Jews to Help Race
The New York Daily Tribune
November 12, 1906
JEWS TO HELP RACE.
Form Big Organization.
Will Protect and Preserve Civil and Religious Rights.
For the protection, the preservation and the extension of the civil and religious rights and privileges of Jews, the American Jewish Committee, composed of prominent members of the race from all parts of the United States, was organized at the Hotel Savoy yesterday.
It is not the purpose of the committee to interfere with the work of any existing institution but the idea is that it shall be a permanent organization representative of all the Jews in the United States, which shall have a surplus fund ready for any sudden call. Such as the Kishineff massacres or the San Francisco disaster. It is believed that a permanent committee of this kind can do much better work than several temporary committees organized from time to time to collect relief funds and for other philanthropic purposes.
One of the ways suggested for the committee to prove helpful is to divert the Jewish immigrants away from this city and to send them to other parts of the United states. It was brought out at the meeting that of the 1,250,000 Jews in the United States nearly 750,000 live in New YorkState, the majority of them in this city. It is believed that other parts of the country offer better advantages to the Jewish immigrant, and this will be pointed out to him in the future by the committee.
The committee of fifty-one, thirty-one of whom were present yesterday, was chosen to represent the Jews in various parts of the country in numerical ratio to the Jewish population in the various districts. The number of committeemen from each district will give an idea of how the Jews are distributed in this country. The committee, which is to be increased to sixty, is as follows:
First District (North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Florida) Moses H. Cone, Greensboro; Montague Trieste, Charleston
Second District (Tennessee, Alabama, Mississippi)Jacques Loeb, Montgomery; Nathan Cohn, Nashville
Third District (Louisiana, Texas, Arizona, New Mexico) Isidore Newman, New Orleans; Isaac H. Kempner, Galveston
Fourth District (Arkansas, Missouri, Kansas, Colorado)Morris M. Cohn, Little Rock; David S. Lehman, Denver; Elias Michael, St. Louis
Fifth District (California, Washington, Oregon, Utah, Idaho, Nevada)Max C. Sloss, San Francisco; Jacob Voorsanger, San Francisco; Sigmud Sichel, Portland
Sixth District (Minnesota, Iowa, Wisconsin, Montana, Wyoming, North Dakota, South Dakota, Nebraska, Michigan) Henry M. Butzel, Detroit; Ambrose Guiterman, St. Paul; Victor Rosewater, Omaha; Max Landauer, Milwaukee
Seventh District (Illinois) Edwin G. Forman, Chicago; Emil G. Hirsch, Chicago; B. Horwich, Chicago; Julian W. Mack, Chicago, Julius Rosenwald, Chicago; Joseph Stolz, Chicago; Samuel Woolner, Peoria
Eighth District (Indiana, Kentucky, Ohio, West Virginia) Louis Newberger, Indianapolis; Isaac W. Bernheim, Louisville; David Philipson, Cincinatti; J. Walter Freiberg, Cincinatti; E.M. Baker, Cleveland
Ninth District (Pennsylvania, New Jersey) Louis Hood, Newark; Isaac W. Frank, Pittsburgh; B.L. Levinthal, Philadelphia; M. Rosenbaum, Philadelphia; Isador Sobel, Erie; Mayer Sulzberger, Philadelphia; A. Leo Weil, Pittsburgh; Benjamin Wolf, Philadelphia; W.M.B. Hackenburg, Philadelphia
Tenth District (Maryland, Virginia, Delaware, District of Columbia) Cyrus Adler, Washington; Harry Friedenwald, Baltimore; Jacob H. Hollander, Baltimore
Eleventh District (Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Rhode Island) Isaac M. Ullman, New Haven; Lee M. Friedman, Boston; Harry Cutler, Providence
Twelfth District (New York) Nathan Bijur, New York; Joseph H. Cohen, New York; Daniel Guggenheim, New York; Leon Kamaiky, New York; Edward Lauterbach, New York; E.W. Lewin-Epstein, New York; Adolph Lewisohn, New York; David H. Lieberman, New York; Morris Loeb, New York; J.L. Magnes, New York; Louis W. Marcus, Buffalo; Louis Marshall, New York; H. Pereira Mendes, New York; Simon W. Rosendale, Albany; Jacob H. Schiff, New York; Isidor Straus, New York; Cyrus L. Sulzberger, New York
The formation of the committee has been the result of the crystallization of the ideas of several well known Jews. The Kishineff massacres, it is said, and the committee that was formed to give aid to the families of the victims of that atrocity were what first started the idea of a permanent committee.
The committee went into session at 6 o’clock in the evening. A constitution was drawn up, of which the following is a paragraph:
The purpose of this committee is to prevent the infringement of the civil and religious rights of Jews and to alleviate the consequences of persecution. In the event of a threatened or an actual denial or invasion of such rights, or when conditions calling for relief from calamities affecting Jews exist anywhere, correspondence may be entered into with those familiar with the situation, with a view to co-operating with them in obtaining relief.
The following officers were chosen: Judge Mayer Sulzberger, of Philadelphia, president: Judge Julian W. Mack, of Chicago, and Isidore Newman, of New Orleans, vice-presidents: Elias Michael, of St. Louis, treasurer: Cyrus Sulzberger, of New York: Dr. Morris Loeb of New York: Henry Cutler, of Providence: E. W. Lewin-Epstein, of New York: Dr. Cyrus Adler, librarian of the Smithsonian Institution, of Washington: the Rev. Dr. Jacob Voorsanger, of San Francisco: Adolph Krauss, of Chicago, and Louis Marshall, of New York, members of the executive committee.
Permanent offices of the committee will be in this city, and Joseph Jacobs will probably be the permanent secretary. The subject of the destruction of the buildings of many religious and philanthropic institutions in San Francisco was brought to the attention of the committee, as a result of which itsfirst aid will be given to help rebuild the synagogues and Jewish educational institutions in that city. It was voted to raise $100,000 for that purpose.
It is figured that there are three hundred thousand adult male Jews in this country who can be asked to contribute $1 each for a permanent fund, and the remainder of such a fund, which it is hoped will reach $1,000,000, will be made up of larger subscriptions on the part of a few. Jacob H. Schiff was unable to be present yesterday, but sent a letter commending the work and expressing his interest in it.