Jews. When Magnes retorted that his own sympathies lay with the Bolshe-
viks, his barefaced contradiction of Schiff, the man who was “Mr. Commit-
tee,” could not be tolerated. The rabbi had no choice but immediate resig-
nation. Militant pacifism on the Lower East Side gradually faded in 1918,
but it left scars on the community and on the elitist circle.^53
Jewish pacifism took on an international dimension after the overthrow of
the czar in March 1917. The issue concerned the Allied war effort: Would
Russia end its fighting and negotiate a separate peace with Germany? The
question troubled all friends of the Allies, including the United States, but
it assumed a different meaning with respect to the Jews. Schiff expected the
Jews in Russia to be blamed for the peace campaign, and indeed the En-
glish and French so charged (on the theory that Germany had engineered
the Russian Revolution and that the Jews sympathized with Germany).
The implications were grave: first, that Jewish wartime loyalty in any coun-
try was questionable and, second, that the bulk of Russian Jews had cast
their lot with the militant peace party, the Bolsheviks. The image of the
Jew as revolutionary Bolshevik rapidly gained worldwide credence and
added grist to anti-Semitic mills.^54
Fearing dire consequences, the AJC expressed its alarm to Russian Jews
over a “disastrous” separate peace that could lead to the return of autocracy
and the further degradation of Jews. The organization promised Paul Mi-
liukov, foreign minister of the Provisional Government, that it would
cooperate with its fellow Jews in support of the new government’s contin-
ued role in the war. Although some Jews on New York’s Lower East Side
sympathized with the idea of an immediate peace, Schiff and Marshall in-
sisted publicly that American Jews were unanimously opposed. Other
prominent American Jews pleaded directly with friends in Russia for Jew-
ish support of the new government. Miliukov in turn vigorously denied
that Russian Jews favored a separate peace; so did Baron Adolphe de
Guenzberg, as well as an investigative report commissioned by Louis Mar-
shall. But so serious was the charge that the Alliance Israélite Universelle
suggested that an international Jewish delegation visit Russia and influence
Russian Jews to stand with the government.^55
The peace issue doubtless contributed to the AJC’s efforts to secure a
Jewish appointment to the government’s goodwill mission to Russia. Led
by Elihu Root, the delegation aimed at keeping the Provisional Govern-
ment firmly on the Allied side. The AJC believed that a Jewish presence
would lift the morale of Russian Jewry and improve its image. Neverthe-
less, despite pressure by Schiff and his associates, no Jew was included.
Root himself was considered unsympathetic to Jews, and the administra-
tion was afraid to “overplay” the Jewish element.^56
The World at War 207