The Organization Problem Of Jewish Community Life In America Classic Reprint PDF Download

Excerpt from The Organization Problem of Jewish Community Life in America In the discussion of this topic we must at the outset assume that there is valid reason for the existence of distinctly Jewish communities wherever a minyan (at least ten adult Jews) dwell in one place, because their interests in some respects are distinct from the interests of other people living in the same place. These special interests may be religious, educational and philanthropic - never political. It is cause for satisfaction that the Jews of this country have never presented a homogeneous attitude, as Jews, toward any political question, except where such a question involved the rights and dignities of American citizenship, as in the Russian passport matter. Here the Jews united to secure the abrogation of the treaty with Russia, because that treaty, in discriminating against the Jews of the United States, was an affront to American citizenship. Attempts on the part of politicians to create Jewish political clubs and groups have met uniformly with such vehement resentment on the part of all Jewish elements as to indicate unmistakably that in politics the Jews do not desire to be a community. Political elections have shown that Jews are divided on political questions so freely that there cannot be the barest suspicion that racial or religious considerations at any time constitute a basis for political affiliations. In religious matters and in philanthropic affairs they have followed distinct lines, quite like other religious and racial elements in the population. But in these fields they have not been united; in fact, there have been such sharp divisions as to make the word "community," as descriptive of their organized charities, an inaccurate term, if not an actual misnomer. The reasons for these divisions are to be traced ultimately to the fact that the Jews of America, though ethnologically one race, come from many different countries of the globe and naturally possess differences of traditions, customs, theologies, language, outline, and frequently even of physique. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.