The Maccabaean

THE American Jewish Congress is a movement, and not yet an institution. The thousand and one newspaper articles and editorials written about the Congress have all failed to state clearly all the implications of the agitation which first threw the question into the arena of practical life, and have dwelt almost exclusively upon the direct achievement of the Congress. What will the Congress do for Jewish rights, for Palestine? is asked by the practical men. The illuminating question is, What is the Congress?

The writer recalls the first promoters of the Congress movement. A group of zealots, grappling with an idea which not one of them clearly understood, they tenaciously and persistently kept the idea alive, pushing it into one circle after another, until like a battered football it emerged out of the councils of the Kehillah and the American Jewish Committee and was given place in the deliberations of the Zionist Organization.

The fundamental thought was that the Jews of America had the right and the duty as Jews to govern their affairs. Self-constituted committees or conferences should not usurp the rights which belonged to the whole people. The Jewish interests should not be held in trust by any group of men, no matter how able, by means of holding corporations, which separated the trustees from the people for whom they were acting.

What made it so urgent that the holding companies be dissolved and made powerless was the fear at that time that in the consideration of the Jewish problem when the war came to an end, these trustees, not speaking for the whole Jewish people, would barter away the future of the Jewish race for the sake of some immediate benefit. For the most part, the trustees were anti-nationalists and anti-Zionists, and the great mass of American Jewry felt instinctively that the war was bound to settle the great national problem of the Jewish people.

Like every other political ideal, the Congress movement lost its original color by a chain of compromises, one leading into another, which reduced the Congress to the idea that there should be an assembly of American Jews to articulate the demands of the Jewish people, and then disappear. Reducing the Congress to an assembly with a limited program, in the course of time the leading motive was lost sight of, and every interest was concentrated upon the quality of legislation the Congress would produce. The question of what the Congress was to be in Jewish life became secondary to the program of Jewish rights that would be adopted, and too late came the effort of the radicals to turn against all compromises and agreements and to start afresh from the point of view of the East Side meetings, where the Congress movement was launched.

These radicals were themselves responsible for most of the compromises, the limitations that choked the Congress. They were the first to abandon the position taken by Mr. Brandeis in his illuminating discussion with Dr. Cyrus Adler. They were the ones to insist that the Congress devote itself to the question of rights, and eventually they were the most eager to obliterate the features of the Congress that resembled the ideal picture which was in the minds of those who set the ball rolling.

Now, in discussing the American Jewish Congress—the

series of meetings that were held in Philadelphia last month, —-every one is told that the success of the Congress was due to the adoption of resolutions that placed American Jewry without doubt in favor of national rights and the establishment of a Jewish homeland in Palestine. The great struggle that preceded the opening session is lost sight of, and what we are called upon to take notice of is the Polish resolution and the Palestine resolution.

As a convention, the American Jewish Congress was a success. It produced resolutions that satisfy every Jew who believes in a Jewish future. Its deliberations were orderly and it acted with fair intelligence. The delegates felt the serious responsibility that had been placed upon them, and acted like true Jews. A high level of discussion was maintained, with only occasional lapses, which were pardonable. Everyone felt that the Congress was acting as one of the many national assemblies, whose decisions would have to come before the Peace Conference for final ratification.

The finest piece of work produced by the Congress was undoubtedly the resolution introduced by Mr. Marshall's committee. This resolution—the result of three days' labor on the part of a committee of fifty-two men, the best men in the Congress—was worthy of a parliament. It was a bit of constructive legislation and gave a hint of the possibilities for constructive work in a Congress that would meet regularly and take care of Jewish interests with a feeling of continuous responsibility. Another resolution was that approving of placing Palestine under the trusteeship of Great Britain with a view to enabling the Jewish people to establish a Jewish Commonwealth. The compactness and clearness of this resolution deserves commendation.

On account of this Palestine resolution, a controversy has arisen, which is being used to undermine the authority of the Congress deliberations. It is said that the resolution’ was introduced by the Zionists, who failed to inform the Congress of a cablegram received from Dr. Weizmann, in which he expressed opinions contradictory of the resolution. It is claimed that Dr. Weizmann did not ask for a Jewish commonwealth or state, and did not want to have Palestine placed under the jurisdiction of the Zionist Organization, but that the Zionists in the Congress failed to give this information to the delegates. The argument that the Zionists have abandoned the position taken by them in the Basle Platform, that Dr. Weizmann has abandoned it or that the English Zionists have beaten a retreat, is unfounded and manufactured out of whole cloth. It is typical of the inability to understand political action, which has been characteristic of the whole anti-Zionist propaganda.

The Zionist Organization is as one in support of the British Declaration, which states in principle what Great Britain hopes to achieve for the Jewish people, with their co-operation. The resolution of the American Jewish Congress goes one step further and attempts to define how the Jewish national home is to be established. There should be created a trusteeship under Great Britain and under that trusteeship there shall be established “such political, administrative and economic conditions in Palestine as will assure the development of Palestine into a Jewish commonwealth.” This indicates how the Jewish commonwealth is to be brought to life. We know of no responsible Zionist leader who be-