How the Jews Use Power 63

swift and powerful action of experienced compulsion upon public affairs .

At the meeting which organized the Kehillah a number of

sentiments were expressed which are worthy of consideration today;

Judah L. Magnes, then rabbi of Temple Emanuel, chairffian of the

meeting, set forth the plan: "A central organization like that of the Jewish

community of New York City is necessary to create a Jewish public

opinion," he said.

Rabbi Asher was loudly applauded when he said: "American

interests are one, Jewish interests are another thing."

The delegates at the first open meeting in 1906 represented 222

Jewish societies-religious, political, industrial and communal. Just over

a year later the number of Jewish organizations under the jurisdiction of

the Kehillah aggregated 688", and in 1921 well over 1,000. When the

aggressive program of the Kehillah to make New York a Jewish city, and

through New York to make the United States a Jewish country, was

announced some of the more conservative Jews of New York were

timorous. They did not expect that the American people would stand for

it. They thought the American people would immediately understand

what was afoot and oppose it. There were others who doubted whether

the same Kehillah authority could here' be wielded over the Jews as was

wielded in the old country ghettoes. An official of the Kehillah wrote:

"There were those who doubted the ultimate success of this new

venture in Jewish organization. They based their lack of belief on

the fact that no governmental authority could possibly be secured;

in other words, that the Kehillah of New York could not hope to

wield the same power, based on governmental coercion as the

Kehillahs of the Old World."

There is much in this paragraph to indicate the status of the Kehillah

in Jewish life . Add to this fact that all Jews who entered America lived

under the Kehillahs of the old world, whose power was based on

coercion, and the situation is simple. Regimentation, the destruction of

individual liberty which has risen to curse the world, is the basic

principle of Jewish government of the Jews, by the Jews .

What else can happen when world government of the Gentiles by the

64 The International Jew

Jews for the bankers becomes established?

However, the misgivings of some Jews were not justified. The

Americans made no protest. The Kehillah went ahead with its campaign

and America submitted. New York became Jewish. American life,

American thought and American politics, became Jewish-dominated in

the decades that followed . But with it all, the Jews exhibit a sense of the

insecurity of this usurpation of power. It does not belong to those who

have seized it; it does not belong either by right of numbers, or by right

of superior ability, or yet by right of a better use made of that power.

They have taken power in America by audacity, they have taken it in

such a way a!\ to make resentment of it seem like an anti-racial

movement-and that is why they have held it as long as they have. That

is the only way to explain the meekness of the Americans in this matter,

and it also accounts for .the sense of insecurity which even the Jews feel

in the position they hold. The American is the slowest person in the

world to act on any;line that savors of racial or religious prejudice. Thi.s

makes for a seeming aloofness from matters like the Jewish Question. ·

This also leads the uninformed public men to sign protests against "anti-

Semitism" which are really designed to be protests against the publication

of Jewish facts. The foundation, organization and rapid success of the

Kehillah in New York is an object lesson set in the sight of the world, as

to what the Jew can do and will do when he exalts himself to the seat of

rule .

As to the Kehillah being officially representative, it may be added

that the Kehillah has in it representatives of the Central Conference of

American Rabbis, Eastern Council of Reform Rabbis, Independent Order

of B'nai B'rith, Independent Order of B'rith Shalom, Independent Order

of Free Sons of Israel, Independent Order of B'ri th Abraham, Federation

of American Zionists-orthodox Jews, "apostate Jews," rich Jews, poor

Jews, law-abiding Jews and red revolutionary Jews. At the 1918

Convention there were present: Jacob H. Schiff, banker; Louis Marshall.

lawyer, president of the American Jewish Committee: Adolf S. Ochs,

proprietor of the "New York Times"; Otto A. Rosalsky, judge of the

General Sessions Court; Otto H. Kahn, of the bank ing house of Kuhn,

Loeb and Company-AND-Benjamin Schlesinger, who had lately

returned from Moscow where he had a conference with Lenin; Joseph

Schlossberg, general secretary of the Amalgamated Clothing Workers of

How the Jews Use Power 65

America; Max Pine, also a recent consultant with the Bolshevik rulers of

Russia; David Pinski; Joseph Barondess, labor leader. The high and the

low were there; the first world war was closing, the Russian Revolution

had been won. Judge Mack, who headed the War Risk Insurance Bureau

of the United States Government, and the little leader of the reddest

group in the East End-they all met in the Kehillah, as Jews. Adolph

Ochs of the great "New York Times" together with the most feverish

scribbler on a Yiddish weekly that calls for blood and violence, all of

them of all classes, bound together in a solidarity which has been

achieved by no other people so perfectly as by Judah. Banded together

for the purpose of "protecting Jewish rights."*

THE JEWISH DEMAND FOR "RIGHTS" IN .AMERICA

W hat rights have Americans that Jews in America do not possess?

Against whom are the Jews organized and against what? What

basis is there for the cry of "persecution"? None whatever, except the

Jews' own consciousness that the course they are pursuing is due for a

check. The Jews always know that. They are not in the stream of the

world, and every little while the world finds out what Judah always

knows. The program of the Kehillah was ostensibly to assert "Jewish

rights." No Jewish rights have ever been interfered with in America.

The expression was a euphemism for a campaign to interfere with non-

Jewish rights.

The New York Kehillah is the pattern and parent Jewish community

in the United States, the visible er.tourage of the Jewish government, the

dynamo which motivates those "protests" and "mass meetings" which are

frequently heralded throughout L~e country, and the arsenal of that kind

of dark power which the Jewish leaders know so well how to use. It is

the "Whispering gallery, " where the famous whispering drives are

originated and set in motion and made to break in lying publicity over the

country. The liaison between this center of Jewish power and the affairs

of the people of the United States is made by the American Jewish

Committee. The Committee and the Kehillah are practically identiCal as