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View of Vicksburg about 1857. The Jewish community, one of the oldest in Mississippi, was established about 1841. This picture is taken From Henry Lewis' Das Zllustrierte Mississippithal. Courtesy of Library of Congress.

MISSISSIPPI INCIDENT . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .STANLEY R. BRAV 59 The author, a former rabbi of Vicksburg, describes his experiences, during the years 1945-1946, with the late Senator Theodore Gilmore Bilbo of Missis- sippi. Rabbi Stanley Brav's relationship to the senator, who was anti-Negro and, on occasion, anti-Catholic, and anti-Jewish, throws light on certain problems faced by Negroes, Catholics, Jews, and Christian liberals when attacked by demagogues like Mr. Bilbo. The brief encounter between the rabbi and the senator documents not only the close interrelation between political reaction, religious bigotry, and the exploitation of an underprivileged racial group, but also the slow rise of liberal sentiment in a conservative state.

T H E RELIGIOUS PHILOSOPHY OF EMIL G. HIRSCH.. . . . . . . . . . . . . .BERNARD MARTIN 66

Emil G. Hirsch (1851-igz3), rabbi of Chicago Sinai Congregation, exerted a profound influence on the philosophical and theological direction of the Re- form movement in America during the last decades of the nineteenth century and the first years of the twentieth. At a time when revolutionary, social. and intellectual forces were undermining the structure of traditional religion, he effected an impressive synthesis between these forces and the teachings of Judaism. In order to assess the religious philosophy of Hirsch, it is necessary to understand and to describe - as is here done - Hirsch's concept of the nature of God, revelation, the effect of Darwinism on the religious conception of man, Hirsch's ethical concept of Judaism, his attitude toward ritual, his relation to the Social Gospel movement, and his concept of the mission of Israel.

AMERICAN JEWRY ONE CENTURY AGO, 1852 COMPILATION FROM T H E AMERICAN JEWISH PRESS . . . . . . . . . . . . . .SELMA STERN - TAEUBLER 83

REVIEW ARTICLE: Ellis R i vk in , A DOCUMENTARY HISTORY OF T H E JEWS IN T H E UNITED STATES, 1654-1875, by MORRIS U. SCHAPPES.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 88

REVIEWS OF BOOKS: Richard C. Hertz , T H E STORY OF RADICAL REFORM JUDAISM, by LEO KAUL.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . loo Lee M. Friedman, NO PEDDLERS ALLOWED,

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . EDITORIAL NOTES: lo3

Patrons for 1952 ARTHUR FRIEDMAV LEO FRIEDMAN BERNARD STARKOFF

Manuscripts for consideration by the publishers should be addressed to: DIRECTOR, AMERICAN JEWISH ARCHIVES, CINCINNATI 20, OHIO

DIRECTOR: JACOB RADER MARCUS, pH. D., Adolfih S. O c h P T O ~ ~ S S O T of Jewish H i s t o ~ y

ARCHIVIST: SELMA STERN-TAEUBLER, PH. D.

A M E R I C A N J E W I S H

Mississippi Incident S T A N L E Y R . B R A V

On August 21, 1947, Theodore Gillnore Bilbo was summoned to his eternal reward. Called by the Satzwday Evening Post1 "America's most notorious merchant o,f hatred," this twice governor and three-tern senator of one of the poorest, least progressive states, i n the Union made his name a byword for bigotry throughout the land.- H i s last years witnessed an encounter with a rabbi, the story of which is held by some to be of historical interest.

The rabbi of Vicksburg, Mississippi, was away on his vacation when he happened upon a newspaper report concerning his senior senator. The New York PA4 of June 29, 1945, carried an extensive account of Senator Bilbo's remarks in Congress the previous day,

lIn suhtitle to "Will Bilbo Fool 'Em Again?" by Milton Lehman, June 29, 1946.

Stanley R. Brav was formerly rabbi of Anshe Chesed Congregation, Vickshurg, Miss. He is now a rabbi of the Rockdale Avenue Temple, Cincinnati, Ohio.

60 AMERICAN JEWISH ARCHIVES, JUNE, 1952

comprising part of a filibuster against the Fair Employment Practices Bill. Bold headlines aiinounced, "Bilbo Act Has Goebbels Squirming in Grave," ancl the following quotations were cited, among others: "If this bill passes it is so far-reaching they will be up there going into every o ike on Capitol Hill and saying you'll have to stick some Jews in your offices." "Some Catholics in this country are lined up with some rabbis trying to bring about racial equality. . . . You can't get away from the fact that some (Catholic priests) are rotten." "The niggers and the Jews of New York are working hand in hand. That's why you find Eugene lMeyer - a Jew - (owner of the Washington Post) denouncing me and saying I'm bankrupt."

Then followed a closing sentence that was to set off an arresting chain oi events. "The few Jews in Mississippi," said the senator, "are ex- emplary citizens. They all vote for Bilbo." This allegation, claiming association on the part of the state's entire Jewry with such an individual, evoked the rabbi's resentment. He immediately wrote the editor of PM:2

Today you quote Bilbo: "The few Jews in Mississippi are ex- emplary citizens. They all vote for Bilbo."

His first statement is correct. As to his second, I know personally nearly every Jew in the State and I have yet to discover a single one who would vote for Bilbo.

A week later, there were indications that the rabbi's note to the editor had been printed. The son of a former rector of Christ Church in Vicksburg wrote:3 "May I congratulate you on your letter to PM anent the slander on intelligent voters in Mississippi made by that blatherskite Bilbo. . . . May you continue to have at least some ad- herents of good government in AIississippi, and perhaps one day remove the tarnish from her fair name."

The same post also brought the following, unsigned:

Attack - Attack Grind all gentiles into the dust. Threaten them with your boycott, even with your votes. That helps us to understand your screaming propaganda for

tolerance. How you would love to have a jew counterpart of Hitler that

could keep me from teaching my sons "Hate a jew all of your life."

In any form of accomplishment you couldent carry the water pail for the Hon. Theo. Bilbo.

ZPostcard, written June 29, 1945, published with slight typographical changes in the New York PM, July 6, 1945. 3Letter to Rabbi Brav, New York, July 7, 1945.

MISSISSIPPI INCIDENT

The greatest wisdom my Father imparted to me before he died was allways hate a jew. Teach your sons to hate them. Jews like you s~tbstantiate him.

Another day brought this word from Connecticut:~'As a Jew and a former resident of a small Mississippi city, I must correct your recent statement in PM. In the small town where I lived, many of the Jewish people voted for Bilbo, including my father."

Just about this time, the rabbi received a photostatic copy of a letter on the stationery of the United States Senate, written by Senator Bilbo to a New York accountant:b

I know many fine Jews in my State. They are high-class men and women with high ideals, square in all their dealings with their fellowman, but they are not negro-lovers like you are, and, by the way, practically all of them vote for Bilbo, notwithstanding the Jewish Rabbi down at Vicksburg denies this fact. Why is he so damnably ignorant of the Jews of Mississippi that he does not know that in many counties of the State, for a quarter of a century, outstanding Jews have been my campaign managers? I guess this poor Rabbi thought that he would please this New York bunch of Jews.

July vacation days were interrupted for the rabbi by a long-distance phone call from the president of his congregation. "Rabbi, have you received Mr. Bilbo's answer to your PIM letter? It is printed in every newspaper in the state. Our local press is holding off as long as possible. When you see it, you'll want to write a crushing reply. Some of us have talked it over. We can't see anything to be gained by carrying the correspondence any farther. You cannot want to try to compete with such an old hand at billingsgate. We ask you not to take any further action without consulting us."

The rabbi appeared to be the last person to see the letter addressed to him.Venator Bilbo had introduced it into the Congressional Record of July 24, 1945.

Your statement . . . notoriously and conspicuously lays you wide open to the charge that you are either one of the biggest, most consummate and deliberate liars in Mississippi or that you know nothing on earth about the Jews and Jewish race in Mississippi.

It has been my pleasure to enjoy the friendship and support of thousands of good Jews in Mississippi for the last 25 or 30 years. Many of the outstanding Jewish citizens have served in campaign after campaign as my county campaign managers. Many

4Letter to Rabbi Brav, New Haven, Conn., July 6, 1945. =Benjamin Fischler, .lo1 Broadway, New York, dated Julp 11, 19.15. 6Dated July 21, 19-15.

AMERICAN JEWISH ARCHIVES, JUNE, 1952

of them have liberally contributed to my campaign funds. I have outstanding Jewish friends in Vicksburg who have always supported me.

Ordinarily, I would not give any publicity to a letter of this type addressed [by me] to [you] a prominent ecclesiastic of your sect or denomination but for the fact that your letter to PM con- tains such a brazen, uncalled for and pusillanimous falsehood, and for the further reason that you wrote it to PM, the dirtiest and most unreliable and low-class "negro" newspaper in New York, owned and controlled by Marshall Fields of Chicago, for the evident purpose of publically branding before the world as false a statement made by me in a speech on the floor of the Senate in opposition to the damnable un-American and unconsti- tutional FEPC.

I feel that I am thoroughly justified in giving widest publicity to this letter in order that the good Jews of Mississippi, who are fine citizens, many of whom were born and reared in Missis- sippi and are in thorough sympathy with the ideals and principles of the South and not negro-lovers - Jews who believe in the white race and white supremacy -Jews who are not Communists as many in New York are - will know what you are, and I express the hope that you will soon make arrangements to move to New York where you can live in an atmosphere better suited to your tY Pe.

In my speech against the FEPC I did not and I have never denounced the Jews as a race. They are white folks just like I am, but I have found occasion to denounce a Jew, as in your case, without reference to Jews as a nationality, just as I have been forced on occasion to denounce two or three Baptist preach- ers of my own denomination, but in doing this I was not denouncing all Baptists. In other words, I want you to understand that what I have said in this letter is directly aimed at your letter and your misrepresentation as published in that negro-baiting newspaper of New York, PM.

The rabbi consulted his attorney, Christian friends in Mississippi, and the Anti-Defamation League, deciding finally to drop the con- troversy for the time being. Meanwhile, a letter from the president of his cong~egation advised that the Board of Trustees had met, "con- demned" the rabbi for his letter to PM, and "insisted" that no reply be made to the senator's answer. The rabbi wrote the president that he demanded a meeting of the Board immediately upon his return from his vacation. At this meeting,7 the Board voted to withdraw the president's letter and gave the rabbi a vote of confidence.

One day in September of the following year, the rabbi received a

7These meetings were held the last week of July, 1945, and the first week of Septem- ber, 1945, respectively.

MISSISSIPPI INCIDENT 63

visit from two representatives of the Civil Rights Congress. They were seeking signatures in Vicksburg for a petition calling upon the United States Senate to investigate the 1946 primary campaign of Mr. Bilbo. It was proposed that public hearings be held in Mississippi to inquire into charges that the candidate had intimidated Negroes in the course of his campaign speeches, and thus prevented them from exercising their rights at the polls.

The rabbi had attended Mr. Bilbo's rally at the Court House in Warren County that spring and had listened for two hours to unbe- lievable demagoguery in action. He now agreed that he would sign the petition if he could secure the signatures of two or three local liberals in addition. A few weeks later, Hodding Carter, Pulitzer- Prize-winning editor of the Greenville (Miss.) Delta Democrat-Times, told him, "Rabbi, it is just as well you didn't sign it. The Civil Rights Congress is a Communist-Front organization, according to no less an authority than N.A.A.C.P. chief, Walter White, himself."

Nonetheless, from December 2nd to the 5th, hearings were held in Jackson, the state capital. The opening day found the rabbi of Vicksburg among those present in the Federal Court Room. He had come, together with his wife, to audit the session. Probably there would be no nced for his testimony. He had very little to report. T o any unbiased jury, the validity of the charges would be more than patent without adding his mite. But this was an occasion of precedent-establishing moment. Perhaps never before in American history had a candidate been subjected by his peers to a hearing in his own state upon charges of design to keep opposition voters from casting their ballots.

The courtroom was filled at an early hour. Segregated in the back of the public benches were several rows of Negroes - representing every stratum of their people in the state and hailing from several different counties. More awaited entry out in the hall. l h e front benches seated what appeared to be a cross-section of Bilbo followers: farmers with red-necks and hardened faces, little men from small towns and unpavcd lanes, with their frustrations ill-concealed. At tables fronting the jury-box sat the Investigating Committee, presidcd over by Senator Allen J. Ellender of Louisiana, and including Senators Thomas of Oklahoma, Maybank of South Carolina, Bridges of New Hampshire, and Hickenlooper of Iowa. Their counsel used the judge's bench as his base of operations, while the senator under investigation, and his attorneys, occupied tables centered before the judicial dais.

There were customary preliminaries, the presentation of the com- plaint, the investigator's report, and other data for the record. First witnesses were leaders of the Jackson Negro community, who forthrightly resisted efforts of the Committee Chairman to minimize their


evidence. Then followed the testimony of a young Negro ex-serviceman who described his experiences when he tried to register for voting. He was refused by the courthouse authorities in Biandon, and when he left the building, was apprehended by six or seven white men who forced him into an automobile, drove with him to a nearby wood and whipped him with a cable taken from the car. We was told by these men that if he attempted to register again he would be killed. 'lhe chairman now sought to discredit the witness's allegations. Levity entcrcd into the proceedings. Tittering was heard through the courtroom when the witness told the details of his grim adventure.

