CHAPTER XXX.
COMMUNAL AND RELIGIOUS ACTIVITIES AMONG THE NEW COMERS.
Congregational and social activities among the new comers—Ephemeral organizations—The striving after professional education—Synagogues as the most stable of the new establishments—“Landsleut” congregations—The first efforts to consolidate the Orthodox community of New York—The Federation of Synagogues—Chief Rabbi Jacob Joseph—Other “chief rabbis” in Chicago and Boston—Prominent Orthodox rabbis in many cities—Dr. Philip Klein—The short period in which the cantor was the most important functionary in the Orthodox synagogue—Synagogues change hands, but are rarely abandoned.
A large majority of the Russian immigrants, like the overwhelming majority of the Jews in Russia, were Orthodox Jews, and the younger men who were temporarily attracted by the radical movements which were, in Russian fashion, mostly anti-religious, began drifting back into the synagogues as soon as they grew older and became more settled and more Americanized. The older and the middle-aged needed congregational life from the moment of their arrival, and this gave rise to the establishment of a surprisingly large number of new synagogues in all places where the new arrivals settled. The situation in New York is again typical; the twenty-nine congregations in 1872 increased more than tenfold in about sixteen years, which far exceeds the growth of charitable institutions, of labor-organizations and of fraternal or self-education societies, all of which were springing up at that time in large numbers. The legal restrictions which make the organization of any form of societies a difficult matter in Russia, were to some extent responsible for the formation of numerous organizations here for the most variegated number of purposes. The ease with which a charter or papers of incorporation could be obtained, tempted many to form themselves into organizations to enjoy that privilege; while the equally novel experience of being permitted to form organizations without obtaining charters, to hold meetings and elect officers without fear of interference by the authorities, was another strong inducement to overdo things in the matter of organizations. But that same lack of experience was also the cause of unfamiliarity with voluntary corporate existence and of inability to hold the organization together after it was formed. A large percentage of the societies formed existed only a short time: the same was true of all forms of organizations, especially of labor unions. Only those which were subject to the discipline of a central body—notably lodges which form part of the larger and better conducted orders—showed a better proportion of survivals.
The conditions prevailing in Russia were also largely the cause of the disproportionately large number of young people who attempted, by their own efforts or assisted by their often hard pressed parents, to study for the professions. Under the educational restrictions in Russia only the highly gifted or the children of the wealthy could hope to enter the higher institutions of learning; here the same opportunities were open to all alike, with free education up to the universities. It was natural for the poor to strive to make use of those opportunities, and to spare no efforts to enter the ranks of the college graduates, who are looked upon by the Russian populace as superior beings.
But in the course of years, as the proportion of those who are more Americanized became larger, and the newer arrivals, though they kept on coming in increasing numbers, were in a constantly diminishing minority as compared with the entire mass of immigrants, there was a decrease in the number of hastily conceived and immature organizations, and a larger proportion of those which were formed had sufficient strength to survive. Of late years there has been even a slackening of the rush for higher or professional education among the children of the poorer classes; which is also partly due to the more exacting requirements for entrance into the better class of colleges and universities.
All these economic, fraternal and educational activities—the last, of course, only as far as it concerns adults who could not benefit by the public school system—and the agitation about political and economic questions, and, to some extent, even the occupation of the immigrants, were novel experiences and largely temporary. The only activity which might be considered as normal, and to which there was a constant reversion even among those who abandoned it abruptly—one may almost say, violently—was that relating to the synagogue. As compared with other institutions, a surprisingly small number of congregations formed by the immigrants succumbed; and the steady increase in the number and solidity of these religious establishments, as well as of the Talmud Torahs, or religious schools, and later of the Yeshibot or strictly Orthodox Talmudical academies, are the best proof of Israel’s taking root in the United States. Most of the work of a public or semi-public character in the new Jewish settlements or communities, including even the work of numerous charitable institutions ministering to wants which are due to the exigencies of immigration, cannot in the nature of things be otherwise than temporary, even if they last for decades. It is only the building of synagogues which represents that continuity of Jewish existence throughout the centuries, which unites us with the Jews of other countries and other times, and demonstrates the ability and the willingness of the Jewish masses to support the old faith under all circumstances.
These thousands of small synagogues all over the country, of which there are now about eight hundred in New York, bear also strong marks of Slavic, especially Russian, influence. The only place where it was safe for Jews to gather and have intercourse in that country was the synagogue, which for that reason served not only as a house of worship, but also as a meeting room, and, to some degree, as a club house. Here it served all these purposes for the old-fashioned Jew, to whom the new social organizations which grew up here remained strange or became repugnant after a short contact. In addition to this, the—exceedingly unchurchlike—small synagogue is usually composed of members who come from the same town in the Old Country, or from the same district. The “landsleut” meet there, receive the newest arrivals and the latest news from home; it is not unfrequently made the headquarters for extraordinary charitable activity when the home town is visited by a conflagration or a “Pogrom.”
The tendency is to break away from those little synagogues and to join larger ones in the more comfortable neighborhoods, as well as to enlarge them by admitting members who hail from other towns and even from other countries. But the changes are mainly accomplished by slow transition, the gaps which are left by departures are easily filled up by new arrivals; so that the transformation is much nearer to a slow process of evolution than to the “decay of Judaism in this country” of which many are complaining. The earliest manifestation of this new development was the first effort which was made, less than a decade after the beginning of the new immigration, to consolidate the Orthodox Jewish community of New York under the leadership of a great rabbinical authority, and to raise the expense of the new institution by the same method by which the Jewish communities of Russia are financed—by an income from the Kosher-meat business.