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The Southern Israelite
Cgreetings
for the
Nezv Year
from
*♦*
CARLT ON H.
TORBETT
JOSEPH L.
Columbus, Ga.
G & H
Paint and Glass
Company
♦
Paints, Brushes, Glass, Wall
paper, Builders’ Supplies
♦
Two Phones 1516
1016 Broad Street
COLUMBUS, GA.
Philips Dry
Cleaning Company
Cleaners and Dyers
2314 Wynnton Drive
COLUMBUS, GA.
Meet The American Jew
A Potpourri of Facts and Figures From Which You May Draw Your Own Concii 0lr
By S. A. SCHREIBER
According to the latest available sta
tistics, there are in the United States of
America 4,228,029 Jews scattered over
9,712 communities. At the time of the
Revolutionary War there were less than
3,000 of them. Biblical Palestine at its
best counted less than four million within
its borders. Now the world’s Jewish
population is set at 15,324,515. There are
150,000 Jews in the Holy Land, where
they are confronted with 650,000 Arabs.
Brooklyn, the City of Churches, now has
the largest population of Jews in any
section. There are 1,835,000 residents of
the borough famed for its churches and
Henry Ward Beecher. North Dakota
has the fewest of any State, a meagre
305 of the chosen people.
In the year that Columbus discovered
America the Jews were expelled from
Spain. Some of the exiles were with the
Admiral when his ships sighted land on
the fateful day of October 12. Nine Jews
were among the Philadelphia merchants
signing a protest against the stamp act
(1765). Others fought in the war that
wrestled a nation from England—on both
sides of the conflict. There were Tory
fighters at) well as Revolutionary heroes.
The Jew had become an integral part of
the life in the New World.
Lest you forget, Haym Solomon, a
pawnbroker of New York City advanced
his personal fortune to the cause of the
colonists. Historians credit him with be
ing the financier of the Revolution.
Alexander Hamilton, who established the
financial independence of the new country,
was the son, persistent rumor had it, of a
Jewish mother.
Three waves of Israelite immigrants
came to these shores: Portuguese and
Spanish Refugees, German Jews (after
the fiasco of 1848) and the tremendous
tidal wave of immigration from Eastern
Europe after the savage progroms of the
late nineties. Between 1881 and 1928,
2,302,378 arrived, mainly through Ellis
Island. Before that time, in 1877, a
United States Census counted 220,087.
In colonial times Jewish pioneers set
tled as tobacco planters in the South.
Others trekked to the West as peddlers
and merchants; some went to California
in the gold rush. Of the six men of that
race who sat in the Senate three were
from the South, the rest were from the
far West. In all 50 Jews were elected
to Congress, although the religious quali
fications were not removed from the
States until many years after the Revo
lution. Eight are members of the present
lower House.
Jews were members of the Ku Klux
Klan. Judah P. Benjamin was the brains
of the confederacy, first as Secretary of
War and then as Secretary of State. A
Jew, Simon Bamberger, was the only
Jewish Governor of the State of Utah.
Now the highest State official is Herbert
II. Lehman, Lieutenant Governor of New
York State. Louis 1). Brandeis is Asso
ciate Justice of the Supreme Court;
Benjamin N. Cardozo is Chief Judge of
the New York Court of Appeals, both
rank high for their concepts of justice.
The Kremlin on Red Square, Moscozv
There was only one Jewish Calm
her, but several ambassadors a
ters, among the first of whom v
decai Manual Noah, a unique character
who was, in his day, America's
editor, politician, writer and a
of the Sanhedrin convened by Napoleon
the Great. He once dedicated a
upper New York State as a city
for Jews the world over, prepar;
leading them to Palestine. 11. believed,
as did many others, that the Indians were
the descendants of the ten lost tribes.
There have been Jewish mayors here
and there.
Despite the myth of solidarity there
are more factions among Jews than can
be found in any other group of corres
ponding size. There are the La-tern
Western Jews, Reform, Conservative.
Orthodox and Agnostics, Zionists.
Zionists, Nationalists, Assimilationist-,
Yiddish and Hebraists, a vast amalgan
tion of opinions and parties. The fir-t
synagogue in America was the Shearith
Israel Congregation, established ii
York in 1654.
There is no central authority for or
daining rabbis. But there are five national
associations of rabbis with 1,090 members.
There are five theological seminaries and
one Jewish university, Dropsie College in
Philadelphia. There are six Jewish libra
ries in the United States containing
228,000 txioks and 8.5(H) Manuscript- of
Judaica. This besides the Semitics lb
vision in the Library of Congre-s and
the Jewish Division in the Astor Library
of New York.
The current expenditures of tlu con
gregations totaled $33,391,295 the year
The value of synagogue building
$155,744,668 in 1928, with more beiig
added. Temple Emanu-El, of New Wk.
is the biggest of the temples. 1 here are
mergers taking place among synagogue-
regularly. During the high holiday
son, new temporary synagogues arc uti
lized to care for those to whom religion
comes just that one season in the >
There is a movement known as Jew
Science.
The Jewish interest in the busim-
activities of the community are main
fold: The skyline of New Wrk i- tin
creation of the Chanins. A. E. Let cm
Louis Adler, Louis J. Horowitz. Frederic!
Brown, Bejamin Winter, S. W
the Tishmans, Henry Mandell.
Nathanson, G. Richard Davis. 2
Brickner, Benjamin Benenson, I
Uris and many others: Macy s. 11
Saks, Stewart. Arnold Constable,
Brothers, Russeks, Franklin
Altman, L. Bamberger & Co.. 1
Filenes, Abraham and Straus. I ">
Loeser and others. I he clothing^
is preponderantly Jewish. >'
are: Warner Brothers, Ad"h
William Fox, Carl Laenunle an
Many of the new banking e>t.*
are backed by Jews. Among
known capitalists are: Otto H
Guggenheims, the Lewisohns, tin
the Warburgs, the Schiffs, tin