The Incontinental Congress

One organization after another declined the ingenious invitation of the American Jewish Congress to participate in elections for the creation of an enlarged Congress scheduled for next April. The Jewish Labor Committee declined. The B’nai B’rith declined. The National Council of Jewish Women declined. Other declinations are undoubtedly on the way. Each organization gave its own reasons for declining. We need not go into these reasons for the present. They may or may not be valid. Reasons given for public acts are not important for they are seldom the real motives behind the acts. They are largely intended for the record.

What is important is that some of the largest and most influential organizations in American Jewry have declined to enter into an arrangement which would have meant (1) their endorsement of the Congress idea (2) their recognition of the American Jewish Congress as the supreme super-organization in American Jewry (3) their own subordination to, and their involvement in all the policies of the Congress and (4) their acceptance of the so-called democratic method of election as the proper way of insuring ideal leadership in American Israel.

It was a foregone conclusion that these organizations would not accept this enticing said-the-spider-to-the-fly invitation…. One must conclude that the Congress leaders were amazingly naive in extending this invitation or that they assumed that the invited guests were political babes in the woods. They are not, of course, as the leaders of the Congress had frequent occasions in the past to learn.

Perhaps it was intended as a skillful maneuver to put these organizations in the wrong by compelling them to acknowledge in public that they were opposed to the sacrosanct method of democratic e#ections and that they were afraid of a popular decision at the polls. But these organizations had so often in the past been put in the wrong by the leaders of the Congress and had been so fearfully and so wonderfully denounced, that another abuse more or less did not seem to phase them much. Strangely enough the “great masses” of American Israel—those anonymous hosts which were the particular preserve of the Congress—did not seem to be outraged by this gross betrayal of Jewish democracy….

Some of the “great masses” who spoke up recently in the Confessional of Declinations arranged by the American Jewish Congress seem even to suggest that “the slogan of democratic elections does not impress them much … that there is no possibility of a real democratic election under circumstances under which it is impossible to register and control the voters … and that the American Jewish Congress has for several years now assumed to be speaking for the whole Jewish community without practically having been elected by anybody.” …

This last statement is interesting. The fact that the American Jewish Congress speaks for the whole Jewish community is no specific indictment of this particular organization. Everybody is doing it. It is a favorite Jewish pastime, popular and time-honored. What is of interest is that the American Jewish Congress was able to do some very important work in recent years “without practically having been elected by anybody.”

One need not be a partisan or a member of the Congress (and the writer is neither) to recognize and acknowledge the significant services which it rendered American and world Jewry in the early days of its existence and more recently. The forceful and vigorous offensive (and, in our judgment, a winning offensive) against Nazi Germany, was initiated and directed in this country by two organizations, the American Jewish Congress and the Anti-Nazi League—the latter organization devoting itself almost entirely to the Boycott.

Were it not for their courageous and aggressive leadership the old sha-sha diplomacy of the Shtadlanim would undoubtedly have prevailed. The Congress helped to write a proud chapter in positive and fearless leadership in times of crisis.

There will be need for this quality of leadership, for this outlook on Jewish life also in the future. Decidedly, there is a place for the Congress in American Israel. We believe, however, that the American Jewish Congress will strengthen rather than weaken its position if it will surrender in theory what it really never possessed in fact—the exclusive spokesmanship for American Israel. There is no such thing! There can be no such thing!

The more we try to create such a supreme all-embracing agency, the more we expose the utter impossibility of the task, and the more discord and confusion do we sow. Thus it seems likely that the next few months will be spent in vigorous controversies over this issue, with Jews lustily belaboring each other in the press and on the platform (for it is not only the son of Gaul “who has his best member in his mouth” …) while the attention of our people will be effectively diverted from necessary work at home and abroad.

What holds true of a World Jewish Congress holds true of an American Jewish Congress. American Israel can not be persuaded, cajoled, scolded or dragooned into a single organization presided over by democratically elected representatives and officials. We are not that kind of a people! It is doubtful whether any people is that kind of a people, unless it lives in its own land and must of necessity evolve some central form of organized political life. The Congress idea is a beautiful idea launched in vacuum. It is plausible but utterly false.

There are in existence today several national Jewish organizations which have won the right to participate in decisions affecting those interests which are common to all of them, e. g., the fight on anti-Semitism, problems of foreign relief, the rationalization of our economic life, Palestine, Jewish education, etc. These organizations, each having its own constituency and its own ways of representing them, should arrange to meet frequently in council for discussion of these common interests, and should attempt to arrive, when necessary, at joint agreements and common action. This will be difficult at first. In the course of time, as mutual understanding and goodwill ripen, the task will be less difficult.

We question whether the forthcoming elections will do the American Jewish Congress any good. It will advertise to the world that its constituency is definitely limited to those who will take the trouble to vote. And when it again speaks in the name of the whole of American Israel, there will be a catch in its voice, and disconcerting figures will dance before its eyes….

Isaac Bittoon fought George Maddox at Wimbledon in 1802 in a bout that was called off after seventy-four rounds.

Ignati Abramovich Bernstein, engineer on the Chinese Eastern Railway, was killed by Chinese Boxers.