This progress was largely accelerated by the great business activity which followed the war. A large number of the German-Jewish immigrants amassed wealth, and the stoppage of the arrival of new poor immigrants, or rather of poor relatives, reduced the number of the needy and helpless among them to an insignificant fraction. It may be said that it was during these fifteen years (1865–80), between the preceding large German-Jewish immigration and the following incomparably larger Russian-Jewish influx, that the Jews of the United States succeeded in bringing their communal house to order, and in preparing for their historic mission of receiving the great masses which were soon to be driven thither from the Slavic countries by the iron hand of persecution. Most of the large charitable institutions, which are the pride of American Judaism, and have served to relieve want and pain in various forms, actually date from that period. The date of organization or original foundation is in most cases much earlier. But at the beginning these institutions were more like the small charities which are now founded by poor immigrants. There were very few great Jewish institutions in the United States prior to the Civil War, although most of the magnificent organizations in the older communities justly claim a continued existence from ante-bellum days. The largest number and the most important of them grew to their imposing size and vast usefulness in “the seventies,” i. e., in that breathing spell which the Jews of America had between two periods of immigration.
The tendency to organize, to consolidate and take up the work of American Judaism in earnest, which characterized that period, manifested itself in the conferences of the Reform Rabbis, although as occasions for squabbles about destructive innovations and for extremely radical declarations, they deserve to be classed as ephemeral sensationalism rather than events of historical importance. It was at the third of these conventions, held in Cincinnati in June, 1871, that it was decided to establish the Hebrew Union College and to organize the Union of American Hebrew Congregations. The last named organization, which was founded in July, 1873, with thirty-four congregations, numbering about 1,800 members,[42] now comprises about two hundred congregations, with a total membership of nearly twenty thousand, and includes practically the entire American and Americanized German elements which are affiliated with Jewish religious institutions. The College, which was established two years later, has educated nearly one hundred and fifty American Rabbis, some of whom have attained eminence as preachers and communal workers.
Julius Bien.
Principal organizer of the Ind. Order B’nai B’rith.
The Independent Order B’nai B’rith (Sons of the Covenant), which seems destined to be the great Jewish international organization of the future, though founded in 1843, did not assume its commanding position until about a quarter of a century afterward. It had less than 3,000 members in 1857. Three years after the close of the Civil War its membership rose to 20,000, which was probably a larger proportion of the Jewish population of the country at that time than it ever had before or after. It now has about 34,000 members, distributed in the seven districts into which it has divided the United States, and in Germany, Austria and Roumania, where there are flourishing lodges. A lodge has also recently been established in England. The guiding spirit of the order was Julius Bien (b. in Hesse-Nassau, Germany, 1826; d. in New York, 1909), who was its president in the years 1854–57 and 1868–1900. His successor was Leo N. Levi (b. in Victoria, Tex., 1856; d. in New York, 1904), who was in turn succeeded by the present incumbent, Adolf Kraus (b. in Bohemia, 1850; a. 1865), an eminent attorney, who has resided in Chicago since 1871, where he has served as President of the Board of Education, Corporation Counsel of the city and President of the Civil Service Commission.
While no other Jewish fraternal organization succeeded in accomplishing as much as the B’nai B’rith in communal or charitable work and in representing general Jewish interests for a number of years, other organizations of the same kind, which kept more strictly to the activities for the benefits of their own members, also originated in that period. They are the Order Brith Abraham (organized 1859) and its offshoots, the Kesher shel Barzel (founded 1860), the Independent Order Brith Abraham (1887), the Free Sons of Israel (1849), and the Free Sons of Benjamin (1879). The two Brith Abraham Orders, the second of which was formed by a secession from the first, have grown very fast of late years, the former having about 70,000 members of both sexes and the latter about twice that number. Like most of the other Jewish orders which originated later, the bulk of their membership consists of immigrants of the last period from the Slavic countries. Aside from the pecuniary benefits which members and their families derive from these organizations at lower rates than they could have obtained elsewhere, the educational value of these bodies is also great, for many obtain there the first glimpse of the systematic working of an organization which is amenable to its own rules.
As much, if not more, progress was made in that time with the founding of institutions which are considered as local in their character, but which in large communities like New York, Philadelphia or Chicago ultimately helped more people at a larger cost than many of the national organizations. The United Hebrew Charities of New York was organized in 1874, two years after the incorporation of the Home for Aged and Infirm Hebrews. The Mount Sinai Hospital was originally the Jews’ Hospital (organized 1857), but it was then a small institution, and its large structure (which was abandoned for a still larger one in 1901) which first bore the name of Mount Sinai was erected in 1870. The Hebrew Benevolent Orphan Asylum, which was organized in its original form in the first quarter of the last century, had only thirty children, in a rented house, in 1860. Its first building, on the corner of Third avenue and Seventy-seventh street, was erected in 1862, and its magnificent structure on Amsterdam avenue more than twenty years afterwards. The Hebrew Sheltering Guardian Orphan Asylum Society was organized in 1879. The Hebrew Free School Association, which gave the impetus to the organization in later years of important educational institutions, like the Hebrew Technical Institute, the Technical School for Girls, and ultimately also to the Educational Alliance (originally The Hebrew Institute, organized 1891), originated in that period and existed until about 1899. The Young Men’s Hebrew Association was organized in 1874.
Philadelphia likewise enjoyed much communal activity in that formative period of American-Jewish history. The first Jewish theological seminary in America, Maimonides College, was opened there in 1867 and existed for six years. The Hebrew Education Society, which was organized in 1848 and opened its school with twenty-two pupils in 1851, opened a second school in the vestry room of the Bene Israel Synagogue on Fifth street in 1878, and a third school on the northwest corner of Marshall street and Girard avenue in 1879. The first Jewish Hospital Association of that city was incorporated in 1865. The Jewish Maternity Association was founded in 1873. The Jewish Foster Home, which erected its first small building in 1855, was organized in its present form in 1874, since which time it has become one of the most important communal institutions there. The Young Men’s Hebrew Association was organized in 1875, a year later than the one in New York.
The first Jewish Hospital in Chicago was erected on Lasalle avenue in 1868. It was destroyed by the great fire of 1871, and eight years later the funds which made possible the erection of the Michael Reese Hospital were donated for that purpose. The United Hebrew Charities of Chicago, originally the United Hebrew Relief Association, was organized in 1859, and changed its name later. The United Hebrew Charities of St. Louis was organized in 1875.