The Maccabaean

PLANS are being formulated for the holding of elections for new delegates to the American Jewish Congress, according to an announcement by the Provisional Committee charged with the task of organizing the American Jewish Congress. This recalls the first general Jewish elections which were ever held in this country and the wonderful response of the Jewish masses to the cause of democracy in Jewish life.

Three years have passed since these elections took place. Two sessions of the Congress had been held; the Congress had been adjourned sine die, and a committee had been created to found the permanent American Jewish Congress. It is for this permanent Congress, which is to be the mouthpiece of American Jewry, that new elections will be held.

The fact cannot be denied that interest in the Congress has waned. The most ardent friends of the Congress cannot truthfully maintain that the enthusiasm which had been manifested for the idea of a democratic Jewish Congress three years ago still exists. Postponements, delays, natural handicaps due to ill-advised agreements, have served to estrange the Jewish masses from the Congress, despite the good work which the delegation of the Congress has done at the Peace Conference.

This apparent absence of sentiment for the Jewish Congress does not mean, however, that the need for it has ceased to exist. On the contrary, the need has become more acute. Public Jewish affairs are still being administered in the same disorganized, irresponsible manner. The compactness and organized effort which was put forth during the war has disappeared. Nor is the democracy which the Congress had sought to attain an accomplished fact. The old self-constituted agencies have not only not been superseded, but are flourishing like bad weeds. Moreover, the changes brought about by the war in the status of the Jewish people make the Jewish Congress an indispensable institution. The building of Palestine, constructive relief, the World Jewish Congress, make it imperative for American Jewry to have an organization to speak in its behalf.

It is, therefore, a serious problem how to reawaken the interest of the Jewish masses in the Congress, or rather how to bring the latent interest to the surface.

This, of course, assumes that interest in the Congress exists. The assumption is correct, if the manifestations of American Jews at various times in the past three years are to be taken as indicative of their feelings toward the Congress. In the nature of things, however, even a popular movement does not continually float on the waves of popular sentiment. At times it must be stimulated from within by the few who are conscious to a greater degree of its importance. Whether or not, therefore, the Congress will become the kind of permanent American Jewish Congress which the Philadelphia Conference set out to establish, depends solely upon the Provisional Committee which has this business in hand. That Committee accepted its task with full knowledge of the difficulties involved and with the light of past experience to guide it.

Consequently, friends of the Congress will look to the Provisional Committee for the establishment of the Congress

and will not accept as valid the excuse that the Jewish masses are slow to respond.

It cannot be said that the Provisional Committee had gone about its work in an altogether satisfactory manner. From the very first, in the selection of executive officers, politics found expression, despite the grave assurances to the contrary. The first official act of the Committee will not inspire confidence in its wisdom. In accordance with instructions from the Philadelphia Conference, the Committee was to select a delegation to represent the American Jewish Congress at the International Relief Conference. The personnel of the delegation thus selected was anything but complimentary to American Jewry, and it is rather questionable whether the Jews abroad were impressed with either the standing or the sagacity of the delegation.

In the two months of its existence the Provisional Committee has done little to stimulate the popularity of the Congress. The reason for this may be found not in the hot summer months nor in the absence of many leading members of the Committee, but in the pursuance of a wrong course and an imperfect policy.

In many ways it would have been desirable had the Committee not had any contact whatsoever with the old Congress. The old Congress was an abnormal creature. It was bound and gagged. The notorious agreement was a millstone around its neck, and the various persons who reluctantly joined the Congress retarded its growth and checked its influence. Working under such conditions for a period of years, it was inevitable that the traditions it developed were unhealthy and its psychology false.

Perhaps it was the conditions brought about by the war and the desire of American Jews to render most effective aid to the distressed Jews abroad which turned the old Congress into a mere American agency for dealing with Jewish problems abroad. It did not in any way seek to deal with Jewish problems in America. It was far from the minds of some of the leaders of the old Congress to permit the Congress to meddle in American Jewish affairs and thereby dig the grave for their own pet organizations.

There is grave danger in the Committee falling heir to the traditions and the psychology of the old Congress. That Congress which by the mere mention of Zionism forecasted the bolting of this man, or by any positive action on any vital American Jewish problem threatened the withdrawal of support from this or that organization, is dead. The Congress which is in the process of formation is not bound by any agreements, but is free to do and to say anything which will promote the welfare of the Jewish people.

Nor is that Congress to be merely a Congress of American Jews for European affairs. It is to be an American Jewish Congress in the full sense of the term, with emphasis on the American scope of its activity. Hence, the Committee would do well to alter the method of propaganda employed by the old Congress. Reams of dry accounts of what the Committee of Jewish Delegations is doing or intends to do, by way of reflecting glory upon the old Congress, will make few hearts flutter with enthusiasm for the American Jewish Congress. On the other hand, American Jewry will respond to an appeal to build up (Continued on page 94)