2,500 Jews and Non-jews in All Walks of Life Attend Marshall Memorial Services

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“His memory is a blessing to the whole House of Israel,” said Dr. Cyrus Adler, speaking at the Louis Marshall Memorial Services held at Temple Emanu-El, New York Sunday afternoon.

The large new temple was crowded with Jews and Gentiles of all walks of life. The services were held under the auspices of Congregation Emanu-El, Jewish Theological Seminary and the American Jewish Committee. The latter attended in a body coming from their assembly held earlier in the day. More than 2,500 attended the services.

Dr. Adler said:

“Today, moved by an impulse which has persisted from generation to generation, we gather together in this solemn place to speak of our friend. We do not meet in an abandonment of grief for him that is gone. Mayhap his spirit, undaunted and unflagging, as it seemed to us, craved rest in the Divine Presence. Perchance like Moses, who had guided the people and made of an unruly group an ordered assemblage, it was not destined that he should live to enter the promised land he was preparing for his people.

“Louis Marshall was born in an interior city in this Empire State. As a boy he showed forth the promise of intellectual power which his later years realized. The Jewish community of Syracuse was small, and it may well be that this was an advantage to the youth, for it lacked the distraction of a large city and made him an individual and not one of a mass.

“It was to his mother than he constantly harked back as his greatest Jewish influence in those days-indeed, in the very last words I had with him in Zurich his mother and her sayings were upon his lips.”

Continuing, Dr. Adler said:

“His innate sense of justice and a commiseration for the hardships of his co-religionists united to cause him to devote the greater part of his last twenty years to the defense of the rights of the Jewish people, though this also extended to other minorities that in his opinion had suffered wrongs. One cannot recount a tithe of these deeds. They are written in the records of the American Jewish Committee, an institution which he helped to found, to which he was greatly devoted and in which he served as president for the last seventeen years. In season and out of season he concerned himself with the obligations which that committee undertook. He heard complaints and received many in writing from various parts of the world. When there was time he consulted his colleagues as to the policy in a given case. When there was none he acted in the emergency and submitted his actions to his colleagues afterward. They never failed to approve them. His earliest important appearance in a public capacity on behalf of this committee was in a matter of international concern.

“No one who witnessed it will ever forget his noble bearing when he appeared before the Congressional Committee on Foreign Affairs of the House and Senate of the United States in 1911 in behalf of the abrogation of the treaty of commerce with Russia, under which that country claimed the right to discriminate against Jews and others in the matter of the passport. For hours he who had not been known to have trained himself in international law, quoted chapter and verse from treaty upon treaty and met fully every question that was put to him by the experts of both Houses of Congress, so that his name fas spoken with praise in the Senate Chamber.

“Whenever the Jewish name and honor were attacked he defended them in those innumerable, delightful and convincing letters which we all read with wonder and amazement.

“An omnivorous reader, a good linguist, a man with a vast memory, with a fine sense of humor, a lover of nature, a lover of poetry and a writer of poetry, a man of deep affections and loyalties, with great consideration for his friends and their health and their well-being-of much greater consideration for them than for himself tender and sweet and beautiful to little children. These are but a few of the traits of character which will have to be delineated in the real portrait. Maybe later on the pen will will be found which will give to the present and to posterity the adequate portrayal of one whose friendship it was a prize to have, whose life will serve as an inspiration to myriads of people. Here and today we have accorded ourselves the sad privilege of speaking his name, of recalling his simple, courageous and powerful personality, and of proclaiming what is known to all men that his memory is a blessing to the whole House of Israel.”

Judge Lehman in his address said of Mr. Marshall:

“As his love of country, his love of God, his love for his people, Israel, inspired his work, his legal training, experience and learning largely governed its scope and direction. As a lawyer, he fought in the courts against all forms of injustice or discrimination. Though injustice to a Jew may have touched him more personally, though Jews more often have appealed to him for help, it was his passion for justice, his hatred of wrong, which animated his actions. His tongue and his pen were ready in the defense of Jew or Gentile alike, of white man or Negro, when he was called to champion their cause.

“He urged the abrogation of the treaty with Russia, not on the ground of wrong done to Jews but on the (Continued on Page 6)

ground of infraction of the rights of Americans. He urged the insertion in the peace treaties of clauses protecting the rights of minorities, not solely because in many countries Jewish rights were disregarded, but also because the human rights of all minorities needed protection against invasion by governments which otherwise might act solely at the will of a Nationalist majority.