At the noon recess, the rabbi volunteered to testify. Early in the afternoon he was called to the stand. He said8 he was a minister who had resided in the statc for ten years. He recalled the speech he had heard the candidate make that spring at the county courthouse. There had been words to the effect that "We don't believe in Negroes taking part in a white primary. . . . We know how to handle them. . . . Nobody present needs to be told what we will do the night before election." Hc said the impact of such words upon the Negroes he had come to know would keep many from the polls. He cited the cook in his family service, who declared, "I want to live a little longer, I'm not going to bother to vote." He had no direct knowledge of any violence that had occurrcd, but felt that the speech of the candidate was defi- nitely inflammatory.

During this testimony, Senator Bilbo was in whispered conference with his principal counselor. They now presented the Committee Chair- man with written questions thcy desired to be asked of the witness. The first question was: "Of what church are you a minister?" The rabbi inquired as to the purpose of the question, asserting that he could not understand how his particular religious affiliation could be conceived as having a bearing on his statement as a citizen before a Senate investigating committee. He was then asked where he was reared, in order to establish, beyond his being Jewish, that he was born and raised outside of the South. There followed an attempt to cast doubt on the accuracy of the rabbi's quotation from the campaign speech. A purported copy of the senator's words was read, "The best time to talk to the Negro about not voting is the night before the election." The rabbi pointed out that the candidate rarely re- ferred to his manuscript when he spoke. Moreover, the audience was left with the definite inipression that not "talking" but "handling" a possiblc voter prior to election was to be planned, an altogether different matter, and particularly pertinent in the present inquiry.

After a little while the rabbi left the stand. On the last day of the

BHearings Before the Special Committee to Investigate Senatorial Campaign Expen- ditures, U. S. Senate, 79th Congress, 2nd Session, Washington, 1947, pp. 59-63.

hearings, a Catholic priest9 was the only other white man to testify against Bilbo. The fortitude of the Negro witnesses all four of the days set a new high in morale for the state's underprivileged. The Committee's minority report was an uncompromising denunciation of Mississippi's senior senator-elect. He was ultimately refused his seat in the Senate. The angel of death was hovering nearby.

A well-known Vicksburg womanlo wrote the rabbi: "For your testimony . . . thanks! In doing what you knew was right regardless of public opinion, you have taken the course recommended by Jesus." "In line with the high tradition of Amos and Isaiah," claimed a Fisk University professor.11 He continued: "Our respectable white Protes- tant fellow-Mississippians must be mighty glad to have you serve as the surrogate for their collective conscience." The rabbi knew there was neither heroism nor heroics involved. Perhaps what satisfied him most was his congregation. This time there was not a word of protest.

sFather George T. J. Strype, missionaiy, St. Philomena Church, Pass Christian, Miss. loMrs. Eva W. Davis, Route 2, Box 86-A, Vicksburg, Miss., dated Dec. 5, 1946. llCharles R. Lawrence, Jr., dated Dec. lo, 1946.

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The Religious Philosophy of Emil G. Hirsch

B E R N A R D M A R T I N

In the last two decades of the nineteenth century and the first two of the twentieth, Emil G. Hirsch was one of the most important spokesmen of the Reform movement in America. His influence on its philosophical and theological direction, in that period, was consicler- able; and though the radical Reform he preached was sharply chal- lenged by other liberal Jewish teachers in his own time, and has certainly not gained general acceptance in the present day, it deserves study as a significant element in the historical development of Ameri- can Reform.

T h e purpose of this essay is to present the main facts of Hirsch's life, to sketch briefly some of the major elements in his theology and philosophy of Judaism, as reflected in his sermons and public addresses, and to relate these elements to some of t'he historical and contenlpoiary intellectual currents to which he was subject.

Hirsch was born on May 22, 1851, to Samuel Hi~sch, rabbi of the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg, and Louise Micllols Hirsch. Some years before, Samuel Hirsch had published his Die Religionsfihilosofihie der Juden which, though essentially a defense of traditional Judaism, already contained ideas which ultinlately led him to radical Reform. In the years that followed, until his departure from Europe in 1866, he gained increasing recogni~ion as one of the outstanding philosophic exponents of European Reform. In the atmosphere of intense Jewish thought and learning in which his formative years were spent, Emil G. Hirsch absorbed much of the teaching of his father which, together ,

with that of his future father-in-law, David Einhorn, was to become one of the dominant influences in the construction of his own religious philosophy.

When Samuel Hirsch came to Philadelphia in 1866 to assume the pulpit of the Reform Congregation Keneseth Israel, left vacant by Einhorn, Emil G. Hirsch pursued his studies first at the Episcopal Academy in that city and later at the University of Pennsylvania. At the age of twenty he graduated from the University, on whose football team he had played, and was ready to return to Germany to complete his rabbinical studies, there being as yet no adequate Jewish senlinary in America. From 1872 to 1876 he studied at the Universities of

Bernard Martin, rabbi of Sinai Temple, Champaign, Ill., is now a chaplain in the United States Army.

66

THE RELIGIOUS PHlLOSOPHY OF EMIL C. HlRSCH 67

( - r . ' r , , C ) ,,8 I 18, - , c , , s,,z,,, ,

RAE131 Eh l IL C . HIRSC:II, RADICAL REFOKSIER


Berlin and Leipzig and at the Hochschule fiir die Wissenschaft des Judentuins, where he came in contact with such great German Jewish savants as Abraham Geiger, Israel Levy, Herman Steinthal, and Moritz Lazarus.

Returning to America, Hirsch occupied pulpits in Philadelphia, Baltimore, and Louisville. In the latter city he married Mathilda Einhorn. In 1880 he received a call to Sinai Congregation of Chicago. Here he remained, ministering to a constantly growing congregation, until his death on January 7, 1923.

Hirsch soon became known as the outstanding preacher in Ameri- can Jewry. His renown in this field increased and became international. But it was not only in oratorical ability that Hirsch excelled. He was also a brilliant thinker and a thorough scholar. For many years he served as Professor of Rabbinic Literature at the University of Chicago. Many scholarly articles in the Jewish Encyclopedia, which remains to this day one of the great cultural achievements of Ameri- can Jewry, were contributed by him. In addition, he published numerous studies in- Jewish history and philosophy in the Re form Ad- vocate, a weekly jourhal which he edited for thirty years.

T o the social and philanthropic activities of the Jewish and general communities of Chicago, Hirsch also gave generously of his time and talents. Perhaps his finest concrete achievement in this area was the founding of a manual training school to help prepare, for a useful vocational life, some of the tho~isands of Jewish immigrants who were streaming into Chicago, in the 1880's and go's, after their flight from Russian despotism.'

Though the social message of Hirsch's sermons may prove to be his most permanent and valuable contribution, he also addressed himself in his preaching to a serious consideration of the basic theological and philosophical problems of religion; and in his own day his philosophy of Judaism was probably as widely ieported and highly regarded as were his social teachings. T o the student of Jewish thought it holds considerable interest as one attempt, of the many that have been made throughout Jewish history, to harmonize Judaism and the general intellectual tendencies of an age.

Numerous and diverse influences molded Hirsch's thinking on the nature of Judaism. The whole of the vast sacred literature of the Jewish past, a literature with which he was unusually well acquainted and for which he had considerable respect, if not reverence; German critical and idealistic philosophy which he had thoroughly imbibed in his student days; the teachings of his father and father-in-law; the stirring historical events of his own time; the revolutionary philosophic and intellectual developments in the America of his day; the new religious movements in contemporary Christianity, particularly

THE RELIGIOUS PHILOSOPHY OF EMIL G . HIRSCH 69

the Social Gospel movement in the Protestant churches -all these, and many other elements, went into the making of his philosophy of religion in general and of Judaism in particular. Out of them came a synthesis, unstable to be sure, and perhaps unsatisfactory to the present-day Jew who lives in a different intellectual environment and who has the advanlage of historical hindsight, but in his own day highly impressive and widely influential.

One of the most significant achievements of the nineteenth century in the field of religion was the development of the new science of comparative religion. Darwin's cvolutionary hypothesis had deflected attention from the formal analysis and evaluation of the specific dogmas and practices of the various religions to the quest for the basic sources, both in man and in nature, of the phenomenology of all religion. The search for the psychological, historical, and anthro- pological roots of religion, which had been urged long before by Hume in England and by Herder in Germany, received in the second half of the nineteenth century, undcr the impetus of Darwin's evolutionary philosophy, its most pronounced development. Rejecting all notions of divine authority or supernatural revelation in the field of religion, and pursuing whal they considered a truly objective and scientific method, a host of investigators set about a critical study of the sacred literature, practices, and beliefs of every religious culture, from Judaism, Christianity, and Islam to the primitive cults of the Hottentots and Polynesians.

Hirsch was greatly interested in this ncw discipline of comparative religion, and avidly read the works of its chief investigators. His study of their writings, as well as his wide reading in the fields of philosophy and psychology, led him to the conclusion that there is a common source for all religions. This he conceived to be the inborn human yearning for the complete and perfect.

Somebody has styled religion the gnawing bitterness of homesickness in the human soul. This definition is not altogether a poetic simile. Religion is, indeed, like homesickness, a yearning for something which it seems we once possessed. The sense of im- perfection, incompleteness, on the one hand, and the passion to become perfect, to grow into completeness; the consciousness of weakness and the dread to be annihilated unless strengthened; the striving to escape from thc destruction; contrary as its single threads appear, religion weaves together, more or less perfectly, these discordant fibres.2

It appears that religion was, in Hirsch's opinion, rooted primarily not in fear or awe or love or a feeling of helplessness and dependence, though all these find expression in it, but in the basic and inescapable

human need to construct, through poetic concept and dramatic symbol, a unified view of the universe and of the ultimate significance of life. The construction ol these, he believed, is essential for human existence on earth. As a student of history, Hirsch recognized, however, the social and environmental conditioning undergone by the various religions. From this he drew the conclusion that no religion is final and in exclusive possession of the truth. In the thought of Lessing, the celebrated eighteenth-century German exponent of rationalisnl and liberalism, Hirsch found this conclusion confirmed. Speaking of Les- sing's view of religion, as expressed in the parable ol the three rings in Nathan the Wise, Hirsch commented:

This instinct for totality, the counterpart of the feeling, gnawing and rankling, of dissatisfaction, is the germ of all religion. But man answers the craving need of a totality and a prospect into the future according to his historical conditions. Therefore all religions are genuine rings. None of them is a counterfeit, and none of them owns exclusively the truth and the whole truth.3

The critical and scientific temper of the age, whose spirit they had fully absorbed, destroyed for Hirsch and for many other religious liberals, both in the synagogue and in the Protestant churches, their faith in the absolute truth and unshakable validity of their religious traditions. Rejecting the notion of revealed religion as pre-scientific and mythological, Hirsch identified revelation with reason. However, reason was, in Hirsch's opinion, not a means of obtaining ultimate truth, but an instrument for the progressive yet never-ending refinement of ideas.4 On such a view he could only take Jewish religious tradition, subject it to the test of reason, combine the residue left, after the application of this test, with other conceptions suggested by reason, and then fuse these elements to form a reconstructed faith which would be itself merely tentative and subject to constant revision. In adopting this method, Hirsch was in accord with the pragmatic philosophy which prevailed among the liberals of his day.

Yet, though no religion was final for Hirsch, he believed passion- ately that Judaism, at least his purified reconstruction of Judaism, was the most perfect religion then in existence. Like his father, Samuel Hirsch, who, thougll a Hegelian, had concerned himself with dis- proving Hegel's contention-that only Christianity had realized the Absolute and with defending Judaism's claim to be the absolute religion, so Emil 6. Hirsch also defended the superiority of Judaism over Christianity as well as over all other religions. Judaism, he believed, would ultimately make way for the mole perfect religion of humanity which would be universal in scope. BU; Judaism already possessed most of tile requisites of this universal religion.

With the basic theological problem, ~ l l e nature of God, Hirsch

THE RELIGIOUS PHILOSOPHY OF EMIL G. HIRSCH 'il

wrestled throughout his ministry, seeking to find both for himself and for those to whom he spoke an adequate and relevant conception of Deity. In his thinking about God he was subject to many conflicting doctrines and influences. At various periods in his life, and often at one and the same period, diverse conceptions appealed to him. In this matter no genuine development or real consistency can be discovered in his sermons. Radical humanism, personalistic theism, pantheism - these and other doctrines recommended themselves to him at diffeient times and frequently at the same time. Believing that no theological formulation had absolute truth or ultimate validity, Hirsch adopted an eclectic method, choosing and rejecting ideas on diverse grounds - intellectual, moral, and esthetic. Assuredly it was an unsatisfactory method, leading to much confusion and contradiction, but it was shared by many liberal religionists of his day.

