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No. 35. — Vienna, 29 August 1902. — 6th Year

The General Austrian-Israelite Union.

The Jewish dignitaries of the congregations of Austria and Germany to-day were, thirty years ago, the orators of the evening at German-national student banquets. They cannot get over the political nursery of their youth, in which the nose was still a matter of no consequence. Now that they have been shown the door, and gasp in vain for the air of liberty in our congregational chambers, they are still angry with the naughty boys by whom they were chased out of the nursery. In their rage they strike at the boys with office paper full of protests and manifestations of indignation, and hope to get the room clean again. But the enemies merely laugh.

Here we have an "Austrian Israelite Union." Most of the congregations of the Monarchy are its members. Its programme is contained in the following key sentence of its present annual report: "At a time when, unhappily, every conceivable pretext is so frequently dragged forward in order to attack us in our institutions, our religious usages, our views and our sentiments — in short, in our community as a whole — we are to be afforded the possibility of reacting against this in the name of the community as a whole, in such a manner as, in the nature of things, is denied to a single congregation or to individual persons."

We applaud the programme. The Union, accordingly, stands guard before our religion. We are not, indeed, aware that our religion is for the present facing great dangers; but it is better to put out little fires than big ones. But the attacks upon the community as a whole — these must surely keep the Union's hands full! There is the economic exclusion of the Jews and their steady impoverishment. There is the appearance of multitudes of unemployed and hungry. There is the degradation of the Jews to an inferior caste, their exclusion from public offices, their overburdening with taxes, their treatment at the hands of the authorities.

What has the Union done against all this? We give the contents of its report in brief:

It has granted advice and assistance to individuals. It has deliberated upon the functions of the courts of arbitration in matters of the congregational tax. It has advised Galician congregations how they might secure the observance of the Sabbath rest for themselves in the courts. It has stood at the side of the father Araten, and in similar cases has sometimes had success. It has obtained for a rabbi a dispensation from the leaving examination. It has presented to the King of Roumania a memorandum on the Jews. It has published a Czech book against the blood superstition. It has reported anti-Jewish articles to the Public Prosecutor. It wished that the Jewish cemetery of Prague should not be demolished. It has provided counsel for the defence in charges of ritual murder. It has obtained for a Galician congregation the promise that it should receive a Baron Hirsch school. It has appointed advocates for civil cases. It has sought to procure subsidies for several congregations. It has admonished quarrelling congregations to keep the peace.

But that is all. We ask: Where is the community as a whole? We mean, a sober, effective help for it? The following now have paper for kindling: the King of Roumania — the Artisans' Law was passed by the Chambers after all; the Chief Public Prosecutor — nothing of the poison press was confiscated; the Administrative Court — the Prague cemetery was demolished; the booksellers of Prague — nobody has bought from them the book against ritual murder. Is it worthy of the Union of almost all the congregations to carry on the business of the blissfully slumbering Society for Defence against Antisemitism, or the business of a Jewish legal-aid bureau, which indeed already exists in Vienna and has proved itself within its sphere? Is it worthy of the most powerful Jewish union in Austria to abandon the Jewish masses of Galicia and Vienna to hopeless misery? Does the Union not know that the Jewish middle class in the country districts of Austria is hastening towards swift ruin?

With its present system the Union is not equal to its real tasks. Its system leads to the Ministries, and there to polite promises in return for gross violations of Jewish rights. Its system is a helpless reformatory for those who have already proved themselves as rowdy antisemites. The system shuts the gate when the cow is already out; something must first have happened to the Jews, and only then does it develop its activity. The question of relieving the economic misery of the Jews, the everlasting Jewish distress, finds no room in the deliberations of the Union. A policy for the community as a whole would surely have to concern itself with a policy for the greatest part of it, that is, the