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next
hundred
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A PROPHECY
by BAH NETT R. BRICKNER
The Tercentenary celebration which has occupied the atten
tion of the American Jewish community throughout the past
year is now over. It is only natural that we should turn our
thoughts tx) the future and speculate on what lies ahead for the
Jewish community in the next—the fourth century.
When we Jews came to these shores in 1654. we promised
Peter Stuyvesant that we would always take care of our own
poor. We have not only kept that promise in the United States
but all over the world. In fact, philanthropy has been our ma
jor concern. It has cost over three hundred million dollars a
year to take care of the vast Jewish network of local, national
and overseas relief; to help with the establishment of the Jew
ish State of Israel; to defend ourselves against anti-Semitism;
to cover our religious needs. In the last seven years this has
mounted to over one billion dollars, exclusive of money which
Jews have contributed to the general Community Chests. It has
been estimated that the average Jew gives about six times as
much to charity as the average non-Jew. This generosity does
not mean that Jews are richer than other people, but that tra
dition has conditioned them with a stronger sense of social re
sponsibility and a keener emotional response to human needs
And certainly these needs have been world-shaking in the last
two decades.
Now that the needs of Jewish life are changing — philan
thropy need not play so important a role. The reasons are
many. First, immigration, the largest single factor in our phil-
42
anthropic program, has virtually ceased. Jews now establishec
here have become self-supporting. Secondly, the governmen-
with its vast program of social security “from the cradle to th<
grave,” is easing the burden on private philanthropy. In th>
third place, Europe has become virtually judenrein; Hitler an.
the war took care of that. There remains only Israel and th
tragic plight of the eight hundred thousand Jews in North A:
rica, many of whom will eventually be resettled in Israel.
Despite the present tensions, I believe the Arab world wii.
come to appreciate that the Jews are peace-loving, not bellig
erent and that they are in Israel to stay, as guaranteed unde,
the U.N. Charter; that they do not mean to expand their pres
ent frontiers, nor will they permit their contraction; that the\
are a tremendous asset for democracy and economic improve
ment; that Jews and Arabs are of the same race; that Israel
does not want to be an island in an Arab sea, but integrated
into the Near East; in other words, that Arabs and Jew's need
each other. This most Arab leaders know, but for reasons of
“saving face" are not yet prepared to acknowledge. Ultimately,
then, a viable, durable peace is inevitable.
Israel, still an infant state, will need our nursing for many
years to come. It is remarkable how much has already been
accomplished with so little. Nothing like it has ever been
achieved in history. I believe Israel is destined to grow into
a community of two to three million self-sustaining Jews,
who will make their contribution to Jewish life and to man
kind.
One hundred years from now, I believe, there will be two
great Jewish centers in the world — America and Israel; Ameri
ca, predominantly a religious center, and Israel, a sovereign
nation with a peculiar destiny which God alone has in store
for her, to be a light unto the nations — an or lagoyim.
Short of world war and Arab-Israeli war, both of w'hich 1
do not believe will come to pass. American Jewry will become
more homogeneous. It will have the opportunity to look inward,
to appraise itself, and to realize that its future will be that
of a religious community. I say religious, and not theological,
advisedly, for traditionally Judaism has always encompassed
the whole life.
The vast number of synagogues, temples, schools, and com
munity centers being erected today are an indication of this
trend. In the framework of religion, the Jew can express what
is highest and finest in his being and make his greatest spiritual
contribution to America. This Jewish return to religion comes
at a time when there is a resurgence of faith among all free
people, and 1 believe that Jews will be in the vanguard of
those leading humanity back to God.
God started a new experiment on this continent, and the
Jews fitted His pattern. St. John Crevecoeur, living in George
Washington's time wrote prophetically in his letters to an
American Farmer: “Here individuals of all nations are melted
into a new race of men.” And here I foresee out of the Jewish
melting pot a new American Jew arising. In his veins runs
the blood of all the Jews who settled here — Spanish and
English and German and Dutch and Russian and Polish. His
children and grandchildren and great-grandchilden will have
none of the ghetto characteristics of their forefathers. They
will be tall and broad-shouldered, even blond, keen of mind,
and what more is important, emotionally secure. They will
not be afraid or ashamed of being Jews, for they will be
deeply rooted in America. This is the land for which their
fathers died. And these new American Jews will have a hunger
to know more about their religion and to transmit it to them
children. I look for American Jewry to develop a Golden Age
of learning and religious culture that should outstrip even that
ot Babylon and Spain. No soil has ever been so favorable a-<
America for this purpose. Here we have a tradition of sympathy
and understanding for religious differences that has never been
known in the world before.
I foresee the emergence of a new Judaism — an American
Judaism, which will not be Orthodox, Conservative, or Reform
The Southern Israelite