In his early thinking on the problem of God, Hirsch was almost completely under the influence of Kantian philosophy, as were many of his predecessors and contemporaries in the Reform movement. Kant, whose works he had studied thoroughly in his student days in Germany, was, in Hirsch's estimation, the most important religious thinker in modern times. "I at least know of none who, after Jesus, Moses, Buddha, Paul, and Mohammed, has so deeply cut the groove in which thought generally, and religious thought particulaily, must henceforth run.5

Kant had demonstrated the invalidity of the classic philosophic proofs for the existence of God which had so delighted the minds of both medieval scholastics and Enlightenment era deists. With Kant's assertion that the existence of God was philosophically unproveable, Hirsch fully agreed.6 He agreed with him also in maintaining that God could only be a postulate, the truth of which is based on man's moral nature.7 Human conscience, man's innate sense of right and duty, Hirsch repeatedly declared, reveals God. This conception of revelation, that God is to be found in the still, small voice of conscience, calling to duty and sacrifice, he insisted, was the great creative insight of the Hebrew prophets.8 Hirsch was fully aware of the variations in the manifestations of conscience in different cultures and of the relativity of moral standards in various times and places,g but this does not seem to have disturbed his Kantian outlook.

In accord with Kantian thought, Hirsch repeatedly emphasized that not theology, but ethics, is primary in religion in general, and in Judaism in particular. The power of man to achieve individual righteousness and social justice is the great doctrine of true religion. Theis- tic belief, he announced, is of importance only as it has ethical import.1° The idea of God, he declared in 1896, is significant only as a factor which makes for the ennoblement of human life.

7 2 AMERICAN JEWISH ARCHIVES, JUNE, 1952

The question fundamental for man to ask is not "What is God?" but "What is He for us as men?" What is God for man is indeed the basic inquiry of Judaism, and to it Judaism gives a clear and definite answer: God for man stands in the consciousness of man's dignity, "little less than God," higher, immeasurably higher, than the brutes, and therefore for the appreciation that man's life is distinct from the brutes and dowered for ends higher than those that have come to the beast.11

As a preacher, Hirsch was primarily concerned with glorifying man and his moral possibilities, not with exalting God. Yet, though many of his extreme statements about God may be interpreted as exaggera- tions, made with a practical, homiletical intent, they are too frequent and regular in Hirsch's preaching throughout the 1890's not to be indicative of his real thinking about God at the time. A statement such as the following appears in a well-prepared and closely-reasoned sermon, and certainly reflects his real view at the moment (1893):

For the belief in God is merely the outcome of the belief in man. God is the apex of the pyramid, not the base. Man is the cornerstone; and from the true conception of man have the Jewish thinkers risen to the noblest conception of the Deity. Those are shallow who talk of their agnosticism and parade their atheism. No one is an agnostic and no one is an atheist, except he have neither pity for the weak nor charity for the erring; except he have no mercy for those who need its soothing balm.12

Again, in 1894, Hirsch identified theism with moral conduct. "The equation of atheism is selfishness. The equation of theism is love to others and self-development for the purpose of service to others."l3

Yet, in the very years during which Hirsch was preaching this brand of humanism and replacing God with man, or at least making the doctrine of God subsidiary to the doctrine of man, he was aware of its weaknesses, from both a religious and philosophical standpoint. And, though he continued his humanist preaching, he insisted also that human life and action, in order to be ultimately significant, must be . -

supported by a greater Creative Power, a Power which transcends man's creativity and is an actual existent.

The doctrine of man as creator, as I can easily show to such as can think philosophically, necessarily leads to an assumption of a greater creative force immanent in nature. . . . Human life, weak as it is, shadowlike as undoubtedly it is, fleet-footed as it is, gains strength in the thought that the All-life lives and supports the individual life, which is not wiped away as the little ripplets are in the broader stream.14

This teaching recurs frequently in Hirsch's preaching. Man, he argued, is not alone in his struggle to achieve the great ideal values

THE RELIGIOUS PHILOSOPHY OF EMIL G. HIRSCH 73

laid down by religion. Outside of, and independent of, man, there is a universal and eternal power working for the realization of these values. In essence, Hirsch repeated Matthew Arnold's celebrated formulation of the nature of ~ e i i ~ , namely, the power not ourselves which makes for righteousness. In 1892 he proclaimed: "The spirit of our God broods over the mighty waters of Time. It is the enduring right and justice; righteousness and truth are the goals for which a power not ourselves is making in the conflicts and the contentions, in the contortions of time."lj

T o the end of his life Hirsch remained primarily a humanist and a moralist. His religion was man-centered and morality-centered. But, at the same time, faith in a real God who is the eternal power making for righteousness seems to have become an integral part of his religion. In preaching, however, his aim was primarily practical; therefore, he emphasized that the power which is God works in large measure through man, who, in the recognition and acceptance of his share in the process, finds life meaningful and joyous. I t is, in essence, the old rabbinic idea of man as the shuttaf la-kadosh baruch hu, the partner of God in the work of creation.

T h e Jewish God's symbol vocalizes the reality of an all-encom- passing and controlling "Justice," the One world-power, the all- pervading world-process, the all-shaping world-purpose. This Power, Process, and Purpose, conceived and carried out in Love, is an end unto itself, but man is a means to it. By making this purpose his own day's intention man gives music and value to his life. . . .I6

God, Hirsch declared, following a traditional Jewish teaching, is the omnipotent and omnipresent Lord who rules both nature and history.17 Through His continuing work, which men can further by their own actions, the world is directed toward ethical ends. "The ages tremble under the weight of moral purpose-steady, unbroken, uninterrup- ted."ls Hirsch's tremendous faith in progress was certainly confirmed by, and perhaps even grounded in, this view of Deity.

In general, Hirsch was not fond of theological subtleties. Yet he ventured at times, even in his preaching, to define the attributes of God. God, he declared, is or so,-at least, must human speech and thought, with their essential limitations, comnceive Him.19 Person- ality must be an attribute of God, not only because man naturally ascribes to God what is his own highest possession, but because God Himself is the great Mind in Nature. This is a far cry from Kantian- ism, which insists that God is to be discovered in the conscience of man rather than in nature. Yet, only a few years after preaching K.antianism, Hirsch was ready to accept Spinoza's pantheism and 10 make for it the same claim that he had previously made, and was to


make again later, for the Kantian conception of God, namely, that it is the essence of Judaism. God, he announced in 1897, is identical with nature, or, at any rate, with the personal-mental element in nature.

Nature and God for the Christian are antithetical, never so with the Jew. . . . Spinoza's doctrine is Jewish to the core. Nature and God, from the Jewish point of view, are not antithetical. They are not antipodal. They are different modes of one, what? Of one energy that spans the all. Nature is God. God is nature. But mind in man is also in nature. Mind in man being personal, mind in its development through the human taking on the personal, we have the right to urge that in nature is personality.20

Though Hirsch did, at times, indulge in abstruse theological speculation, he was never really convinced, it seems, of the validity of such speculation. His dominant theological doctrine, the one which recurs most frequently in his sermons, his belief in God as the eternal power making for righteousness, was not founded on the conviction that he had logically proved His existence. The deep-seated intellectual skep- ticism could not be so easily eradicated. Nor was Hirsch tempera- mentally capable of arriving at belief through commitment in faith. Reason was paramount for him, and, though reason could not logically prove God, it could suggest certain values realizable through a belief in God. In a sermon preached in 1916, Hirsch set up a thoroughly pragmatic test for theological ideas.

. . . this is the final test of the truth or untruth of a constructive or disintegrating philosophy of life. What increases man's sense of power, and therefore, for him, the content of life, is true. What tends to the diminishing of the store of moral resiliency and of the energy needed for resisting as well as for onward push- ing is corrupting, and thercfore marked by falsehood's taint.21

On the basis of such a pragmatic test, the idea of God as the eternal and universal power which makes for righteousness becomes supremely important for human life.

Value is given to our little limited lives. Our days are reckoned as movements in the sweep of the centuries. Their faint note be- longs to the ocean of song to which worlds and ages have contributed. Our doings help and hinder, spread or retard, the pulsations of the universe's heart. We are a part of the eternities and have a part to play in their orchestrated symphonic movement^.^^

For Hirsch the way to God was, as has been observed, essentially through reason. Faith he could not accept. Nor was revelation, in its original, supernatural meaning, a significant concept for him. He completeIy acccpted the most. radical conclusions of Biblical criticism.

THE RELIGIOUS PHILOSOPHY O F EMIL G . HIRSCH 75

Its major premise, namely, that the Bible is not the word of God literally revealed to men, was axiomatic with him. Moreover,'he could not see any real justification for the idea of revelation. "A revelation that transcends man's intellect can indeed bring sound, but no sense. And if man is capable enough to connect with revelation sense, then revelation, again, is unnecessary, for that which we can understand, we can also disc0ver."~3

Revelation, for Hirsch, is synonymous with reason. Its instrument is human genius.24 With the procession of the suns, there is progress in religious thought, for men of genius arise and discover new insights. Whether a new insight may be termed revelation, declared Hirsch, can only be discovered pragmatically. "One whose speech was of and about the truly divine will set adrift a call that the ages cannot hush but will ever anew and anew take up."*5 Hirsch was aware of the difficulty in making revelation man-centered and identifying it with reason, but insisted that there was no way of avoiding the difficulty. The skeptic and agnostic strain in him was dominant. God in Himself, he declared, is ultimately unknowable. He can only be for man a repre- sentation, perhaps corresponding to reality and perhaps not, created by man's own mind. In the final analysis, theology, Hirsch believed, is not science, but poetry. It makes its own truths. "But is not this poetry? Is not hereby admitted that man makes his God? Let it be so! Beyond the limitations of our humanity even our thought cannot push. We lean on such crutches as the poor symbolism of human speech provides to represent what is finally unrepresentable."26

It has already been noted, in the discussion of Hirsch's conception of God, what a high place he accorded to man. In his very generous and optimistic estimate of man Hirsch was thoroughly in accord with one significant trend in contemporary American thought. The effect of Darwinism on the religious conception of man had been, at first, revolutionary and destructive. From his noble position in the center of the universe as the divinely created child of God, man was uncere- moniously degraded, at least in the popular understanding of the theory, to the level of the ape. And the fixed and ordered universe in which man had been the culmination, and which had furnished such pleasure to the children of the Enlightenment, gave way to a universe which could be conceived only as being in a constant state of flux and evolving from an unimaginable beginning to an equally unimaginable end. But though, in its first impact, destructive to many of the long-cherished certainties of the past, Darwinism did not prove permanently so, nor did it affect adversely all old ideas. In the fields of philosophy and religion a group of thinkers of the Spencerian school- notably, in America, John Fiske27 and his dis-


ciples - adapted Darwinian concepts to corroborate the received veri- ties. These men insisted that the evolutionary hypothesis only confirmed the faith of the Enlightenment in Man, Reason, and Progress. Man, they held, was still to be regarded as the consummation of creation, but instead of coming at the beginning of the process, he was now conceived as the end toward which the creative power of the universe had been tending throughout all time. Man's reason was still to be regarded as the divine spark, giving him uniqueness among mundane creatures and insuring his unbroken material and moral progress. Progress itself was exalted by these thinkers into an absolute, a metaphysical entity inherent in the very structure of the universe. Evolution, they declared, was the central fact in nature, and evolution was synonymous with progress.

Following their interpretation of evolutionary philosophy, Hirsch likewise insisted that Darwinism had not degraded man from his supreme position in creation. He was still the highest creature in nature and ever progressing further on the road of perfectibilit~.~8 The growing tendency in imaginative literature, especially among the French, German, and Scandinavian realists, to lower man to the level of the beast, found no favor in his eyes29 'Contemporary science was of religious value, according to him, in that its achievements can give man a deepened sense of his own dignity and glory.30 The idea that man is godlike and perfectible is, Hirsch declared in his inaugural sermon at Sinai in 1880 and reiterated numerous times in later years, one of the chief cornerstones of Judaism.31 The doctrine of fatalism and determinism popularized in his time by philosophers like Haeckel and biologists like Loeb did not recommend itself to Hirsch, who insisted that man is a creative being with relative, though not absolute, free will and power of self-determinati0n.3~

Believing, as he did, that man is a self-ennobling creature, capable of rising from his primordial animal state to the heights of moral excellence, Hirsch reinterpreted the idea of sin in non-theological terms and in opposition to the Christian doctrine of inherited depravity.

