upon the soil, but the community. Hence the decision to apply the funds for the purchase of land that shall forever remain the inalienable property of the Jewish people. Out of these principles flow the conditions under which the Fund places its land holdings at the disposal of settlers, to wit: (1) The settler receives the land on hereditary lease only and has not, in any way, either direct or indirect, to refund the value of his holding. He is given the land in usufruct alone. (2) The settler is expected, after the expiration of the first five years from the date of his release, to pay the Fund an annual rental equivalent to 1 to 2 percent of the assessed value of the land he occupies. At the end of fifteen years, the land is reappraised and the rent adjusted to the then-current value. (3) The lessee is obliged to reside in the holding and to cultivate it regularly. (4) The lessee is obliged to execute, with Jewish labor only, all works in connection with the cultivation of the land.
ACHIEVEMENTS: Up to January 1, 1944, the Jewish National Fund acquired 670,400 dunams of land (a dunam equals one-quarter of an acre) in all parts of Palestine. Of these, 197,600 dunams were acquired during the war years (since September, 1939). Upon the Fund’s land there have been established by the Keren Hayesod, the Palestine Foundation Fund, and by individual settlers and groups, 190 agricultural settlements, comprising 68 percent (of a total of 276 Jewish agricultural settlements) of the number of Jewish villages in the country. Thirty-three settlements were founded on the land of the Jewish National Fund since the beginning of the war. The colonies established on the land of the Jewish National Fund are either (a) Kvutzoth or Kibbutzim, communal or collective villages; or (b) Moshevi Ovdim, smallholders’ settlements.
In the 42 years of its operations, the Fund has invested about LP 7,000,000 in land redemption. By draining swamps, the Fund reclaimed more than 300,000 dunams of land and transformed them into fertile areas. The Fund has reforested more than 14,000 dunams by planting thereon over 3,000,000 trees.
In the settlements established on the land of the Jewish National Fund there live and work 72,500 men, women and children. Fifty-one thousand, constituting 44 percent of the Jewish rural population and 66 percent of the actual agricultural working population of the country, live in the settlements on Jewish National Fund land. Twenty-one thousand five hundred live in urban and suburban residential quarters on the land of the Fund. Settlements on Keren Kayemeth land provide 63 percent of all the Jewish output of milk, 73 percent of poultry and eggs, 62 of cereals, 75 percent of vegetables, and 82 percent of potatoes. All the land acquired by the Jewish National Fund during the war has been put under cultivation and has thus served to increase the production of food in the country. Before the war, Jewish agriculture provided 34 percent of the Yishub’s requirements of milk; today it supplies 58 percent. Its egg production has risen from 37 percent to 64 percent, and vegetable production from 44 percent to 63 percent of consumption. Jewish production of potatoes, a crop which was introduced only on the eve of the war, now satisfies 55 percent of the Yishub’s needs.
The Fund has also installed modern water-supply systems in 57 agricultural settlements and provided the sites for the Hebrew University on Mt. Scopus, for hospitals, synagogues and schools. Fifty industrial enterprises have been founded on the land belonging to the Fund.
By reason of its land policies and achievements in the field of colonization, the Jewish National Fund is regarded as the backbone of the structure of the Jewish National Home which was reared in Palestine in the era following World War I, and on the basis of the Balfour Declaration of November 2, 1917 and the League of Nations Mandate of July 24, 1922.
FINANCIAL OPERATIONS: The Jewish National Fund, conceived and fashioned as one of the two (the other is the Keren Hayesod) financial instruments to translate into reality the Zionist program in Palestine, has enlisted the support of large numbers of Jews in all parts of the world. A variety of popular fundraising methods and special campaigns have been put into operation since the Fund’s inception forty years ago. Up to October 1, 1943, a total of LP 7,812,800 was contributed by the Jewish communities toward the Jewish National Fund. Before September, 1939, branches or committees, manned and directed by representatives of the public at large, were engaged in raising funds for the Jewish National Fund in fifty-two countries. Following the outbreak of World War II, the major part of the financial support became the responsibility of US Jewry, the Jewish communities in the British Empire and Palestine Jewry itself.
