Early in 1916 the banker was attracted to a program (discussed below)
put forth by Lucien Wolf of the Board of Deputies and the Anglo-Jewish
Association in London that suggested a way of uniting Zionists and non-
Zionists under a pro-Palestine banner. The evidence reveals, therefore,
that Schiff’s growing closeness to the Zionist tenets and his positive think-
ing about ways to cooperate with Zionism had roots that antedated 1917.
The influence of friends on the banker is also apparent. His words, the
words of a cultural Zionist, echoed the teachings of Solomon Schechter. In
1917, Louis Marshall, now publicly sympathetic to cultural Zionism, cred-
ited Schechter’s influence on him, Marshall. Since Schechter and Schiff
had remained good friends despite the 1907 controversy, Schechter may
have reached Schiff also, directly or through Marshall. Still another friend,
Horace Kallen, was the source for the principle of group survival, an ele-
mental component of Zionism, that Schiff defended in 1915. “Group indi-
viduality” according to Kallen, the exponent of cultural pluralism, included
historical and cultural traditions as well as a shared national experience. To
be sure, Schiff’s hyper-Americanism during the war, his constant harping
on Jewish integration and his repudiation of group separatism, indicated
that he still was unsure where to draw the line between American national-
ism and Jewish ethnicity. But he had moved well beyond the “faith” Jew
that he once said he was.^103
More important, it can be argued that a readiness on Schiff’s part to
work with the Zionists owed much to the fight over the American Jewish
Congress. His position in that affair had badly shaken his unquestioned
control of American Jewish affairs, and now he was propelled to recoup his
losses. The episode had taught that support of Zionism by the masses was
virtually ineradicable, particularly when the movement was headed by the
glamorous Brandeis. Unrelieved and ongoing opposition to Zionism by
Schiff, coming on the heels of his addresses in 1916, could significantly
weaken his power. Therefore, in the interest of leadership, he needed to
modify his approach. That line of reasoning was endorsed by Kallen, a
Brandeis follower and a man whom Schiff respected. Leadership had a
price, Kallen once told him: it required public obligations, noblesse oblige,
and the duty to follow popular sentiment even if it clashed with the leader’s
personal opinion. Hence, becoming a shekel-payer, or a dues-paying Zion-
ist, was qualitatively no different from Schiff’s capitulation on the issue of a
congress.^104
Influential Zionists, who eagerly sought an alliance with Schiff in order
to boost their own prestige, appeared more than ready to acknowledge his
importance. Julian Mack’s first act in 1918 as president of the ZOA was to
invite Schiff, along with Marshall and Adler, to pay the shekel. In Palestine,
Zionist lexicographer Eliezer Ben Yehudah called it a misfortune that
Schiff, “one of the noblest sons of Israel,” stood outside the Zionist camp.
226 Jacob H. Schiff