Sin is not offense against God, but against our humanity. It is not a state which came to us and which we cannot throw off; it is an act of our own. Sin is anti-social conduct, due to the want of resistance on our part to the influences of the animal world behind us, selfishness, or to the legacy of a phase of civilization over which and beyond which we should have passed on.33

Judaism, Hirsch never wearied of repeating, is the supreme religion. It had, he maintained, avoided the errors which made other religions inferior. I t had escaped the tendency, so marked in other religions, toward mysticism and emotionalism, which serve, he declared, only

THE RELIGIOUS PHILOSOPHY OF EMIL G . HlKSCH 77

as opiates or intoxicants but do not further redemptive work or struggle in the great conflicts of life. For mysticism and emotionalism Hirsch had no use, and his denunciation of them was frequent and vitriolic.34

Judaism, Hirsch argued, had also avoided the dogmatism and the creed-forming mania which made other religions intellectually impossible in modern times. Furthermore, it never really succumbed to bibliolatry." Liberal Judaism, especially of the radical variety, is particularly free from all these defects. It is not creedal; it is not emotionalistic; it does not worship the Bible; it is not otherworldly. I t is rather concerned, as were prophetic Judaism and talmudic Juda- ism, with regulating human life and conduct according to moral ideals. Its chief theological cornerstone is the idea of man made in the image of God, and its chief sacrament is the concept of In Hirsch's view, Judaism dissents from the primitive pagan outlook which sees man as the plaything of inscrutable and immoral powers who may be appeased by the magical rites of religion. It disagrees also with religions such as those of India which recommend negation of the self and conceive the highest good as non-being. Christianity, which also negates and despises this life, but holds forth the promise of true life in the world to comc, is likewise antithetical to Judaism. For Judaism, Hiisch maintained, is essentially a religion which affirms life and the world, holding both to be the creation of a God of righteousness. It calls upon man to find meaning in his existence through the realization of his capacities for righteousness and justice and mercy and

Hirsch insisted that Judaism upholds an aggressive ethical ideal, completely opposed to the Christian ideal of non-resistance to e~ i1 .~8 justice, he urged, must be fought for, and Judaism proclaims an ideal of justice for which it is worthwhile to fight.

Hirsch summarized his own conception of the essential nature of Judaism in these terms:

In the common sense of the word, Judaism is not a religion, it is not a system of dogmas, of sacramental gracc; it is not a bundle of rites and ceremonies; it is not a road to happiness in the hereafter; it is not a scheme of salvation from original sin; it does neither stand nor fall with our views as to the character of those books we call sacred, and as to their authorship. But it is a message to the world that righteousness must be its own reward, and is of that force which builds the world and shapes the courses of men.39

In his attitude toward rite and ceremony Hirsch followed the tradition of radical Reform. While markedly antagonistic to that pseudo-liberalism which expressed itself chiefly in ridiculing and satir- izing ancient customs, he himself cherished no romantic longings for


the traditional rites of Judaism.40 He considered rrlost of them as outmoded products of a bygone age. Furthermore, elaborate liturgy and ritual were intrinsically repugnant to his temperament. His faith, in which ethical ideals were primary, could find little use for ritualism, which he believed to be the by-product of mysticism and emotionalism. His antipathy to the latter has already been noted above.

Yet, being a rabbi and the leader of an organized congregation, Hirsch had to find a justification and rationale at least for the public worship of the synagogue. One of the major reasons for public prayer, he held, is that it expresses the sense of Jewish identity and community.41 But essentially the purpose of prayer and ritual is an ethical one: "We pray and hare ritual to remind us of our dignity and ~ 0 1 t h as men, of the fact that one man must live with others and through others."'Vrayer, he declared, is not a dialogue between man and God; it is an address of the lower to the higher within man. "Truc worship is not a petition to God; it is a sermon to our own selves. The words which are its raiments are addressed to us. 'l'hey speak of God and the divine in man, and thus make man find in himself the God that so often is forgotten when the battle rages and the batteries roar."43

Hirsch proclaimed that the essential function of the synagogue is to serve as a place of moral instruction. This is also the basic purpose of the sermon, which is itself the most important element in the synagogue service. Prayer is of secondary value in that it prepares the mind and the soul to receive the religious and ethical message of the pulpit.44

Hirsch's conception of the function of organized religion and of the synagogue was very probably influenced by the Social Gospel movement which arose in the Protestant churches of America in the second half of the nineteenth century as a response not only to the humanists and the followers of Ethical Culture, but also to the urgent problems created by the new urban and industrial order. Many serious-minded men within the churches -men like Wendell Phillips, Josiah Strong, and Walter Rauschenbusch-urged that the true mission ot Chris- tianity is the humani~ation of society. Dissatisfied with the old view which had made the church primarily an instrument to insure the otherworldly salvation of the individual, these men insisted that the church must address itself to the correction of social abuses and the amelioration of social ills. The pronouncements of the Social Gospel leaders undoubtedly influenced Hirsch and many other Reform rabbis to proclaim a similar mission for the synagogue.

A central doctrine in Emil G. Hirsch's philosophy of Judaism was the concept of the mission of Israel. As in the theology of David Einhorn and of Samuel Hirsch, so in his the mission idea served as

THE RELIGIOCS PHILOSOPHY OF EMIL G. HIRSCH 79

the basic justification for the preservation of Judaism and of the identity of the Jewish people.

Hirsch insisted that the idea of assigning a special mission to the Jewish people -and that the Jews constituted a people he did not question - is an entirely naturalistic one. For every civilization and every nation that have existed in human history have had a unique destiny and a unique mission. All have somehow contributed to the spiritual or material possessions of present-day society.45

Hirsch clearly stated what he conceived the historical mission of the Jew to be: "The Jew was by history called to be the proclaimer of an ethical view of the universe and of man, of ethical mon0theism."~6 Hirsch argued that throughout its history Judaism has been called upon to challenge unworthy conceptions of the universe and of life. Thus, in the time of the Maccabees, the duty of the Jew was to hold fast to his ethical religion. If Hellenism, which, though the mother of art and of speculative thought, had no great ethical message, had succeeded in destroying Judaism, there would have been no Christianity. But even with the triumph of Christianity, it was still necessary for Ju- daism to survive. Its purpose now is to challenge the errors of the church: its dogmatism, its narrowness, its theology of ~ i n . ~ 7 T o protest against the doctrines of the corruption of man, of the impossibility of human goodness and justice, and of the othenvorldliness of God's kingdom - all orthodox Christian tenets - is still, Hirsch argued, the mission of the Jew.48

Essentially Israel's present-day mission, Hirsch preached, is to continue its suffering existence as a protest against the idols of the contemporary wol ld. By continuing to suffer for the wrongs of the nations Israel serves to prick their conscience. For this it must bear their enmity, but the suffering which this enmity entails is of supreme importance and value.

The Jew protests by his very existence against the doctrine that might makes right, that numbers decide truth, and that possession condones every offense. The Jew, by his very presence, preaches that every man can be virtuous, regardless of a miraculous re- demption, whether he accepts the vicarious atonement or not. . . . The Jew, by his very presence, protests against narrow na- tionalism. . . . The Jew also disproves the now much ventilated theory of favored races. He is the living protest against the theory which says that blood will tell. . . . It is not true that on account of our sins has the world today risen against the Jew, but true it is that the world is not what it should be, and therefore the Jew is an irritant that brings forever and ever to the conscience of the people their shortcomings. This is the source of the hatred against the J ~ w . ~ S


Much of Hirsch's marked antagonism toward Zionism was due to his conception of the mission of Israel. Political Zionism, he held, assumed too narrow and materialistic a mission for the Jew. Its avowed purpose was merely to help the Jew escape from misery and poverty and to find material comfort. But the Jew, Hirsch maintained, must have a greater purpose and mission than this. He has a messianic duty and obligation to work for the creation of the spiritual Zion - the great ideal of universal humanity and righteousness - though he suffer direst persecution and oppression in the attempt.50

Though he sympathized with the suffering of East European Jewry and appreciated the fact that the Zionist movement was directed primarily toward the alleviation of that suffering, he could not bring himself to accept Zionism as a Jewish movement valid from an ideo- logical standpoint, apart from its humanitarian and philanthropic aspects. In his mature thought on the subject, presented in a sermon preached in 1917, Hirsch repeated that his antagonism to Zionism was due basically to its conflict with his conception of the greater mission of Israel.

For me Israel's destiny foreshadowed in its very martyrdom and heroism is to be of greater service and meaning to mankind than what it can be if our rerise as a small political nation in a corner of anterior Asia is the ultimate of our checkered, tearwet, and bloodred career. I cannot bring myself to believe that with Jerusa- lem only another Bukharest, let us say with stage open for He- brew plays whether moral or not, with articles of toilette placed on sale in show windows of shops bearing names spelled in He- brew, and other triumphs of Hebrew sartorial art, yea with universities where chemistry talks Hebrew and economics adds a few technical terms to the Hebrew dictionary, we have justification for singing L o A m u t h Ki E'hyeh, I shall not die, I am alive. I cannot forget to add Weassaper Ma'ase Yah. The purpose of my survival is to witness to the doings of G0d.5~

Hirsch's conception of the mission of Israel led him to an extremely radical conclusion, namely, that the ultimate purpose of Judaism is to transcend itself. Judaism must strive to bring about that era of universal harmony when creeds and forms will no longer divide mankind, but all men will be united under one religion whose cornerstones shall be justice, truth, and peace. Such is Israel's messianic mission and destiny.

This idea had been an essential element in Einhorn's philosophy of Judaism. In the Neilah service of his prayerbook Olat Tumid , Ein- horn had reinterpreted the prayer "Open unto us the gates" as, in Hirsch's words, "a prayer for the coming of the time when Judaism shall no longer exist. I t states that Judaism is but the gate thr.ough

THE RELIGIOUS PHILOSOPHY OF EMIL G. HIRSCH 8 1

which humanity may pass to a broader field, and a higher, nobler life. Judaism itself is not the end; it is but the means."52

Hirsch considered this one of Einhorn's greatest insights and one with which he could fully agree.53 He contended that the time had not yet come for Judaism to sink its own identity in the greater life of humanity, but that it would surely come, and not in some far-off, impossible age.54 Hirsch seems never to have lost his optimistic faith in the coming of the era of united humanity. Israel, he believed, still had much work to do before the universal religion of humanity would arrive, but when it does come, Israel will be no more. Its mission having been fulfilled, it will gladly give up its separate life. But it must be careful not. to give up its life too soon. Until the very threshold of the hour when the universal religion is born, Israel must stand apart and continue to labor for the fulfillment sf its historic destiny.5"

N O T E S

RA=The Reform Advocate

'For biographical sketches see Hirsch's My Religion, pp. 11-23; T h e Central Conference of American Rabbis Year- book, Vol. 33, 1923, pp. 145-54; T h e American Jewish Yearbook, Vol. 27,

1925-26, pp. 230-37; and R A for Jan- uary 13, 1923, and May 26, 1923.

2"Pentecostal Gifts," RA, Vol. 1, 1891, p. 229; cf. "The Three Rings," R A , Vol. 2, 1891, p. 85, and "The New Re- ligious Attitude," RA, Vol. 18, 1899, p. 162.

3"The Three Rings," RA, Vol. 2, 1891, P. 85.

'"The New Religious Attitude," RA, Vol. 18, 1899, pp. 161-62.

5"The Centennial of a Book on Relig. ion," RA, Vol. 7, 1894, p. 468.

6"Pentecostal Gifts," RA, Vol. 1, 1891. p. 729; "The Centennial of a Book on Religion," RA, Vol. 7, 1894, pp. 467-70.

'"Pentecostal Gifts," RA, Vol. 1, 1891, pp. 228-30.

s''God in Nature," RA, Vol. 13, 1897, ~ ~.

P. 359. Q"Individual and Society," RA," Vol. 1,

1891, pp. 247-50; "A' Growing Cun- science," RA, Vol. 13, 1897, pp. 241-44.

1°"The Ethical Import of Theism," RA, Vol. 10, 1895, pp. 766-69.

ll"The Sociological Center of Religion," RA, Vol. 11, 1896, p. 162.

12"01d Age," RA, Vol. 5, 1893, p. 244. l3"The Radical's Religion," RA, Vol. 8,

1894, p. 106. 14"Man's Position in Nature," RA, Vol. 6,

1893, p. 220.

15"The Two Books," R A , Vol. 4, 1892, P. 85.

lB"Or," RA, Vo1. 25, 1903, p. 502. 17"The Omnipotent," RA, Vol. 17, 1899,

PP. 632-37. 18"The Omnipresent," RA, Vol. 17, 1899,

P. 695. lQ"The Personal God," RA, Vol. 18, 1899,

p. 12.

20"Where Does God Dwell?" RA, Vol. 13, 1897. p. 73; cf. "The Doctrine of Evo- lution and Judaism," in My Religion, p. 252.

21"In Thy Hands Are My Tides," RA, V0l. 52, 1916, p. 231.

Z2Ibid. 23"Sinai Congregation's Radicalism," RA,

Vol. 1, 1891, pp. 195-98. 24"God's Revelation," RA, Vol. 14, 1897,

p. 518. 251bid., p. 519.

8 2 AMERICAN JEWISH ARCHIVES, JUNE, 1952

261bid. 27For an excellent discussion of Fiske's

place in American thought, see Com- mager, The American Mind, pp. 82-90; see also Parrington, Main Currents in American Thought, Vol. 3, pp. 203-11.

28"The Last Half Century's Thought and Judaism," RA, Vol. 53, 1917, p p 357-62.

29"Modern Prophets," RA, Vol. 13, 1897, PP. 293-96.

30Ibid. 31"The Crossing of the Jordan," in My

Religion, pp. 343-58; cf. "What is Truth?" in My Religion, pp. 78-95, and "The Conclusion of the Matter: A New Religion or the Old?" in My Re- ligion, pp. 208-22.

32"Man.s Position in Nature," RA, Vol. 6, 1893, pp. 217-21.

