Let’s Take Stock!

The following is the last of four articles outlining American Jewry at work today. “Abel Borden is the pseudonym of a well-known American-Jewish writer.

An inventory of American Jewish life is a discouraging affair at best.

The waste, the misdirected energy, the blunderings and ineffectual endeavors that greet one are so enormous as to belie the achievements of which American Jewry can proudly boast. The instances cited here are trifling in number. Every reader of these articles must be able, without exertion, to enumerate as many as have been listed here.

The chaos, the miasma of debate which surrounds every endeavor, are responsible for the hopelessness with which the American Jew surveys the scene around him.

HAS NO FORMULA

I offer no solution here. No formula will bring about the miracle of establishing coherency and sense to our communal life. I ask only that the Jews of America apply intelligence to their communal life in the same proportion they apply it to their private concerns. I ask only that in matters concerning their welfare as Jews they apply the same reasoning, adopt the same approach they utilize in their private lives.

“What is being asked of me? Why should I give of my time or money? What is the purpose? How is it being carried out? How should it be carried out? What can I do to see it carried out properly?”

These questions every Jew must ask himself. If every individual were to apply his logic, there might be some differences of opinion as to aims and methods, but there would not be the complete lack of logic, aim and method we witness today.

40 IN TIFFIN, O.

Can intelligence be applied to our communal activities? This question is not as ridiculous as it appears. Forty well-to-do-families in the town of, Tiffin, Ohio, refused to subscribe to a newspaper reporting Jewish news because the paper had the word “Jewish” in bold, black type on its masthead. What can be their approach to problems of a Jewish nature?

Can there be an intelligent appreciation of the situation? More than a dozen Anglo-Jewish newspapers—the sole source of Jewish information for many Jews—print editorials prepared by a syndicate composed of press agents for various Jewish organizations.

HUNGRY FOR PROGRAM

I do not see in the ease with which glib-tongued charlatans gain widespread followings among the Jewish people proof that intelligence cannot be brought to bear on our problems. I view these manifestations primarily as the hunger of the people for someone to believe and follow, for a coherent program which offers a way out of the dilemma.

I ask the doctor to bring to Jewish life the trained intelligence which his training has given him. I ask the lawyer, when he engages in communal activities, to bring the best of his legal experience and logic (not the verbiage of writs and briefs). I ask the business man to bring his appreciation of the meaning of dollars and cents, his knowledge of the fundamentals of economics and his distaste of inefficiency. I ask the public official to bring the qualities