Dist. XI: Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, Vermont, 3 members: Isaac M. Ullman, New Haven, Conn.; Lee M. Friedman, Boston, Mass.; Harry Cutler, Providence, R. I.
Dist. XII: New York: Joseph Barondess, Samuel Dorf, Bernard Drachman, Harry Fischel, William Fishman, Israel Friedlaender, Samuel B. Hamburger, Maurice H. Harris, Samuel I. Hyman, S. Jarmulowsky, Leon Kamaiky, Philip Klein, Nathan Lamport, Adolph Lewisohn, J. L. Magnes, M. Z. Margolies, Louis Marshall, H. Pereire Mendes, Solomon Neumann, Jacob H. Schiff, Bernard Semel, P. A. Siegelstein, Joseph Silverman, Cyrus L. Sulzberger, Felix M. Warburg: 25 members.
Dist. XIII: New York (exclusive of the city), 2 members: Abram J. Katz, Rochester; Simon W. Rosendale, Albany.
Members-at-large: Nathan Bijur, New York City; Isidor Straus, New York City.
The officers are: Mayer Sulzberger, President; Julian W. Mack and Jacob H. Hollander, Vice-Presidents; Isaac W. Bernheim, Treasurer; Herbert Friedenwald, Secretary. The Executive Committee consists of Cyrus Adler, Harry Cutler, Samuel Dorf, J. L. Magnes, Louis Marshall, Julius Rosenwald, Jacob H. Schiff, Isadore Sobel, Cyrus L. Sulzberger and A. Leo Weil.
The strength of the committee consists mainly in its personnel, as it comprises the most influential as well as the most active Jewish communal leaders of the country. The membership from the large centers of population, like New York, Philadelphia and Chicago, includes also representatives of the immigrants of the last period, and the plan of the Jewish Alliance of twenty years ago[58] to bring together the older and the younger portions of the community is, to some extent, consummated in this Committee. It has made some valuable efforts on behalf of the suffering Jews in other countries, and also in the interest of a speedy solution of the vexed Russian passport question, and it is becoming recognized as the representative Jewish body in the United States.
When the Jewish community or “Kehillah” was formed in New York in 1909, consisting of the representatives of congregations, fraternal and educational organizations, the plans of those who wanted to have the American Jewish Committee re-organized on a more democratic basis, and to make it the elected and authorized representative of the Jewish masses, was partially carried out. The twenty-five members of the Executive Committee of the New York “Kehillah” are the New York members of the American-Jewish Committee. The Jews of Philadelphia have now also formed a “Kehillah” on the same basis of representation. But these new forms of amalgamating the large communities and forming authoritative Jewish central bodies is yet in the experimental stage, and several years, perhaps several decades, will have to pass before their permanent existence will be assured and justified. The great difference between the Committee and the “Kehillahs” is, that in the first men of power and authority who worked effectively for Jewish interests before, individually or as leaders of communal bodies, have united to work together in the same direction. The “Kehillahs” on the other hand, have yet to create the forces which are to sustain them and make them formidable. Their chief value consists of their being symptoms of the times, indicating the approach of the end of the period of chaos in general Jewish affairs, and an inclination to submit to representative authority in communal matters. The most conspicuous act of the New York “Kehillah” was its foundation of a Bureau of Education under the direction of the well-known Jewish educator, Dr. Samson Benderly (b. in Safed, Palestine, 1876), who conducted Jewish schools in Baltimore with marked success and is now working out his original plans in educating Jewish teachers who should be capable of suitably performing their duties to the coming generation. But the soundness and the practicability of his plans are as problematical as that of the “Kehillah” itself.
Prof. Solomon Schechter.
Much other valuable work was done in the cause of Jewish education in the last ten years. The Jewish Theological Seminary, which was reorganized in 1902, when the presidency was assumed by the famous Roumanian Jewish scholar, Solomon Schechter, now has on its faculty as professors: President and Professor of Jewish Theology, Solomon Schechter; Biblical Literature and Exegesis, Israel Friedlaender; Talmud, Louis Ginzberg; History, Alexander Marx; Homiletics, Mordecai M. Kaplan; Instructor in the Talmud, Joshua A. Joffe; Instructor in Hebrew and Rabbinics, Israel Davidson; English Literature and Rhetoric, Joseph Jacobs. There is also now a Teachers’ Institute connected with the Seminary, of which Prof. Mordecai M. Kaplan is the principal.