33"The Psychology of Sin," RA, Vol. 7, 1894, P. '35.

34"The Radical's Religion," RA, Vol. 8, 1894. p p 104-08; "The Sanctuary," RA, Vol. 15, 1898, pp. 95-98; "Is Judaism a Religion of Dry Bones?" RA, Vol. 17, 1899, pp. 296-301.

35"Sinai's Anniversary," RA, Vol. 9, 1895, pp. 408-12.

36"Views of Life," RA, Vol. 2, 1892, pp. 369-72; "Wanted: A New Religion," RA, Vol. 8, 1894, pp. 233-37; "The Value of Life," RA, Vol. 9, 1895, pp. 231-34; "God IS Our Rock," RA, Vol. 17, 1899, pp. 72-76; "The Mystery and the Mastery of Life," RA, Vol. 22,

1901, pp. 82-85. 37"Interpretations of the Universe," RA,

Vol. 8, 1895, pp. 382-84. 38"The Fight for Justice," RA, Vol. 4,

1893, pp. 499-502; "Moses and Jesus: On Reform Judaism and Unitarian- ism," RA, Vol. 9, 1895. pp. 345-48; "Justice and Judgment," RA, Vol. 15,

1898, pp. 192-95. 39"The True Victor and His Arms," RA,

Vol. 3, 1892, p. 129. 40"Sinai Congregation's Radicalism," RA,

Vol. 1, 1891, pp. 195-98. 41"The Function of Prayer and Ritual

in My Religion,'' in My Religion, p. 125.

421bid., p. 129. 43"The Function of Worship," RA, Vol.

3, 1892, p. log. 441bid. 45"Conflicting Tendencies," RA, Vol. 2,

pp. 5!-54; "Why Am I a Jew?"-Part 11, RA, Vol. lo, 1895, pp. 722-26; "The Soul of the Nation," RA, Vol. 13, 1897, pp. 341-44; "The God of Israel," in My Relzgzon, pp. 296-310.

46"Humanity or Judaism?" RA, Vol. 2, 1891, p. 68.

47"Was It and Is I t Worthwhile to Save Judaism?" RA, Vol. 4, 1892, pp. 379-82.

4a"The Philosophy of the Reform Move- ment in American Judaism," RA, Vol. 9, 1895, p. 362.

48"Israel's Natural Mission," RA, Vol. 1, 1891, p. 425.

50"Spiritual or Political Zionism?" RA, Vol. 16, 1899, pp. 384-86.

51"The Last Half Century's Thought and Judaism," RA, Vol. 53, 1917, p. 362.

5 2 " O ~ r Great Reformers," RA, Vol. 2,

1891, p. 190. 53"Universal Religion and Judaism," RA,

Vol. 6, 1893, pp. 137-40; "The Philos- ophy of the Reform Movement in American Judaism," RA, Vol. 9, 1895. P P 359-65.

54"Judaism a Living Religion," RA, Vol. 15, 1898, p. 241.

55"The Philosophy of the Reform Move- ment in American Judaism," RA, Vol. 9, '895, p. 364.

American Jewry

One Century Ago, 1852 Comfiilation Ji-om The American Jewish Press

S E L M A S T E R N - T A E U B L E R

JANUARY

1 . . . Dedication of Covenant Hall, 56 Orchard Street, New York, by the Inde- pendent Order of B'nai B'rith. T h e ceremony was performed by the officers of the Constitution Grand Lodge, as- sisted by those of District Grand Lodge No. 1. The Reverend Dr. Max ~ i l i en tha l delivered the address, mentioning the action of Jeshurun Lodge of Baltimore, Md., on behalf of Louis Kossuth.

16 . . . In the Senate of the State of New York, prayer was offered by Rabbi Isaac M. Wise, the minister of Congre- gation Anshe Emeth, Albany, as the first Jewish chaplain of a legislative body. "Rabbi Wise is a German by birth, and is one of the most talented of the He- brew Clergy in this country. His writings have great force and are marked with distinguished ability" (Neru York Express).

18 . . . Death of Mrs. Jehovath Marks, widow of Michael Marks and eldest daughter of Moses Isaac of New York, at the residence of her daughter, Mrs. Anna Allen, in Philadelphia, Pa.

18 . . . Decision by members of Con- gregation Gates of Prayer, Lafayette, La., to seek a new and better location for a synagogue.

26 . . . Judah P. Benjamin of New Or- leans, La., "the most distinguished states- man, orator, and lawyer that American Jewry has produced" (Max J. Kohler), a member of the Louisiana state legisla- ture, was elected a member of the United States Senate, for a term beginning March 3, 1853.

28 . . . T h e New Orleans Weekly Delta, announcing Benjamin's election to the United States Senate, paid tribute to his "remarkable versatility and untiring energy."

FEBRUARY

I . . . Organization of the Hebrew Ben- eficial Society in Richmond, Va.

In Mobile, Ala., Congregation Shaarai Shomayim purchased the hall of the Musical Association in order to rebuild it as a synagogue.

4 . . . First annual ball in aid of the fund of the Jews' Hospital in the city of New York.

17 . . . Testimonial of respect to the Reverend Mr. Isaac Leeser, at Congrega- tion Shearith Israel, Charleston, S. C.

18 . . . Death of Abraham Eliezer Israel, sexton of Congregation Mikve Israel, Philadelphia, Pa.

24 . . . Steps were taken by Temple MARCH Emanu-EI Congregation of New York to dedicate Salem Field Cemetery as a 3 . . . The Reverend Mr. Abraham de burial ground. Sola, of Montreal, lectured before the


Montreal Natural History Society "On the Cosmogony of the World."

7 . . . T h e annual examination of the children attending the Montreal Sunday School was held in the schoolroom in the presence of the parents and other visitors.

14 . . . T h e examination of the pupils of the Philadelphia Hebrew Sunday School took place at the synagogue in Cherry Street. T h e Reverend Mr. Morais opened the meeting by reading the 15th psalm.

26 . . . Consecration of the new synagogue of Congregation Ohabei Shalom, Boston, Mass. T h e ceremony was attended by Benjamin Seaver, Mayor of Boston, members of the city government, and Boston's leading clergymen. Dr. M. J. Raphall p r e a c h e d t h e consecration sermon.

APRIL

13 . . . Birth of Henry Pereira Mendes in England. He was the son of Abraham Pereira Mendes of Kingston, Jamaica. Later, Henry emigrated to America and served as minister of Congregation Shea- rith Israel, New York, from 1877 to 1920.

15 . . . Founding of Congregation Beth Or, Montgomery, Ala.

18 . . . Examination of the pupils of the Hebrew School of Congregation B'nai Israel, New York.

30 . . . Death of Israel Bear Kursheedt, German-born son-in-law of "Rabbi" Ger- shom Mendes Seixas. Kursheedt was a trustee of Congregation B'nai Jeshurun and president of Shearith Israel, New York.

SPRING, 1852 . . . Judah Touro purchased a valuable property (the Paulding estate, for $8,000) in New Orleans for the purpose of establishing a hospital.

T h e Jews of New Haven, Conn., are

about to build a synagogue. They elected Leopold Sternheimer as hazzan and teacher.

P ~ s s o v a ~ , 1852 . . . Samuel Adler was elected president of the German Congre- gation Rodeph Shalom, Philadelphia, Pa.

MAY

. . . Dr. Simeon Abrahams, in conjunc- tion with Dr. M. Michaelis, Dr. M. Dan- ziger, and Dr. S. Hirsch, aided by A. S. van Praag, surgeon-dentist, and M. L. M. Peixotto, as chemist and apothecary, an- nounce that they will open a dispensary for the gratuitous medical and surgical treatment of sick and destitute Israelites at 31 Bleecker Street, New York.

8 . . . "We have learnt," wrote the editor of the Occident, "that a decl-ee has passed, ordering all Jews to quit the Canton Basle, both the city and the country part, by the 8th of May."

16 . . . T h e first annual examination of the Hebrew Education Society, Philadel- phia, Pa., was held a t the schoolhouse. Prayer was offered by Mrs. Allen; the address was delivered by Isaac Leeser.

SHEBUOTH, 1852 . . . Public confirmation of children of members of Congregation Anshe Chesed, New York.

SHEBUOTH, 1852 . . . Confirmation of children of members of Congregation Ro- deph Shalom, Philadelphia, Pa.

23 . . . At the annual meeting of the Educational Society. Philadelphia, Pa., a proposition was submitted to the Ger- man Congregation Rodeph Shalom to place their Hebrew School in charge of the Society.

28 . . . Protest of Robert Lyon, editor of the Asmonean, against the discrimination practiced against Jews in Switzer- land. He suggested "that the problem be solved by bringing Jews of Europe to the United States."

AMERICAN JEWRY, 1852 85

28 . . . In an article, "A Call to the American Israelites," which appeared also in the Asmonean, Isaac M. Wise called on the Jews to take united action in preparing a suitable petition to be presented to "Congress requesting our government to protest against the illegal, inhuman, and degrading laws which have been thrust upon our brethren."

JUNE

. . . From an article in the Jewish Ga- zette, reprinted in the Occident: "The decree of banishment against the Jews (of Basle) has been executed with all rigour. Out of the city, five wholesale dealers, resident there, have been re- moved, and from the country district, fiEty more families. T h e most remarkable circumstance is that the authorities of the cantons who have banished them have furnished them with the most laud- atory testimonials, and were compelled to designate them as moral and blame- less men, of unblemished character. The Supreme Tribunal of Basle expresses, in its report to the Court of Appeals, its regret that it was compelled to proceed with such rigour against houses so every way honorable. . . . The banishment had no oth.er motive than com- mercial rivalry."

8 . . . From a letter of Henry Mack, a prominent citizen of Cincinnati, Ohio, to the editor of the Occident: "We have in this city four congregations, namely, the congregation Bnai Israel, the oldest, numbering from 160 to 170 members; the congregation B'nai Jeshurun, with 180 members; the congregation of Bro- therly Love, numbering 80 members; a Polish congregation which was started lately. We have one Gentlemen's Benev- olent and one Beneficial Society, both of which extend great aid to the resident poor and indigent strangers. We have three Ladies' Benevolent Associations and one Sewing Society which are constantly engaged in the sacred mission of charity."

Shearith Israel, Charleston, S. C., re- solved at a meeting to invite the Rever- end Isaac Leeser of Philadelphia to become a candidate for the office of hazzan and lecturer.

JULY

23 . . . The Reverend Mr. M. N. Na- than wrote from Galveston, Texas, to his congregation, K. K. Nefutzot Yehuda in New Orleans, La., that he intended to withdraw from public life.

SUMMER, 1852 . . . "Disturbing rumors began to appear to the effect that the Swiss treaty would still allow discrimination against Jews." (A clause in the first article of this treaty of commerce, about which the government of the United States and the Srviss Confederation had been negotiating since 1850, contained these words: "On account of the tenor of the Federal Constitution of Switzer- land, Christians alone are entitled to the enjoyment of the privileges, guaran- teed by the present Article, in the Swiss Cantons." This clause aroused the indig- nation of the American Jews, as it would have prevented them from trading or settling in certain cantons of Switzerland. In 1851, the well-known Jacob Ezekiel, of Richmond, Va., requested a member of the U. S. House of Representatives and the Secretary of War to influence the Senate against the ratification of the treaty.)

SUMMER, 1852 . . . Jacob Ezekiel pro- tested, in a letter he wrote to a member of the House of R e p r e s e n t a t i v e s , "against the acceptance by our Govern- ment of a block of granite sent by the Swiss authorities to be placed in the National Washington monument."

27 .. . . Representative Emanuel B. Hart. of New York City, asked, in a letter he addressed to the State Department, about the status of the treaty with Switzerland.

SUM~IER, 1852 . . . From a report on St. Louis Jewry to the editor of the Occi- 13 . . . The members of Congregation


dent: "It is with much regret that we are infoimed that the contemplated union of the Israelites into one body has not been consummated. I t seems that the elements were too discordant to pro- duce an harmonious fusion, so it is best, perhaps, that each of the former bodies should endeavour to proceed in the best manner by itself. T h e Bohemian Kahal, in consequence, under their new president, Mr. Isidore Bush, purchased a lot on Jackson Street: in the southern part of the city, for the purpose of building a synagogue on it."

SUMMER, 1852 . . . Resignation of Samuel Adler, president of Congregation Rodeph Shalom, Philadelphia, Pa.

AUGUST

i . . . T h e new congregation of Wil- liamsburg, N. Y., consecrated its new synagogue. T h e Reverend S. M. Isaacs delivered the sermon; Dr. Raphall and Dr. Lilienthal, the addresses.

8 . . . T h e members of Congregation Shaaray Shamayim, Pittsburgh, Pa., bound themselves, of their own free accord, to attend service regularly every Sabbath and holiday.

ig . . . Seligman J. Strauss, who became a very well-known judge and one of the founders of the B'nai B'rith Orphanage at Erie, Pa., was born in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania.

23 . . . T h e Jews of Washington, D. C., organized a congregation and bought a piece of land for a synagogue (Washing- ton Hebrew Congregation).

