B’nai B’rith Convention Hears of Rapid Growth of Aleph Zadek Aleph

A report by Sam Beber of Omaha, president of the Supreme Advisory Council, showing the remarkable growth of the Junior Order of Aleph Zadek Aleph, an address at the evening’s banquet by Rabbi Samuel Goldenson of Pittsburgh on the “Solution of the Jewish Problem,” and an outline of the work of the Committee on Good-will between Christians and Jews by Rev. Everett R. Clinchy, secretary of that committee, featured yesterday’s sessions of the quinquennial convention of the International Order of B’nai B’rith.

Mr. Beber’s report shows that the Junior Order had grown from four chapters and less than 100 members in 1924 to 116 chapters with a member ship in excess of 3,000. The activities include athletics, oratorical contests, social service work and religious programs. Reports on the Levi N. Levi Memorial Hospital and the National Hospital at Denver, both sponsored by the B’nai B’rith, were also presented.

Rev. Clinchy said that from 1925 to 1928 the major work of his committee was in the cultivation of relationships between Christians and Jews. Good will, he said, is now taken for granted. During, the last twelve months, he reported, a second state was reached, that of understanding. “Good will and understanding between two peoples obviously is a two-sided proposition. It is fortunate that organized Christianity and Jewry are working together on the problems,” declared Rev. Clinchy.

The solution of the Jewish problem is the same as that of a mother toward her child, love, declared Rabbi Goldenson in his address at the evening banquet for the delegates. He pointed out that “to have a problem is one thing, but to be a problem is quite another. We as Jews are a problem wherever we are, a problem to other peoples and to ourselves. The Jewish problem is the problem of the super-normal child capable of supernatural aspiration and as a result unique and different among the families of the world.”

Rabbi Goldenson said “that there are those who believe the solution to the Jewish problem lies in assimilation as a way of ending it entirely but that, he said, cannot be done with human beings for “you are dealing with life itself. The urge to live stands in the way.” Turning to those who would solve the problem by a territorial solution Rabbi Goldenson declared, “We must solve it here where we are. We must solve it where it arises. We must solve it as a mother solves the problem of her new baby, by love. We must accept the burden of our Jewishness by loving God, by loving our fellow men and by doing righteousness. The Jewish problem,” he concluded, “will continue as long as we are loyal and dream dreams.”