A tax of $1.00 on every seat holder in the 3,000 orthodox Jewish congregations in the United States to meet the emergency situation in Jewish religious institutions created by the present crisis, was urged by Rabbi Herbert S. Goldstein, in his address opening the 18th annual convention of the Union of Orthodox Jewish Congregations, at the Hotel Edison, attended by 500 delegates.
The synagogues of America are in a woeful state, Rabbi Goldstein said, “Whole communities are drifting into spiritual despair. Talmud Torahs are being pressed to the wall, forced to couple and triple several classes into one.”
The same note of economic stringency was stressed by other speakers, one of them declaring that rabbis and religious teachers were suffering one cut after another in their salaries “and the cut salaries were not always paid.”
Calculating an average of 400 members to each congregation, Dr. Goldstein estimated that the resulting fund of $1,200,000 would salvage the economic stress of the Jewish religious institutions.
The convention listened to two opposing pictures of the proposed World Jewish Congress; at the morning session, Bernard S. Deutsch, President of the American Jewish Congress, telling the delegates that “the Jewish World Congress which took tentative or preliminary form at the Geneva Conference of last August, points to a union of world Jewry such as has never before been achieved,” while at the afternoon session, Dr. Cyrus Adler, President of the American Jewish Committee, referring to the same project, warned Jewry against being misled by “false Messiahs” and labelled the World Jewish Congress idea as “fantastic” and “dangerous.”
“The outlook for world Jewry,” said Mr. Deutsch, “is as dark as it is disconsoling, and it is now made all the more somber by economic conditions facing the whole world. Recent months have brought the most disturbing reports of attacks upon our people. The ideal of Jewish unity, the obligations of our common brotherhood, the crying needs impose upon us the duty of reaching out beyond the limited means of relief work and measures of self-help which we have already tried. Even as a certain measure of unified action and unified achievement has already been gained in the Jewish Agency for Palestine for the furtherance of the great and historic aim of the restoration of the national land of our fathers, so may we now endeavor to extend and enlarge the sphere of our cooperative efforts for the benefit of our people.
“New emergencies require new methods and recent Jewish history has, at any rate, been marked by a number of innovations, which after a struggle for acceptance, brought new vitality and at least renewed hope into the life of our people.”
Dr. Adler, speaking for the opposing view, said: “The idea of an organization of the Jews of the world, whereby there would be a Congress or Parliament established upon the plebiscite of the Jews and Jewesses of the world above the age of eighteen, which would arrogate unto itself the government of the Jews wherever they are situated, would be a comedy, if it were not taken so seriously by some people, in my opinion, simply as a gesture of despair. In spite of the shouting and noise and furore, the Jews of the world, I am sure, have that saving remnant of common sense left to take no part in such a fantastic and dangerous enterprise. Of course, it may meet, it may have its publicity agents, it may assert that it represents the masses, but you may be sure that this will be an assertion without foundation in fact.
“I do not wish you to gather from this that I do not believe that there can be some form of a united Jewish mind throughout the world. I believe that such a united mind can take effect, as it always has. It does not take so many days any more to span the world and there never has been a time when the Jewish communities in the world were so close to each other in opportunity of exchange of thought as they are today. Remember the disasters brought about by our previous false Messiahs. God forbid that this age should suffer another.”
Touching on the economic dilemma now facing the Jewish religious institutions, Dr. Adler connected it in part with the overbuilding of synagogues and centers. “There is a lack of support of the rabbi in the pulpit and the teachers in the school because the inexorable collector of interest on the mortgage is at the door.”
If he could have his way, said Dr. Adler, no building for Jewish religious or educational purposes would ever be dedicated as long as a debt rested on it. Dr. Adler went on to predict that greater mechanization of industry, requiring shorter and less work days was likely to achieve the five day week, for which the Jewish religious organizations had long striven in the interests of better Sabbath observance.
The matter of Sabbath observance was also considerably discussed in the presidential message of Rabbi Gold-
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