28 . . . T h e Reverend Jacob Rosenfeld, minister of B'nai Jeshurun Congregation, Cincinnati, Ohio, was re-elected for the term of three years as hazzan, lecturer, and superintendent of the Talmud Yel- odim School.

29 . . . Consecration of a burial ground in Galveston, Texas. Prayers and ad-

dresses were delivered by M. N. Nathan, minister of the Portuguese congregation of New Orleans. "The services were the first ever perfoimed publicly by a He- brew minister in Texas."

SEPTEMBER

3 . . . Dedication of a synagogue in Sac- ramento. Cal.

8, g, l o . . . At a convention in Syracuse, N. Y., Ernestine Rose, the advocate of "Woman's Rights, Anti-Slavery, and Re- ligious Liberty," who was presented to the conference as "a Polish lady educated in the Jewish faith," served as head of the Nominating Committee, as a member of the Business (Resolutions) Com- mittee, and as vice-president. I n one of her speeches a t the convention she called herself "a daughter of . . . the down- trodden and persecuted people called the Jews."

lo . . . In the Asmonean appeared the following announcement by Isaac M. Wise: "According to a n agreement made between the editor of the Asmonean and my humble self, I have taken charge of the theological and philosophical dc- partment of this paper, and 1 deem it my duty to inform the public of the leading principles which will guide me in my task."

22 . . . Death of Mrs. Fanny Etting, eldest child of the late Michael Gratz, widow of the late Reuben Etting, in her 81st year, in Philadelphia, Pa.

FALL, 1852 . . . Report from California: "A vessel sailed for California not long ago from Havre; all the passengers of which were Israelites, who carried out with them a Hazan, Shochet, Mohel, two Sepharirn and, in short, all that is needed to conduct duly a Jewish worship."

OCTOBER

13 . . . Marriage of David H. Solis to

Elvira Nathan, daughter of the late Seixas Nathan, in New York.

26 . . . Founding of Congregation Ohev Sholom, Harrisburg, Pa.

NOVEMBER

3 . . . Mrs. R. Hays, Miss Gratz, Mrs. Allen, Mrs. R. Moss, Mrs. S. Hart, and Mrs. Abraham Hart were elected officers of the Female Hebrew Benevolent So- ciety in Philadelphia, Pa.

3 . . . Samson Simpson of New York presented lots for a hospital and for an asylum for the helpless. H e intends the establishment of a theological faculty and of an orphan asylum.

26 . . . The Charleston Standard has the following to say about the painter S. N. Carvalho and his picture of the "Inter- cession of Moses for Israel": "In justice to our artist, we have devoted some time to the examination of this picture, re- cently exhibited at the South Carolina Institute. 'Tis seldom we are called upon to inspect an original historical or scrip- tural picture, executed by a native artist, and when one of the above character emanates from the studio of a Charles- tonian, possessing, as it does, evident marks of genius in the conception and composition, correct and easy drawing, and a decided practical illustration of the effect of colour and light and shadow, as well as the important consideration of telling its own story in the most com- prehensive manner, we cannot withhold our meed of praise. . . ."

DECEMBER

5 . . . The Reverend B. H. Gotthelf was unanimously re-elected hazzan of Adas- Israel Congregation, Louisville, Ky.

7 . . . Mr. Barnett Phillips of Philadel- phia delivered a lecture before the Maryland Institute at Baltimore on "Toxicology, or the Science of Poisons."

22 . . . Adolph Moses, who was to receive the Democratic nomination for judge of the Superior Court in 1879, in Chicago, Ill., and who was to become president of the State Bar Association in 1897, arrived in New Orleans from Ger- many.

23 . . . Death of Mrs. Phila Pesoa, widow of Isaac Pesoa and daughter of Jonas Phillips and Rebecca Machado, in Philadelphia, Pa. She was "one of the oldest native Israelites."

OTHER EVENTS OF THE YEAR

Birth of Rose Frank in Philadelphia, Pa. She became the founder of the Nurses Training School, an institution closely connected with the Jewish Hospital of Philadelphia.

Birth of William Salomon, great-grand- son of Haym Salomon, in Mobile, Ala. He became one of the leading bankers of America, chairman of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad Company, and one of the directors of the Educational Alli- ance of New York.

Death of Aaron Levy (1771-i852), son of Hayman Levy and son-in-law of Isaac Moses. Levy was a well-known merchant and editor of catalogues of art collec- tions, and one of the officers of Shearith Israel, New York.

Lazarus Straus, father of Oscar Straus, came to America from Germany at the age of forty-one and settled in Georgia.

Julius Houseman, afterwards a prominent citizen and member of Congress, moved to Grand Rapids, Mich., and became that city's first Jewish resident.

Moses Aaron Dropsie, a lawyer and op- ponent of slavery, became the candidate of the Whig party for mayor of the Northern Liberties District of Philadel- phia, Pennsylvania.

A Documentary History of the Jews in the United States, 1654-1875

A REVIEW ARTICLE

E L L I S R I V K I N

In view of the sad state of American Jewish historiography, any collection of documents, no matter how one-sided, or arbitrarily chosen, will have value. This reviewer, therefore, has no quarrel with Mr. Schappes' documents, although he would undoubtedly have made different selections. Indeed, many of the documents are very useful for a reconstruction of American Jewish history, and many of the notes and references are of great value. I t is rather Mr. Schappes' view of history, as it appears in his Introduction and in his prefatory remarks introducing the various documents, that presents a challenge.

Since Mr. Schappes has been unwilling to allow the documents to speak for themselves, his interpretations of what they signify represent a historiographical commitment which must be analyzed in relation to the pertinent facts of American history. This is all the more necessary in view of Mr. Schappes' statement that his "introductions and notes to each document . . . help to provide the objectiue setting in which it [the document] can best be appreciated and understood" (p. xv), and in view of his insistence that "since . . . history is not a toy but a tool, it is also; his [the editor's] aspiration that the tool be used well and often" (p. x) [italics mine].

Furthermore, Mr. Schappes insists that the objective historian must evaluate issues in the light of their significance for human progress, for otherwise a mere striving for objectivity may lead to the covering up of reality and to the impeding of the movement for progress (p. xviii). It is therefore Mr. Schappes' expressed hope that his documents will aid the Jews in their struggle for liberty and equality (p. xxi).

In view of Mr. Schappes' own insistence that his researches are to assist American Jewry in coping with contemporary problems, it is

Dr. Ellis Rivkin is Associate Professor of Jewish History at the Hebrew Union Col- lege - Jewish Institute of Religion, Cincinnati, Ohio. The book under review is A Documentary History of t h e Jews i n t h e United States, 1654-1875. Edited with notes and introductioils by Morris U. Schappes. Preface by Joshua Bloch. The New York Public Library. New York: The Citadel Press. 1950. xxxii, 762 pp. $5.00.

A DOCUMENTARY HlSTORY 89

fitting that the point of view of the editor on current Jewish affairs be examined closely. Recognizing this need, some reviewers have cor- rectly pointed out Mr. Schappes' affiliation with the Communist Party, and have cited a few examples in his work where he clearly indicates socialistic, and anti-capitalistic opinions. They have, on this basis, drawn the conclusion that Mr. Schappes' introductory remarks to the documents are radical, and Mamian. Yet other reviewers, equally well- informed of Mr. Schappes' Party connections, and equally opposed to Communism. do not hesitate to recommend the book as one "worthv of a place . . . wherever a true understanding of American democracy is cherished and sought."l

Mr. Schappes' Party affiliation is crucial for understanding the role the book was meant to play, but those who have pointed to the few radical statements that have occasionally crept in have missed the real significance of Mr. Schappes' efforts. Statements such as these are more than compensated for by the hundreds of passages in which Mr. Schappes sings the praises of democracy, progress, freedom, and liberty. There can be little doubt that the average reader will come away from the volume feeling not only like a proud, democratic Ameri- can, but also anxious to contribute to American democratic ideals as a progressive Jew.

Yet it is precisely in the emphasis placed on such abstractions as democracy, progress, and liberty that Mr. Schappes' Communist bias is to be sought; for this emphasis is an exact reproduction of official Communist policy as it was at the time Mr. Schappes was compiling his work. The editor, as a Communist, was not primarily interested in winning Jews to the Communist Party, but in having them rally to the support of those heterogeneous forces of progress attempting to form a third party. Socialism and the elimination of capitalism were the stated ultimate aims of the Party, but for the present, Jews were to seek salvation in the Progressive Party's, struggle against mo- nopoly, fascism, and war, in the tradition of democratic, Jeffersonian, Jacksonian, Lincolnian, and Franklin D. Rooseveltian Americanism.

A glance at the official Communist publication, Jewish Life, of which 1Mr. Schappes was one of the editors, makes this orientation crystal clear. In an article by Samuel Barron, entitled "The Commu- nists Fight for the Nation," the tactic is stated unambiguously:

Why could not the Communist Party be the new party [rather than the Progressive Party]? And if not, why does it have to exist now that a new, people's party has come into being?

The Communist Party is the party of socialism, and has the objective of winning the majority of the American people to accept socialism as the final and lasting solution of all present problems. . . .

go AMERICAN JEWISH ARCHIVES, JUNE, 1952

But the Progressive Party is not a party of socialism. I t is a coalition party of different sections of the American people, who see the need for curbing the wolf-pack, and even for ridding the American scene of this rapacious pest. Included are all elements, middle class, professionals, farmers and workers, who still have illusions that capitalism can be reformed, patched and made workable. The Progressive Pariy, which is on the way to winning the adherence of . . . the majority of the people, is their party."

In its treatment of the past, Jewish Life was pre-eminently concerned with identifying certain movements, such as Jeffelsonian democracy, with progress and with the aspirations of the people. The truly democratic American forces of today, as those of yesterday, struggle against the reactionaries who would pervert true American ideals. In an editorial, "Proclaim These Truths," the link is made between the patriots in the American Revolution and the "progressive" elements of 1948:

One hundred and seventy-two yeais ago, the subversives of Amer- ica, who included the overwhelming majority of our colonial ancestors, determined to smash the grip of tyl anny held over them by a predatory force from across the sea. Since then, our country has more than once had to renew the battle against domestic and foreign tyranny, against reactionary resistance to progress whether organized by southern slaveowners or nazi imperialists.

Today, as we approach the celebration of the anniversary of our revolutiona~y struggle that set us free, the American people are again faced with a fateful decision. Shall we take the path of the German people that led to fascist enslavement? Or shall we continue on the democratic road that leads to progressive advance? Do we submit to American fascism, or do we fight to crush this un-American, anti-democratic offensive against the rights of the American people?3

Mr. Schappes' interest in winning over Jews to the side of progress by dangling before them the Lincoln legend is forthrightly expressed in his article "Jews in Lincoln's Third Party, 1854-1860":

It was not easy for the Jews to begin to bleak away from the old parties that dominated our country in 1854 and to join in the building of that great new venture, the Republican Party that elected Abraham Lincoln to the presidency. . . . Looking back on those days go years ago, American Jews are proud of those of their ancestors who had the wisdom and the courage to make the break and move forward with the remainder of the progressive forces of the United States. . . .4 [Italics mine.]

Isaac Mayer Wise . . . learned later to appreciate Lincoln, but we honor those who learned it sooner, who fought for the new party and Lincoln's election, who risked contumely and resisted intimidation to fight for progress.

A DOCUMENTARY HISTORY

The backbone of the Republican Party was known to be, in those days, the independent farmers in the West and North. . . . Yet in New York, where the Jewish population was largest, there are the splendid examples of new party activity already men- tioned. From Baltimore to Chicago and Louisville to New York there is woven this record of clear-headed, far-sighted and bold Jews who were in the front ranks of the resistance movement of the 1850's. Those who honor should imitate them.5

An analysis of Mr. Schappes' historiography as it appears in A Docu- mentary History reveals that it is compounded of the same elements that characterize the Popular Front philosophy as expressed in Jewish Life. While emphasizing the progressivist elements, he has not negated his belief in the ultimate anti-capitalistic goals of the Party. The following quotation documents his continued loyalty to his concept of socialism:

Like other liberal capitalist interpreters, however, The Nation, . . . failed to realize that capitalism would permanently breed such [anti-Semitic] conflicts, and that they could be abolished only under a non-exploitative, socialist system. When capitalist apologists point to such social cause of antisemitism, they always seem to justify the anti-Semitism; only those who oppose capitalism can define this cause without the appearance of lending sanction to anti-Semitism, for they obviously oppose the system that creates the cause (p. 727, n. 12).

