he said, that Blackwell’s Island (where New York sent the incurably ill) had
no Jewish chaplain. Since missionaries actively plied their trade among
new immigrants, he offered to pay the salary of a chaplain for New York’s
port of entry, Castle Garden.^19
Nor did Schiff condone Jewish attendance at Christian religious exer-
cises in the public schools. It was inappropriate to inject religious holidays
into the schools; both Christian and Jewish festivals belonged in the home.
When the banker considered enrolling his son at Groton, the prestigious
Episcopal boarding school, he asked up front that the boy be excused from
religious exercises and instruction. He explained to the headmaster, the
Reverend Endicott Peabody, that “my boy would either become an Episco-
palian, a doubter or a hypocrite, and since he has been born in the Hebrew
faith, I shall want him to revere and remain in the religion of his ances-
tors.” Because Peabody made no exception, he and Schiff agreed that Gro-
ton was not the place for Morti. The banker’s support of Jewish attempts in
1906 to rid New York’s public schools of Christmas celebrations aroused
criticism. Jacob Riis once warned: “I have just written to Mr. Schiff... ask-
ing him to call off the Jews who are meddling with Xmas [sic] in the public
schools warning them that thatwas bad.... The Jews must not question it.
If they do, they will precipitate trouble they will be sorry for.”^20
Schiff endorsed Jewish-Christian cooperation on matters of philan-
thropy and social reform, but he vehemently rejected any form of religious
syncretism. Joint worship was wrong because the time had still not arrived
for union on a common religious platform. “The distant future may bring
even this,... but as long as Christianity means to a large number of our co-
religionists oppression and prejudice, if not persecution, the Kingdom of
God has not arrived on earth, nor has the brotherhood of man become an
actuality.” Accordingly, he broke with Rabbi Stephen Wise over the intro-
duction of interfaith services at the Free Synagogue. Seeking to guard Jew-
ish worship against any Christian influence, Schiff objected to synagogue
or church choirs that employed singers of the opposite faith and even to
the use of a Christian architect for building a synagogue.^21
Particularly distasteful to the banker was the Society for Ethical Cul-
ture, whose largely Jewish membership purposefully rejected a transcen-
dent Judaism in favor of union with likeminded Christians. He contributed
to the society out of an appreciation for the social welfare activities of its
founder, Felix Adler, but Schiff and other Jewish leaders denounced Adler’s
break from religion. All of Judaism was an “Ethical Movement,” Schiff
said, and the society could teach nothing that the Jewish religion hadn’t al-
ready taught. The banker regretted that Adler’s “great qualities have been
lost to the Race and Faith we have both sprung from,” and he confidently
predicted that Judaism would outlive any free-floating ethical system di-
vorced from a belief in God.^22
Leadership and Philanthropy 49