These funds which are raised under the slogan “Geulath Ha’aretz” (the redemption of the soil) have been and are being obtained largely through the medium of popular methods which are calculated to obtain the cooperation of all classes within Jewry. Chief among these are the widely known Jewish National Fund methods: (1) Stamps; (2) Blue-White Boxes; (3) The Golden Book; (4) Sefer Ha’Yeled; (5) Tree Planting; (6) Semi-annual street collections known as Flower Day and Flag Day; (7) Dunam Land Contributions; (8) Bequests and Living Legacies; (9) Nachloth – the acquisition of a specifically delineated tract of land for the establishment of colonies bearing the names of outstanding personalities or of geographical units.
HISTORY: The idea of a Jewish National Fund was first conceived by Dr. Herman Schapira, Professor of Mathematics at the University of Heidelberg, Germany. He proposed its establishment in a telegram dispatched to the first conference of Chovevei Zion which met in Kattowitz on November 6, 1884, but no action was taken. He proposed it again to the First Zionist Congress convoked by Dr. Theodor Herzl at Basle, Switzerland, in the summer of 1897. But it was not until December, 1901, when the Fifth Zionist Congress met at Basle, Switzerland, that the proposal was adopted on the recommendation of Johann Kremenezky of Vienna and Dr. Theodor Herzl, the President of the Congress. The Jewish National Fund was incorporated in England, as a Limited Liability Company under the Companies’ Act, complete and permanent control over it being vested in the World Zionist Congress. The Fund is being administered by a Board of Directors of nine members who are elected by the Actions Committee (General Council) of the Zionist Organization, which is in turn elected bi-annually by the Zionist World Congress. One-third of the Directors resign each year in rotation.
During Dr. Herzl’s presidency of the Zionist Organization, when the administration of the Zionist movement had its seat in Vienna, the head office of the Jewish National Fund was also located in that city, with Johann Kremenezky as President of its Board of Directors. In 1905, when David Wolffsohn succeeded Theodor Herzl as President of the Zionist Organization, Zionist headquarters, including the head office of the Jewish National Fund, were removed to Cologne, Germany, with Dr. Max Bodenheimer as President of the Board of Directors. Upon the outbreak of the World War in 1914, the Jewish National Fund headquarters were removed to The Hague, Holland. Nehemiah de Lieme, an outstanding Dutch Zionist, became the Fund’s President. At the close of the war, the head office was removed to London, England, which then became the headquarters of the World Zionist Organization. In 1921, at the Zionist World Conference held in London, England, a new Board of Directors was chosen with Menachem Ussishkin as President, a post he held until his death in October, 1941. In 1922, the head office of the Jewish National Fund was transferred to Jerusalem, and on May 6, 1930, it moved into its own home which is now a part of the group of Jewish Agency buildings in Jerusalem. Ussishkin’s assumption of the leadership of the Fund inaugurated a new era in the Fund’s fundraising and land-acquisition activity. Under his guidance, the Fund’s resources grew from $4,177,000 in 1921, to $29,825,000 in 1941, and from its meager land holdings of 19,000 dunams in 1921 to 550,000 dunams in 1941. Since Menachem Ussishkin’s death, the affairs of the Keren Kayemeth Le Israel have been administered by a Presidium of three, namely, Dr. A. Granovsky, Rabbi Meyer Berlin and Berl Katznelson. The world income for the last fiscal year which ended on September 30, 1943, amounted to LP 1,145,500.
A recent tabulation of disbursements shows that the Fund’s receipts were expended in the following ratios: 72 percent on land for rural settlement; 7 percent for afforestation; 7 percent on drainage of swamps; and 6 percent on water supply.
