Let’s Take Stock!

The following is the second of four articles cutlining American Jewry at work today. “Abel Borden is the pseudonym of a well-known American-Jewish writer. The third article will appear Wednesday.

The Jew is reputedly a good businessman. The records prove that. Jews are prominent in every field of commercial endeavor. They have pioneered in many fields of commerce and their financial success has been a tribute to their perspicacity and acumen.

But, with almost no exceptions, these qualities have not been brought over into the field of communal endeavor. Seventy-five percent of Jewish organizations are haphazardly run, sloppily managed with an almost complete disregard of the fundamentals of economics. Fifty per cent of all Jewish organizations apparently have no reason for existence but to keep an “executive secretary” and an assistant or two in jobs.

Jewish communal life can brag of more bureaucrats than there ever were in Washington, Paris or any other national capital.

FORGETS EXPERIENCE, DIGNITY

The Jew has brought a fine intelligence to play on every aspect of American life—except American Jewish communal endeavor. In this field he seems to take particular pleasure in forgetting his knowledge, experience and dignity.

The Jew is not supposed to be political-minded, but an observer of his communal activities must find them more politics-ridden and intrigue-harassed than was New York City in the red-meat days of the Tammany Tiger or Chicago under Big Bill Thompson.

Costly synagogues, elaborate community centers, unnecessary hospitals are unpaid-for monuments to the lack of intelligence in communal life.

CITES FACTS

Let’s take a few examples.

Well, Brooklyn, New York, can report an $80,000 synagogue which boast of a congregation of one hundred families paying six dollars per year toward its upkeep. “Drives” for funds to meet the mortgage interest, upkeep of the building, etc., are rapidly unbalancing the mind of the “schule” president. This same synagogue is in a five-block area which has four other synagogues—all presumably in the same financial boat.

Out in Akron, Ohio, they have a Jewish population of 7,500. They have a community center erected at a cost of approximately a million dollars. Akron is an industrial city which was hard hit by the depression. Consequently, the expensive memberships in the center are not sought by many. The board of directors, as can well be imagined, is having one hard time scraping together sufficient funds to keep the center going. It has been forced to ask the community chest for a subsidy.

AKRON CASE WELL KNOWN

Directors of national relief agencies and groups raising funds for relief of Jews abroad, know Akron’s problem well. Akron is one of the cities with “community center trouble”—an ailment preventing the community from aiding suffering brethren abroad.

Recently, Akron supplied a rare example of the intelligence applied to communal problems. The membership campaign heads had cards printed bearing at the top a huge swastika. Below, in large type was the caption, “Don’t join the Akron Jewish Center!” These cards were sent to many Jewish families in Akron unenclosed in envelopes. Many of them went to non-Jews. The net result of the venture was to cost the community a lot of good will and editorial rebuke in the local press.

A line or two more about Akron. The Jewish population is rigidly divided into two communities, orthodox and reformed. Each is highly jealous of the other and their rabbinical leaders even go to the extent of publicly protesting each other’s use of the center.

To Be Continued Wednesday