rejuvenation of our homeland, are sweepingly declared to be
"anarchists," while, on the other hand, American Jews who, with
single-hearted devotion, have been the builders of the great Jewish
center in the New World, are contemptuously sneered at as
"assimilationists."

In this mood of distrust and prejudice, American Jewry was overtaken
by the great crisis resulting from the World War, and the disharmony
prevailing between the two factions soon found tangible expression in
the struggle over a Jewish Congress. The two elements of American
Jewry were clearly divided on the issue: the German or native Jews,
represented by leading members of the American Jewish Committee, were
opposed to the calling of a congress, while the Russian or immigrant
Jews, speaking largely through the Zionist organization, clamored for
it.

From what has preceded I believe it may be safely concluded that this
demand for a congress on the one hand, and the opposition to it on the
other, are not rooted in diametrically opposed and deeply implanted
theories of Judaism but are rather the expression of different moods
or temperaments. The immigrant Jews who were directly concerned in the
war, since its horrors affected their homelands and the kin they left
behind, and who were impulsive and sentimental, felt the burning need
of crying out in their despair, and were ready to face the
consequences which might result from this outcry. The native Jews,
whose sympathy with their far-off brethren, profound though it was,
could hardly, in the nature of the case, be more than indirect and
whose accustomed reserve and self-restraint enabled them to judge the
issues more calmly, shrunk from the risks which in their opinion were
implied in an open protest of the Jewish people before the inflamed
public opinion of the non-Jewish world. It is not my intention, nor is
it my function, to render judgment in so momentous an hour on an issue
concerning which Jewish opinion is diametrically yet honestly divided.
But it is necessary to point out that whichever side may be in the
right: serious as may be the dangers of holding a congress or not, the
dangers involved in a split over this question are incalculably more
serious. Such a split may not only result in permanent and perhaps
irreparable injury to the Jewish cause in America and to the Zionist
movement in this country, but may also, by aligning the two sections
of American Jewry against one another, spell nothi