but it endangered Jews in the Turkish empire as well. True Judaism, a faith
without nationalist trappings, mirrored the essence of Americanism. Both
represented “hope and courage and a conviction that better things are to come to
all mankind, while Zionism signifies despair and surrender.”^57
Convinced that Zionism was a flimsy, utopian scheme, the banker very
much doubted that its aims would muster the support of the great powers
or that, as he put it, “by the stroke of a pen... millions of people [would]
migrate to a new country.” Even as it splintered the ranks of American
Jews, Zionism offered no immediate help for the persecuted eastern Euro-
peans. Rather, it succeeded only in impeding sounder enterprises like the
Galveston movement. A Jewish state in Palestine, were it to be established,
was doomed to failure. “Even if half of the Jews of the world would and
could settle there, would that be a nation which could secure the respect of
other world powers and which could assure protection for those of the
Jewish people who remain content to live among the other Nations of the
earth? Would this Nation... not rather become a weakling,... the foot-
ball of dissentions and passions from within and machinations from with-
out, rather humiliating both to its own citizens and those of its race who
have remained among the Nations of the world?” Zionism may have
brought back a few Jews who were about to leave the fold, but the Zionist
movement, “built upon the sands,” had no practical value. Like other false
messianic movements, Zionism’s failure, Schiff predicted darkly, augured
only mass despair.^58
Another factor, usually overlooked, contributed to Schiff’s hostility.
Since Herzl had fashioned a democratic movement that defended leader-
ship by the people, it became a weapon to be used by American Zionists
against elitist control of the Jewish community. Upholding the right of the
rank and file at least to be heard, they along with others had opposed the
stewards on the direction of the National Committee for Relief of Suffer-
ers by Russian Massacres (NCRSRM) and the formation of the AJC.
While their appeal for democratic governance continued to gain ground,
Schiff grew more restive. As one contemporary journalist noted, “His an-
cestors were hof-juden centuries ago. It is not to be expected that he should
think outside the methods that have come down with that class through the
ages.” One who constantly preached Americanism to his fellow Jews,
Schiff was nonetheless loath to see the application of American democratic
precepts to Jewish communal affairs. To be sure, his rapport with the new
immigrants was too solidly entrenched in prewar America to be breached
seriously by his antinationalism. Zvi Hirsch Masliansky, the popular Yid-
dish lecturer and Zionist activist, acknowledged that Schiff was a great man
even though he was not a Zionist. But the days of elitism and paternalism
were numbered. Many of the newly acculturated immigrants who had been
schooled in the multiethnic reality of eastern Europe were flocking to the
In Search of a Refuge 177