more complicated. In the pre-Emancipation communities where Schiff’s
ancestors had won renown as scholars and communal authorities, firm
boundaries set off the Jews from their Christian countrymen. In everyday
life the Jew and the Christian moved in separate orbits that rarely inter-
sected. Ghetto Jews lived largely according to Jewish law; short of outright
conversion they could not even dream of unconditional Christian accep-
tance. Emancipation changed the rules by incorporating the Jews into the
body politic. Old boundaries grew blurred, but Jews remained a distinct
minority in a Christian society. Still not fully equal, even in the United
States, they were confronted by vestiges of Christianity that were legally
recognized (e.g., Sunday laws, religious teachings in the public schools)
and by pervasive social discrimination. Both within society and yet outside
society, American Jews were forced time and again to come to grips with an
ambiguous situation. How were they to react to the majority religion? How
much Jewishness were they prepared to renounce in exchange for full
equality? Concerned Jewish leaders like Schiff recognized the problem.
Consciously or unconsciously, they offered guidance by their public actions
and personal conduct as to how the group could best achieve the continuity
of Jewish identity even as it fought the barriers to complete integration.
Although Schiff boasted of close friendships with Christians in both the
business and social worlds, he was ever conscious of a deep and immutable
religious barrier. To him, Christianity was “the other side.” He professed
genuine respect for Christianity and a fondness for Christians who lived up
to its precepts. “I only wish,” he candidly remarked to urban reformer Jacob
Riis, that “some of my friends would be better Christians than they are.”
But he had no inhibitions about questioning the triumphal march of Chris-
tianity. Russian pogroms in the twentieth century were “horrifying,” a sad
commentary on the behavior of a Christian state. The outbreak of World
War I evoked greater criticism: “With all my respect for every religion, I am
afraid Christianity, if it after two thousand years has not been able to bring
forth anything better than the conditions as they now exist, is bankrupt.”^18
Whatever their religious shortcomings, Schiff expected Christians to
respect his faith. He claimed to understand the Christian doctrine of mis-
sion to the Jews, but in fact he resented missionizing, especially if done
underhandedly or if targeted at unsuspecting children. For that reason he
secretly underwrote antimissionary activity and supported the Hebrew
Free School Association, established in 1864 to counteract the conversion-
ary efforts of the free Christian mission schools. He worried too lest Jews
in public institutions—hospitals, the armed forces, prisons, and juvenile re-
formatories—without recourse to rabbinical support, fall under Christian
influences. It was a hilul hashem(literally, a desecration of the Lord’s name),
48 Jacob H. Schiff