[Note: though published in 1947, this text was clearly finished in early 1944.]
Is the Orthodox Jew in America Re-Awakening? An Interview with Rabbi Herbert S. Goldstein, President of the Union of Orthodox Jewish Congregations of America
The Canadian Jewish Chronicle, October 9, 1925.
(Attributed to Z. Alroy.)
When the first symptoms indicating that immigration to the United States would be restricted, a feeling of uncertainty and even anxiety manifested itself in various Jewish quarters. Both Orthodox and Reform seemed to be fearful of the fate of the American Jewish community in the United States. The impression prevailed that Judaism in America can be sustained only if immigration continues. Should the doors of America be closed, should the influx of new Jewish masses with their fresh Jewish traditions and adherence to Jewish forms of life cease – what might happen?
Those who were seized with these feelings had some justification. From early days there was a remarkable situation prevalent in those religious organizations which formed the background of American Judaism. As the membership of the reform congregations and temples decreased, it continually drew fresh recruits from the Orthodox. Viewed from this experience, anxiety had its justification.
Enactment of the quota laws and the practical closing of America’s doors to Jewish immigration are only of recent date. Developments within American Jewish life in this short period, however, carry sufficient evidence to show that this fear has no justification. The opposite has been proven.
The consolidation of the American Jewish community is taking place. One of the forces of this consolidation was the rise of the influence of Orthodox Jewry in America.
When, twenty-seven years ago, a small group of immigrants from Eastern Europe heard of the death of Rabbi Isaac Elchanan, the dean of the Yeshiva in Kovno, they decided to honor his memory by fulfilling a rabbinical dictum: “When a great man dies, an academy is set on his grave.” They formed the Isaac Elchanan Yeshiva in America which was an attempt to imitate the Yeshiva of European fame. Now, a $5,000,000 Yeshiva college, which is to be the exponent of traditional Judaism under modern conditions and methods of instruction[, is going to be built]. The Union of Orthodox Jewish Congregations of America is about to hold its twenty-seventh annual convention in New York City with a large number of delegates representing hundreds of congregations. The long latent forces of Orthodox Judaism in America are awakening. What is their direction and what power do they represent?
Dr. Herbert S. Goldstein, president of the Union of Orthodox Jewish Congregations of America, belongs to this school of American Orthodox rabbis who are both American and Orthodox. The writer of these lines was eager to hear Rabbi Goldstein’s views on the present situation of Orthodox Jewry and the tasks which it confronts and which will be the subject of profound deliberation at the forthcoming convention.
“In recent years it has become fashionable in American Jewish ranks to speak fervently and almost religiously about the need of ‘Jewish education’ and ‘Jewish culture.’ Something is seeking expression, but it seems to me that those who feel this inner wedge are afraid to be consistent. They speak of the need of Jewish education and Jewish culture, fervently, religiously, but avoid saying ‘Jewish religion.’ Until the close of the eighteenth century, there was only Orthodox Judaism. Jewish life meant Jewish religion. In fact, the difference between Jewish and non-Jewish life was the religious discipline under which the Jews lived. Human society, organized government and even industrial and commercial progress are inconceivable without the principle of self-discipline. This was in essence the doctrine which Judaism from its very outset proclaimed and which has, as 1,500 years of history has proven, been the driving power in the maintenance of orderly life and the progress of the world. True, this influence went through a variety of channels, but its source is, without denial, unmistakably Orthodoxly Jewish. If this influence is to continue and exercise its power for good, the source must be guarded and kept alive. This is the duty of the Orthodox Jew. Judaism was the first religious doctrine to recognize the importance of the forms of everyday life for impressing the higher principles. An occasional hearing of even an inspiring sermon [is] sufficient to bring about the required results. It is Orthodox Judaism which has created the guarantees for the realization of the high principle by the creation of a set of rules of conduct which must be observed if the belief is adhered to.”