Most of his comments, however, adhere to the general program of the Party which sought to align the Jews with the progressive forces. As a consequence, the homiletical and the inspirational motif is predom- inant. Such an emphasis is certainly conveyed'by the following remarks:

In this letter an American Jewish patriot defends the honor and reputation of his country and the Jewish people. . . .G The Jews' just pride in their services to the revolution is set forth ringingly. . . .7 This petition is a vigorous and lofty expression of the Jews' interest in democracy and equality of religious expression. . . .8 the Jews express their loyalty to the independent, democratic, and federal government of the United States. . . . Washington . . . eloquently declares the principles of equality of all religious de- nominations that he espoused. For a century and a half these declarations have been used to confound the enemy in the cease- less struggle against those who would subvert American ideals through the propagation of anti-Semitism and other doctrines of bigotry. . . .9 The introduction by Myer Moses reflects and exudes the deep democratic sentiments of international fraternity that inspired the American people at the time. . . . lo

[Uriah P. Levy's] Defence is a stirring one, both in its recital of the facts . . . and in its eloquent insistence on the right of the

g2 AMERICAN JEWISH ARCHIVES, JUNE, 1952

Jew in the Navy to equality of treatment not only for the sake of the Jew but for the security of the service and the welfare of the country. . . .I1

Homilies and inspirational passages, such as these, could be multiplied. It is against this type of approach that the critical historian must raise his voice. Sermonizing is no substitute for clear analysis, and the use of meaningless clichks and threadbare stereotypes is ineffective for conveying the relationship of historical forces. The result is a travesty of scientific historiography. Mr. Schappes cavalierly labels every movement and personality as either progressive and democratic, or as reactionary and conservative. The latter are pictured as motivated by selfish class interests, whereas the former are for the people, or for the nation, or for progress and democracy. No attempt is made by Mr. Schappes to carry out a consistent analysis of the social content of those movements which he acclaims as progressive. Thus the Tories in the American Revolution serve class interests, whereas, presumably, the patriots are concelned only with the nation and democracy:

The loyalists were generally found among the rich merchants and landowners who put the class benefits they expected to derive from the continued connection with Britain above the national interests of the new state. While motivations involved factors such as abstract concepts of loyalty and pelsonal and cultural ties with English life, the decisive factors lay deeper in the class relations, including especially fear of the democratic masses ( P 50).

Now even a beginning student in American history knows that rich merchants participated in the revolutionary struggle against England because she stifled their trade. It is also common knowledge that large planters fought against England because British policies adversely affected their interests. I t is equally well-known that the upper classes who supported the American revolution had no great love for the democratic masses. Yet Mr. Schappes would condemn the Tories for their selfishness, and hail the patriots for their altruistic motives.

Mr. Schappes' method is likewise apparent in his treatment of Jacksonian democracy and the Mrhigs. "The American people, triumphant in having elected Andrew Jackson . . . rejoiced when news of the July . . . Revolution reached New York. . . . The democratic Jacksonian press was jubilant. Meetings, parades, demonstrations, and .festivals were held, despite the hostility of the Whigs and the moneyed interests. . . . Jews figured prominently in the organizing of this great democratic manifestation" (pp. 18 1-82).

Yet these same Whigs and moneyed interests were in opposition to the "expansionist war of conquest . . . [and] looked upon the war

A DOCI:hIESTAI<Y HISTORY '33

JUDAH P. BrNJAhIIN, ELECTED TO THE U. S. SENATE A CENTURY AGO

94 AMERlCAN JEWlSH ARCHIVES, JUNE, 1952

as an act of aggression against Mexico designed to add slave states to strengthen the slaveowners' control of the government" (p. 264). This time Mr. Schappes does not inform the reader that it was the democratic Jacksonians who supported the war.

Thus we discover that on pp. 181-82 the Whigs are against progress, on page 264 they are for progress since they opposed the Mexican War, and finally, on pp. 349-50, they are the "upper-class Whig party, which was born in the struggle against Jacksonian democracy," and from which two Jews seceded with thousands of others, "to build a third party to save the nation and democracy from the aggressive slave power." I t would seem, then, that thousands of conservative members of the upper class became democrats when they left the moribund Whig Party to join the Republican Party of progress and democracy.

Mr. Schappes' moralistic approach to American history leads him to imply again and again that the Republican Party and Abraham Lincoln were the very incarnation of democratic virtues. At no time does Schappes analyze the composition of the Republican Party, and at nol time does he indicate that Lincoln was not an abolitionist. In view of Schappes' denunciation of all those who did not realize that slavery was the main issue,l2 his use of Lincoln as the symbol of the struggle leaves the unwary with the impression that Lincoln was from the first opposed to slavery. Similarly, Schappes does not mention that the Republican Party represented not only western farmers, but also industrialists who were interested in tariffs and a stable currency. He insists upon viewing the struggle as a moral crusade to abolish slavery.

In dealing with the South, however, Mr. Schappes takes pains to show the economic alignments. Thus he informs us that Judah P. Benjamin represented the interests of the planters and bourgeoisie, and assures us that "history has found Benjamin guilty and his cause evil."l3 So, too, the Jews of Shreveport, Louisiana, join the Confederacy because of their economic ties to the dominant plantation economy.14 Similarly, in referring to a Jewish Confederate soldier, Lewis Leon, Mr. Schappes informs us that "Within three years [after his a i~ iva l in Charlotte, North Cardinal he thoroughly absorbed the point of view of the reactionary classes in the South. . . . There is nolt a mention of slavery in the entire Diary [of Mr. Leon], so little did the fundamental cause of the war impress itself upon the consciousness of this Jewish rank-and-file private" (p. 481).

The sort of difficulties that Mr. Schappes makes for himself under- lines the strictly arbitlary nature of his method. Consider, for example, the odyssey of Mr. August Belmont from reaction to progress. In one of Mr. Schappes' intloductions, Mr. Belmont is a reactionary war- monger, since he "helped finance the war of aggression against Mexico,"

A DOCUMENTARY HlSTORY 95

favored the annexation of Cuba and expansion into Latin America, and opposed the abolitionists and supported Douglas.15 Nevertheless, in the same introduction, he does yeoman's service in Europe for the progressive Lincoln administration during the Civil War.16 So, too, it is difficult to know what one is to do about Mr. Mann, the American ambassador to Switzerland during the negotiation of the Swiss treaty. "Now Mann," Schappes informs us, "was 'a convinced democrat [who] viewed the rise and sweep of the revolutionary movement (in Europe) with unbounded enthusiasm.' "17 His democratic views notwithstanding, we learn from Mr. Schappes himself that Mr. Mann was an advocate of states' rights, a secessionist, and a 'Confederate special agent in Europe.18 So, too, we are informed, on p. 112, that Tammany is very progressive, but on p. 631 it is already corrupt. The Nativist movement is reactionary,lS and yet it advocates clean civic government,20 and even supports the Jews in the Mortara case.21

The inadequacy of Mr. Schappes' method is perhaps most clearly revealed in his triumphant analysis of anti-Semitism. It is Mr. Schap- pes' firm belief that his documents "reveal for the first time that anti- Semitism in our country has a more ancient history, a more persistent continuity, and a wider dispersion than even liberal opponents of anti-Semitism have hitherto dreamed. . . . Analysis is invited of the anti-Semitica displayed in this volume. . . . It is this editor's judgment that the evidence points to this as a fundamental, irreducible cause: in any society so class-structured that a minority economically exploits, politically dominates, and culturally controls the majority, the usefulness of anti-Semitism in all its forms and verbalizations is assured and endless because it helps keep that minority in power" (pp. xii-xiii).

Such a general formula, unfortunately, does not take the place of an analysis. Anti-Semitism is a very complex phenomenon which does not become clear merely because one identifies, as does Mr. Schap- pes, anti-Semitism with reaction and philo-Semitism with progress. Neither is anti-Semitism a characteristic of any specific economic system. It has appeared in ancient Alexandria, in Mohammedan Spain, in feudal Eulope, and in Stalin's Russia. It has been resorted to by mon. archists, conservatives, liberals, socialists, populists, and communists. Any explanation of anti-Semitism must be one which can account for its use by such apparently contradictory elements. Each anti-Semitic manifestation must be analyzed in terms of the specific social context in which it appeals. The only generalization 11.11ich is at all valid is that anti-Semitism has a close relationship to stresses and strains within any society, where, as a consequence of certain historical developments, dormant anti-Semitism can be appealed to. No society, irre- spective of its economic configuration, ~vill iesol-t to anti-Semitism as a basic policy unless it is undergoing decay. It is therefore essential


to draw a distinction between that anti-Semitism which manifests itself as part of the stresses and strains accompanying an expanding society, and that anti-Semitism which emerges when permanent crisis sets in. That this distinction is extremely significant is proved from the quite different history of anti-Semitism in the United States, even during the depression, from that of Germany during the same years.

Mr. Schappes, however, fails to make this fundamental distinction. Whatever anti-Semitism did exist in this country during the nineteenth, and even the twentieth centuries, was sporadic, symptomatic, and temporary. On the whole, the nineteenth century was a period which witnessed the acquisition by Jews of rights that they had never before known. And it was the phenomenal development of capitalism in this country during this period which made these achievements possible; although there were occasional evidences of anti-Semitism, the foremost capitalist newspapers decried such manifestations. Indeed, during the nineteenth century, other groups were more persistently used as scapegoats.

Such an analysis, however, does not coincide with Mr. Schappes' purposes. He is primarily interested in showing that anti-Semitism and reaction went hand in hand, and in reiterating dogmatically that capitalism per se, by its emphasis -on competition (pp. xi-xii), contin- uously breeds anti-Semitism. That anti-Semitism was not confined to the reactionaries is proved by one of Mr. Schappes' own documents in which a Teffersonian democrat identifies the Jews with Ham- ilton and

I t is also instructive that the most outspoken defence of Jewish rights in the North came from the Copperhead forces of "appeasement," and not from the "progressive" Rep~blicans.~3 Indeed, there was as much, if not more, anti-Semitism in the North, as in the Confederacy. General Grant's General Order No. 11, issued by the commander of ,the armies of "progress," cannot be paralleled in the "reactionary" South, and it is little consolation to know that, since the soldiers of the North were fighting a just cause (p. 465), they were to overlook the anti-Semitic manifestations in the Union forces.24 Mr. Schappes cannot show that Jews were in any way endangered in their rights by the Confederacy or by a slavery economy per se. The Jews in the Civil War could make their choice freely, precisely because neither side offered the Jews, as Jews, either more or less than the other. A victory for the Confederacy did not necessarily carry with it the threat of anti-Semitism. Anti-Semitism was used on both sides as a reaction to the stresses and strains placed upon the contending forces by the ~ a r . ~ 5

The pitiful plight in which Mr. Schappes finds himself is high- lighted by the following paradox: Jews are judged by Schappes on

A DOCUMENTARY HISTORY 97

the basis of their stand on slavery. The Jews in the Union forces were fighting on the side of justice. Yet - note the implication -they were presumably fighting for the success of an industrial society, which, according to Mr. Schappes, must breed anti-Semitism. The Jews were thus fighting to establish the foundations of their own o p p r e s s i ~ n ! ~ ~

Mr. Schappes insists that capitalism breeds anti-Semitism because it places a premium on competition in a framework of scarcity (p. 465). But it was this competitive capitalism that threw open the doors of opportunity to Jews not only in this country, but in every European country where this form of enterprise became dominant. The relationship that exists between capitalism and anti-Semitism is much more complex than Mr. Schappes cares to admit; an inadequate analysis can only do much harm.

This insistence upon sweeping, untested generalizations marks most of Mr. Schappes' statements. Only one additional example need be given. "This impulse [toward Reform]," Mr. Schappes informs us, "came from the needs of the rising Jewish middle class. These well-to-do business men attempted to adapt themselves as far as possible to the forms of life of the non-Jewish upper class with which they had or sought ever closer relations. Thus the emphasis was laid upon reducing the differences between Judaism and Christianity" (P- 171).

The development of Reform in the United States cannot be com- prehended in so neat a formula. The roots of Reform in this country were very diverse. In certain instances it represented an attempt of German immigrants to challenge the dominant, Sephardic, orthodox, oligarchy. In other cases, as in Charleston, it was motivated by the incompatibility of the needs of a new generation of American-born Jews with the institutional demands of the prevailing Sephardi leadership. In still other instances, it derived from the difficulties of observing the minutiae of Jewish laws in the mushrooming frontier towns. In general, it corresponded to the attack on privilege which character- i ~ e d the Jacksonian era. T o say that it was the creation of the newly rising middle class is meaningless, since the Sephardic orthodox leaders were merchants and men of wealth themselves, so that, as framed by Schappes, the causes of the movement even in Charleston are enveloped in a nebulous generality. It would seem that Schappes should have been a little more respectful of his reader's intelligence in view of the fact that he himself, in an introduction to one document, hails Isaac Harby as a Jeffersonian republican (p. 135). the same Isaac Harby who, later, appears as the leader of an upper-class Reform movement!

We are now in a position to assess Mr. Schappes' work. Motivated by the desire to win Jews over to a point of ~ i e w advocated by the Communist Party, Mr. Schappes collected the documents with this


purpose clearly in mind. T o make sure that these documents would yield the interpretation of American Jewish history so dear to his heart, Mr. Schappes provided introductory explanations, which, by their very emphasis on abstractions, such as democracy, progress, freedom, etc., coincided with the Communist Party line for the years when Mr. Schappes was preparing the volume, and when he was one of the editors of Jewish Life. He hoped, through this vehicle, to bring Jews over to the support of a third party, dedicated, presumably, to the progressive principles of Jefferson, Jackson, Lincoln, and Franklin D. Roosevelt. Starting from the Party's position, all movements were forced to fit in with the line. This has led to a distortion of the contours of American history; for it has substituted fuzziness for clarity. exhortation for analysis, and moralizing for historical method. Many of those who have read the book weEe misled by the documents and the detailed no,tes, and thought that, for the first time, a critical analysis of American Jewish history was being attempted. Others were swept away by Mr. Schappes' eloquent words about democracy and progress. In this review, an attempt has been made to show what the book really is, namely, an effort to win Tews over to the policies of the ~mer ican communist Party. I t is, in its own way, as misleading as the apologetic and inspirational volumes which have cluttered American Jewish historiography; for it, too, is a homiletical discourse.

