Digest of Public Opinion on Jewish Matters

[The purpose of the Digest is informative. Preference is given to papers not generally accessible to our readers. Quotation does not indicate approval.-Editor.]

The “History of the Jewish People,” by Max L. Margolis and Alexander Marx, recently published by the Jewish Publication Society of America, is severely criticized in the “Jewish Daily News,” orthodox paper, by Dr. Bril, who charges that the authors have deliberately ignored the important achievements of the East European Jews in American Jewish life. Writing editorially in the English section of the “Jewish Daily News” (issues of May 6-8-9), Dr. Bril contends that while Professors Margolis and Marx “may be classed as Orthodox,” they are guilty of “flagrant omissions” and “concealing of facts” regarding the East European Orthodox element in American Jewry and of “making propaganda for a particular cause.” He also draws an analogy between their history and that of Dr. Ismar Elbogen of Germany, who we are told, though a Reform Jew, has rendered in his recent work an unbiased picture of the achievements of East European Jewry in America. Dr. Bril writes in part:

“We take the strongest exception to the statements and conclusions contained in the final chapters dealing with Jews and Judaism in America in ‘A History of the Jewish People’ by Max L. Margolis and Alexander Marx. It is pure perversion of facts and propaganda of the most biased character. Professors Margolis and Marx would have us believe that the large masses of Jews who have come here from Eastern Europe have contributed nothing at all towards the spiritual welfare of Judaism and Jews in America. According to them there are only three institutions of higher learning in the United States, to wit, the Hebrew Union College, the Jewish Theological Seminary and the Dropsie College. There are only two great congregational organizations in the country, namely, the Union of American Hebrew Congregations of America and the United Synagogue. There is no Yeshiva; there is no Union of Orthodox Jewish Congregations of America. There is only an American Jewish Committee. There never was an American Jewish Congress.

“There was a time when Jewish history as far as our Reform friends are concerned, began and ended with Isaac M. Wise. There was no Judaism outside of Cincinuati. Reform Jews know better now. It would seem now as if for Professors Margolis and Marx Jewish history in America begins and ends with Solomon Schechter. If we are not mistaken, Dr. Schechter was not an American product Dr. Margolis was born in Kalveria and Dr. Marx in Germany. If we mistake not a great many of the students and graduates both of the Jewish Theological Seminary and of the Hebrew Union College are natives of Eastern European countries, and those graduates upon whose knowledge of Judaism and of whose Jewish learning these institutions pride themselves so mightily received their Jewish training at the Yeshiva first on Henry Street and then at Montgomery Street or on East Broadway or at some Yeshiva across the seas.

“As for the labors for Jewish Rights during and after the war the Eastern European Jews in this country initiated the movement. It began at a meeting at Educational Alliance on East Broadway, long before the formation of the American Jewish Committee,” Dr. Bril declares.