What is the present situation in Orthodox Jewry in America? I asked the President of the Union.
“Those who are trained to observe things in the making cannot fail to admit that the reawakening of the Orthodox Jew in the American Jewish community is not far off. Gone are the days when the religious affiliation of American Jewry was determined by commercial success or failure. You must not labor under the false illusion that those members who have left the Orthodox congregation to join the Reform temples did so after a profound study of the principles of Orthodox and Reform Judaism which was followed by a recognition that the principles of Geiger and Lindon were better than those of traditional Judaism. This was only natural in the first years of the forming of the American Jewish community. The Jewish community was divided into two distinct groups: a minority of settled families who were acclimated and successful; the other, of recent arrivals who lacked the feeling of certainty and stability both in their material and spiritual status. The majority of the individuals being of a progressive nature, as evidenced by the fact of their immigration to this country, when a little more settled, joined the minority. This condition has undergone a fundamental change. Given time, applied thought has performed this change. The intuition of the Jewish masses in America and their desire for self-preservation, not to speak of the strength of family traditions which are age-old, directed the return to Orthodox Judaism. Speaking of a return is misleading. There was, in fact, no departure. The present moment marks only a full-power reawakening. When, twenty-seven years ago, almost at the dawn of the present American Jewish community, the principles of Orthodox Judaism were re-proclaimed on American soil by the founders of the Union of Orthodox Jewish Congregations.”
“Do you think, Rabbi Goldstein, that Orthodox Judaism in America can continue the old forms of orthodoxy as lived in other countries?”
“It has been the contention of many of the enemies of Orthodox Jewry that its source is European, implying, thus, that it would be un-American. What a great mistake this is. The spirit of America is essentially religious. It is on the precepts of the Bible that the fundamental laws of this country are based. The living of a real Orthodox Jewish life in America cannot be impaired by living in America. Take for instance the dietary laws which are one of the fundamentals of Orthodox Jewish observance. Not only is this not an impossibility, but, as is well demonstrated by the New York State Kosher Law, a desirability. The observance of the Sabbath is also not contrary to the trend of modern industrial life in America,” Rabbi Goldstein concluded.
When the first symptoms indicating that immigration to the United States would be restricted, a feeling of uncertainty and even anxiety manifested itself in various Jewish quarters. Both Orthodox and Reform seemed to be fearful of the fate of the American Jewish community in the United States. The impression prevailed that Judaism in America can be sustained only if immigration continues. Should the doors of America be closed, should the influx of new Jewish masses with their fresh Jewish traditions and adherence to Jewish forms of life cease – what might happen?
Those who were seized with these feelings had some justification. From early days there was a remarkable situation prevalent in those religious organizations which formed the background of American Judaism. As the membership of the reform congregations and temples decreased, it continually drew fresh recruits from the Orthodox. Viewed from this experience, anxiety had its justification.
Enactment of the quota laws and the practical closing of America’s doors to Jewish immigration are only of recent date. Developments within American Jewish life in this short period, however, carry sufficient evidence to show that this fear has no justification. The opposite has been proven.
The consolidation of the American Jewish community is taking place. One of the forces of this consolidation was the rise of the influence of Orthodox Jewry in America.
When, twenty-seven years ago, a small group of immigrants from Eastern Europe heard of the death of Rabbi Isaac Elchanan, the dean of the Yeshiva in Kovno, they decided to honor his memory by fulfilling a rabbinical dictum: “When a great man dies, an academy is set on his grave.” They formed the Isaac Elchanan Yeshiva in America which was an attempt to imitate the Yeshiva of European fame. Now, a $5,000,000 Yeshiva college, which is to be the exponent of traditional Judaism under modern conditions and methods of instruction[, is going to be built]. The Union of Orthodox Jewish Congregations of America is about to hold its twenty-seventh annual convention in New York City with a large number of delegates representing hundreds of congregations. The long latent forces of Orthodox Judaism in America are awakening. What is their direction and what power do they represent?
