worse.” Arguing for an American Jewish congress, the paper opened its
columns at the end of 1905 to supportive opinions from readers across the
land. The relief work of the NCRSRM was not the issue, but control by a
self-constituted national committee was. When the World Zionist Organ-
ization called for an international conference of all Jewish organizations on
the Jewish situation in Russia, the American Jewish press advised the crea-
tion first of a separate body in each country.
The call for a democratic congress reverberated in downtown New York
under the leadership of Judah Magnes. The popular young rabbi, who en-
joyed easy access to both the Jewish establishment and the new immi-
grants, headed the Jewish Self-Defense Association. Successfully mobiliz-
ing thousands of supporters, he broadened the Association’s aim of
supplying arms to Russian Jews to that of toppling elitist rule by a demo-
cratic national organization. His indictment of the modern “court Jews”
summed up his reading of popular discontent:
Whenever anything confronts the Jews, some excellent gentlemen,... in the
name of the Jewish Community, devise plans for the Jewish community to
relieve them. These gentlemen do not represent the Jews of the United
States at all, or a greater part of the Jews of the United States. It is simply an-
other instance of persons who are respected at court, and who have the ear of
those in power, and because of having the ear of those in power have the
means of representing the Jewish community. It is necessary that the Jewish
people itself have a voice in the conduct of its own affairs. There is no people
in all the world that has not a voice in the conduct of its own affairs, that is no
people which calls itself civilized, or democratic.^73Disaffection with the power wielded by Schiff’s circle was also fed by
geographical and organizational jealousy. Midwestern Jews chafed under
domination by New York based-stewards; their jealousy, Schiff said, was
“ever present.” B’nai B’rith too resented being overlooked or underrepre-
sented in leadership councils, and an International Jewish League in Cali-
fornia threatened to take independent and more drastic action on the Rus-
sian situation.^74 With signs indicating serious communal divisions, Schiff
and his associates were faced with the gravest challenge ever made to their
leadership. It would have been understandable had they washed their
hands entirely of time-consuming and unrewarding communal service.
The fact that they didn’t testifies both to an instinct to preserve their power
and to the depth of their Jewish commitment.
The issue of an American Jewish congress involved more than power
distribution. At a meeting of the Judaeans, a prestigious club where estab-
lished Jews discussed topics of current interest, arguments were raised
against a permanent Jewish body. Why shouldn’t Jews want to assimilate,
110 Jacob H. Schiff