That Mr. Schappes is entitled to his views and to his political affiliations goes without saying; that his political affiliations should give his work immunity to scholarly criticism, he has no right to demand. Mr. Schappes' prefatory remarks are not objectionable because they reflect the program of the Communist Party, any more than the existing histories of the Jews in the United States are accep- table because the ~olitics of their authors are more conservative. The test of any historical treatment is its compatibility with the existing evidence. The objection to Mr. Schappes' historiography derives from its inadequacy, from its failure to show a mature understanding of historical forces, from its naive reading of the record, and from its scarcely concealed homiletical character. Insofar as Mr. Schappes' adherence to the program of the Communist Party is responsible for the artificial mold into which he has fitted American history, to that extent has his political commitment warped his historical sense.

Although the inadequacies of Mr. Schappes' historiography mar the usefulness of A Documentary History, the documents are of great value, and the detailed notes give evidence of prodigious labor and technical skill. The serious student of American Jewish h is to l must be grateful to Mr. Schappes, however repelled he may be by the editor's propagandistic approach.

A DOCUMENTARY HISTORY

N O T E S

'Lee M. Friedman's comment on the book jacket of Schappes, A Documen- taly History.

2Tewish Life, Ortober, 1948, p p 11-12.

31bid., July, 1948, p. 1.

41bzd., October, 1948, p. 13. SIbid., p. 16. GSchappes, A Documentary History, P. ,53.

7Zbzd., p. 63. sIbid., p. 68. 91bid., p. 77.

'OZbid., p. 182. l1Zbid., p. 376. 121bid., pp. 436-37, 317, 704, n. 16. Note

the manner in which Mr. Schappes manages to smuggle in Franklin D. Roosevelt as the friend of the immigrant (pp. 252-53) and as the twentieth- centuly Lincoln (p. 498). The appeal is to a symbol, and not to the actual meaning and signihcance of his specific acts.

131bid., p. 429. 141bid., p. 139. Similarly, in discussing

the Swiss treaty, Schappes is careful to point out that "Southern export interests dovetailed with states' rights to make the equal rights of the Jews . . . secondary" (p. 316). Maryland's adherence to the Union was economically motivated (p. 691, n. 5) , as was that of Missouri (p 476).

15Zbid., p. 452. lBZbid., p. 453: "This letter of Belmont's

is a forceful and telling exposition of the Union's stand on the civil war and an able refutation of Confederate arguments. . . ." Cf. pp. 456-57, 451,

273. 171bid., p. 316. lSIbid. 19Zbrd., pp. 252-53. 201bid., p. 631. 211bid., p. 386. ZZIbid., pp. 72-73.

231bid., pp. 462-63; cf. pp. 472.73, 24Srhappes makes clear that he feels that

those rvho raised the issue of fighting anti-Semitism in the North during the Civil War were disrupting the war effort, and that Jews should have kept their minds on the basir issues (cf. pp. 472-73). Had anything comparable to General Order No. 1 I or discrimination in the chaplaincy provisions appeared in the Confederacy, we can be fairly certain that Mr. Schappes would have placed responsibility upon the reactionary ruling classes of the South who resorted to anti-Semitism to buttress their slave economy. Thus, even though the South had no law prevent- ing Jews from serving in the chaplaincy, Mr. Schappes nonetheless tri- umphantly points to the fact that there were no Jewish chaplains in the South- ern armies (pp. 462-63).

25Cf. Bertram W. Korn, American Jewry and the Civil War, Philadelphia, 1951. pp. 156-88.

26Cf. p. 465: "That there was anti-Semit- ism in the army was not due to the just cause for which the men were fighting, but to the social system which put a premium on competition in a framework of scarcity, and thus bred antagonism." But this was the very system which emerged from the war, as Schappes states in quite a different connection, where he maintains silence about industrialism and its supposed anti-Semitism: "That the Jews had a particular stake in the defeat of slavery and the advance of industrial capitalism is at best only hinted a t . . ." (p. 437). Schappes' reasoning thus in- volves the active support by Jervs to usher in a system which, according to Schappes, by its very existence must breed anti-Semitism.

Reviews of Books

T H E STORY OF RADICAL REFORM JUDAISM. By Leo Kaul. Los Angeles. Privately Pq-inted. Mimeographed. 1951. 52 pp.

At first reading it is not difficult to understand why Leo Kaul had to resort to mimeographing this little tract himself and circulating it free. Yet T h e Stojy of Radical Re fo rm Judaism has value, especially to those interested in a specific phase of American Jewish history. Leo Kaul was a collaborator of Elnil G. Hirsch. For forty-two years he served as contributing editor of Dr. Hirsch's Re form Advocate. He was a disciple of Dr. Hirsch and an ardent protagonist of the radical interpretation of Classical Reform. For him, ethics and social justice were the pre-eminent features of the Jewish heritage.

Leo Kaul feels he has a message. Now in his middle eighties, he believes that the hand of history is guiding his pen: if he does not set down his recollections of Dr. Hirsch's days at Chicago Sinai Con- gregation, no one else will. He is one of the last survivors of Hirsch's corltemporarics - men of his generation who had a passion for the Classical Reform of complete universalism and a contempt for any effo'rt to swing the pendulum toward any particularism associated with the Jewish people.

Leo Kaul's eulogy of Dr. Hirsch is a touching tribute of affection and reverence. It has historical value as well. Some day a gifted historian will write a full-scale biography of Emil G. Hirsch. The work deserves to be done. In Leo Kaul's memoirs that historian will find interesting source material relating to Hirsch's radical impact on Reform Judaism.

I t is good to have this evaluation of Hirsch's contribution to Jewish life in America. His few remaining contemporaries in Chicago prefer to remember him by anecdotes now almost legendary from repetition -his sarcasm, his gruffness, his pulpit tirades, his intoler- ance of ceremonial and cant. Tragic it is that a titan of Hirsch's stature should be remembered for trivia. His masterful sermons are gone. They were never taken down as delivered, only written lip after delivery from memory for publication in the Refol-m Advocate. His erudite articles and papers are scattered throughout the Jewish Encyclopedia and scholarly journals. All that remains in book form is the single volume My Religion., published posthumously, a book which regret- tably presents only a fraction of the power and learning of Hirsch in and out of the pulpit.

REVIEWS OF ROOKS I01

If Leo Kaul's effort has any merit, it is to emphasize a historic moment in the story of Reform Judaism and to focus attention on one who towered over his colleagues as a giant.

Chicago Sinai Congregation. RICHARD C. HERTZ

NO PEDDLERS ALLOWED. By Alfred R. Schumann. Appleton, Wisconsin: C. C. Nelson Co. 1948. x, 325 pp. $3.50.

The ubiquity of the Jew not only geographically, but integrated through all phases of American life, is now accepted almost as a commonplace of American history. It is still a matter of romantic interest, rather than a surprise, to turn up participation of Jews in the most unexpected sections of the country and in all sorts of activities and movements which developed our country into the nation of today. Even as gold was discovered in California, Jews were well acclimated there. When John Brown raids made headlines, Jews were part of the conflict. When Brigham Young was building up a Mormon community in Utah, Jews were his fellow-pioneers. Otto Mears, as an early settler, was a real factor in the opening up of Colorado. So we could go on from Maine to Florida and East and West with like associations. Therefore, can we be surprised, when we turn to yesterday's pages of history, to find that in the creation of that highly provocative Progressive Political Party, which for some years played so important a part in national affairs in its days of gathering strength under the leadership of Robert LaFollette, from the start, in Wisconsin, at his right hand stood a Jewish co-worker? Solomon Levitan, East Prussian Jew, charter member of the Progressive movement, and one of its recognized leaders, six times elected state treasurer of Wisconsin, primary candidate for governor, delegate to several national Republican

I conventions, deserves to have recorded in the annals of remembrance a truly American romantic career of successful accomplishment.

In 1881, at the age of nineteen, Solomon Levitan landed in Balti- more and began his American career as a peddler. Peddling into the developing outposts of Wisconsin, where the pack-peddler was still a useful factor in the business of distributing merchandise, and wel- comed socially at many a farmside as the harbinger of news and friend- ly contact with the outside world, Levitan came finally to set up a general store in the little community of New Glarus. Although it is only seventy years ago that Solomon Levitan landed in Baltimore, the America he faced has completely changed. No longer do wholesale peddler-supply houses start young immigrants on a peddling career. Indeed, there is no longer a place for the peddler in the domestic


economy. The mail-order houses, chain stores, rural free delivery, the extension of highways throughout the land, and the widespread use of automobiles have revolutionized retailing and the distribution of merchandise even in the remote countrysides. Levitan later opened up branch stores and finally moved to Madison where, ultimately, he became a successful banker.

This outline of a prosperous full life could be duplicated, with slight variations, for many another Jewish immigrant in all parts of the country, but what gives Levitan's biography significance is his early meeting with the rising young politician, LaFollette, their fast friendship, and the gowth of Sol Levitan into a Progressive Party leader in the state where the development of that party was nationally significant history. Levitan, self-educated, never free from an accent, in a state and at a time where there was no potent Jewish community, by personality, native droll wit, force of character, and native ability, gained for hiinself such standing and confidence that he became a very important, state-wide, potent influence in public life.

This volume, ATo Peddlers Allowed, written by Alfred R. Schumann, a Wisconsin schoolteacher interested in politics, painstakingly attempting to tell the story of Sol Levitan's life, just fails to hit the mark. He takes as a title the fact that at the start of his career as a peddler Levitan ran up against signs excluding him from trading at places where there was prejudice against Jews. All through the book there is the undertone that Levitan made good constantly in the face of the "No Peddlers Allowed" signs, handicaps scattered throughout life's highways. That:

Throughout the state the wonder grew So white a man could be a Jew -and an Orthodox observing

Jew at that.

Unconsciously there is a benevolently irritating, patronizing note of overemphasis on the fact that Levitan succeeded in spite of being a Jew. T o make the biography more vivid, there are too many imaginative fill-ins. This is inexcusable biography where the author knew his subject personally, and where there is no end of authentic material available at hand. I t is, however, a very full, kindly and human presentation of the life of one of the strong personalities which built America. It is more than another Horatio Alger success story. It is real Ameri- can national political history for over fifty years and a real contribution to American histo] ical Judaica.

Boston, mass. LEE M. FRIEDMAN

Editorial Notes

If any of Dr. Marcus' friends are somewhat chagrined that every time they hear from him he is asking for something (money!) for the Archives, he hopes that they will harbor no grudge. The Direc- tor of the Archives is merely trying to maintain a fine old American tradition which began when Rab- bi Moses Malki came to these shores in 1759 and held out an open and insistent palm. (We are planning a bicentennial celebration in 1959, d . ~ . , to commemorate the arrival and gumption of this, the first known American ravish messenger from abroad [schnor- rer]. We say gumption because it was something of an enterprise in those days to travel from Safed in Galilee to the town of Newport, Rhode Island, crossing the Atlan- tic in a loo- or zoo-ton schooner!)

Dr. Marcus has done some verv intensive research during the past four years, but regrets to report that he has not been able to find an adequate substitute for money. However, if the Jewish Welfare Funds of this country and a few stray philanthropists give the Ar- chives the $50,0oo it needs annual- ly, he is confident that he will be able to balance the budget.

Floyd S. Fierman, of El Paso, Texas (goo North Oregon Street), has been working for the last two years collecting source materials on

the Jews of the Southwest. If you know of anything that may be of use to him, please write to him.

Morton M. Berman has just com- pleted a very detailed research job on the history of the congregations that went into the making of present-day Temple Isaiah Israel in Chicago. We hope that his congregation and his friends will see their way clear to publish his study. I t should throw much light on early Chicago Jewry. The materials which he has collected are particularly important for that city, inasmuch as so many of its records were unfortunately destroyed in the Chicago fire of 187 I.

Somewhere in our files we have a letter of a distressed woman who lost everything at that time and wanted to know how she was going to collect her insurance. Her adviser - one of the Cincinnati Macks -gave her the sage counsel of turning to some competent Jewish businessman.

It seems that middle nineteenth- century American Jewry had a lot of respect for its own business acumen. Justice Charles C. Simons of the United States Circuit Court of Appeals has just dug up a Civil War letter for us in which the writer - a hot "Secesh" - believes that the South can win if the Con- federates will only put in a Jewish Secretary of the Treasuiy!

On the Carnpus of the Hebrew Union College - J e ~ v i s I ~ Ir~st i lute of Religion in Cincinnati. I t \velcomes q ~ ~ e r i e s in the felcl

of American J e l v ~ 5 h his to^).

in this issue - american jewish...

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