Dr. Herbert S. Goldstein, president of the Union of Orthodox Jewish Congregations of America, belongs to this school of American Orthodox rabbis who are both American and Orthodox. The writer of these lines was eager to hear Rabbi Goldstein’s views on the present situation of Orthodox Jewry and the tasks which it confronts and which will be the subject of profound deliberation at the forthcoming convention.
“In recent years it has become fashionable in American Jewish ranks to speak fervently and almost religiously about the need of ‘Jewish education’ and ‘Jewish culture.’ Something is seeking expression, but it seems to me that those who feel this inner wedge are afraid to be consistent. They speak of the need of Jewish education and Jewish culture, fervently, religiously, but avoid saying ‘Jewish religion.’ Until the close of the eighteenth century, there was only Orthodox Judaism. Jewish life meant Jewish religion. In fact, the difference between Jewish and non-Jewish life was the religious discipline under which the Jews lived. Human society, organized government and even industrial and commercial progress are inconceivable without the principle of self-discipline. This was in essence the doctrine which Judaism from its very outset proclaimed and which has, as 1,500 years of history has proven, been the driving power in the maintenance of orderly life and the progress of the world. True, this influence went through a variety of channels, but its source is, without denial, unmistakably Orthodoxly Jewish. If this influence is to continue and exercise its power for good, the source must be guarded and kept alive. This is the duty of the Orthodox Jew. Judaism was the first religious doctrine to recognize the importance of the forms of everyday life for impressing the higher principles. An occasional hearing of even an inspiring sermon [is] sufficient to bring about the required results. It is Orthodox Judaism which has created the guarantees for the realization of the high principle by the creation of a set of rules of conduct which must be observed if the belief is adhered to.”
What is the present situation in Orthodox Jewry in America? I asked the President of the Union.
“Those who are trained to observe things in the making cannot fail to admit that the reawakening of the Orthodox Jew in the American Jewish community is not far off. Gone are the days when the religious affiliation of American Jewry was determined by commercial success or failure. You must not labor under the false illusion that those members who have left the Orthodox congregation to join the Reform temples did so after a profound study of the principles of Orthodox and Reform Judaism which was followed by a recognition that the principles of Geiger and Lindon were better than those of traditional Judaism. This was only natural in the first years of the forming of the American Jewish community. The Jewish community was divided into two distinct groups: a minority of settled families who were acclimated and successful; the other, of recent arrivals who lacked the feeling of certainty and stability both in their material and spiritual status. The majority of the individuals being of a progressive nature, as evidenced by the fact of their immigration to this country, when a little more settled, joined the minority. This condition has undergone a fundamental change. Given time, applied thought has performed this change. The intuition of the Jewish masses in America and their desire for self-preservation, not to speak of the strength of family traditions which are age-old, directed the return to Orthodox Judaism. Speaking of a return is misleading. There was, in fact, no departure. The present moment marks only a full-power reawakening. When, twenty-seven years ago, almost at the dawn of the present American Jewish community, the principles of Orthodox Judaism were re-proclaimed on American soil by the founders of the Union of Orthodox Jewish Congregations.”
“Do you think, Rabbi Goldstein, that Orthodox Judaism in America can continue the old forms of orthodoxy as lived in other countries?”
“It has been the contention of many of the enemies of Orthodox Jewry that its source is European, implying, thus, that it would be un-American. What a great mistake this is. The spirit of America is essentially religious. It is on the precepts of the Bible that the fundamental laws of this country are based. The living of a real Orthodox Jewish life in America cannot be impaired by living in America. Take for instance the dietary laws which are one of the fundamentals of Orthodox Jewish observance. Not only is this not an impossibility, but, as is well demonstrated by the New York State Kosher Law, a desirability. The observance of the Sabbath is also not contrary to the trend of modern industrial life in America,” Rabbi Goldstein concluded.
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