“His ability as a lawyer enabled him to understand the political problems of many lands. His broad sympathy led him to answer the call of distress, wherever that sounded. He was the leader of the Jewish people here and abroad, because in that leadership he saw his greatest opportunity for service. He was a leader in the fight against prejudice and discrimination. He was a leader in providing great relief funds. He was a leader in Jewish education, both in religious schools and rabbinical seminaries. He was a leader in the work of Congregation Emanu-El. He was a leader in uniting all groups of Jewry to bring to realization the ancient prophecy that ‘the law shall go forth from Zion and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem.’

“Truly we are bereft of a great leader-no longer can we look to his tireless energy, his wisdom, his courage, for direction and guidance. For the work of the hand and brain we must look to the hands and brains of living man. Not so the work of the spirit, for the spirit of the departed lives on even in this world so long as its memory influences the actions of men. Louis Marshall’s spirit of devotion to his country and to the Jewish people, of sympathy for the distressed, of passionate love of justice, may still inspire our work here. For those of us who worked with him, that spirit will remain alive as long as we remember him. This memorial meeting has served its purpose only if reverent memories bring with them consecration to work in the same spirit.”

Rabbis Samuel Schulman and H. G. Enelow read selections from the Psalms. Cantor Simon Schlager sang “El Mohle Rachamim.” Kaddish was said by Dr. Nathan Krass. A selected reading from Ibn Gabriol was given by Dr. Louis Finkelstcin.

ORGANIZATIONS PARTICIPATING

Organizations participating in the services were:

Alumni of the Teachers’ Institute of the Jewish Theological Seminary of America, American Bar Association, Amalgamated Clothing Workers of America, American Law Institute, American Jewish Historical Society, American Society for Jewish Farm Settlement in Russia. Inc., Association of the Bar of the City of New York, Association for the Protection of the Adirondacks, Beth-El Sisterhood, Beth Israel Hospital, Brooklyn Federation of Jewish Charities, Bureau of Jewish Education, Central Conference of American Rabbis, Congregation of Emanu-El Men’s Club, Dropsie College for Hebrew and Cognate Learning, Educational Alliance, Emanu-El Brotherhood, Emanu-El Sisterhood, Emanu-El League, Federation of Hungarian Jews in America, Federation of Jewish Women’s Organizations, Federation for the Support of Jewish Philanthropic Societies, Florence Marshall School, Hadassah, Hebrew Sheltering and Immigrant Aid Society (Hias), Hebrew Sheltering Guardian Orphan Asylum, Hebrew Union College School for Teachers, Independent Order B’nai B’rith, Independent Order B’rith Abraham, Independent Order B’rith Sholom, Independent Order Free Sons of Israel, Independent Western Star Order, Jewish Agency for Palestine, Jewish Agricultural Society, Jewish Education Association, Jewish. Institute of Religion, Jewish National Fund, Jewish Orphan Asylum Association of Western New York, Jewish Board of Guardians, Jewish Publication Society of America, Jewish Welfare Board, Joint Distribution Committee Joint Society of Congregation Emanu-El, Marshall Memorial Home, Montefiore Hospital, Mount Sinai Hospital, National Association of Jewish Community Centre Secretaries, National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, National Conference of Jewish Social Work, National Council of Jewish Women, New York Board of Jewish Ministers, New York County Lawyers’ Association, New York State Bar Association, New York State College of Forestry, Order of the United Hebrew Brothers, Palestine Economic Corporation, Progressive Order of the West, Rabbinical Assembly of the Jewish Theological Seminary of America, Shomrim Society of the Police Department of New York City, Student body of the Jewish Theological Seminary of America, Syracuse University, Teachers’ Institute of the Jewish Theological Seminary of America, The Judaeans, Union of American Hebrew Congregations, Union of Orthodox Jewish Congregations, Union of Orthodox Rabbis, United Roumanian Jews of America, United Synagogue of America, Women’s Auxiliary of Congregation Emanu-El, Women’s League of United Synagogue of America, Workmen’s Circle, Young Men’s Hebrew Association of Manhattan, Young Men’s Hebrew Association of the Bronx, Young Women’s Hebrew Association, Zionist Organization of America.

The committee in charge of the memorial services included: Dr. Cyrus Adler, chairman; Lewis I. Strauss, Sol M. Stroock, Ben Altheimer, Israel Unterberg, David M. Bressler, Ludwig Vogelstein, Philip J. Goodhart, Morris D. Waldman, William I. Spicgelberg, Felix M. Warburg.

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