Thirty-Seventh Year the Jewish Publication Society
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REPORT OF THE THIRTY-SEVENTH YEAR OF THE JEWISH PUBLICATION SOCIETY OF AMERICA 1924-1925 THE JEWISH PUBLICATION SOCIETY OF AMERICA OFFICERS PRESIDENT SIMON MILLER, Philadelphia FIRST VICE-PRESIDENT ADOLPH S. OCHS SECOND VICE-PRESIDENT HORACE STERN, Philadelphia TREASURER HENRY FERNBERGER, Philadelphia SECRETARY I. GEORGE DOBSEVAGE, Philadelphia EDITOR DR. ISAAC HUSIK, Philadelphia TRUSTEES DR. CYRUS ADLER 1 Philadelphia 3 SOLOMON BACHARACH Philadelphia JAMES BECKER2 Chicago HART BLUMENTHAL 3 Philadelphia LEO M. BROWN 3 Mobile JOSIAH COHEN3 Pittsburgh 1 ABRAM I. ELKUS New York HENRY FERNBERGER2 Philadelphia 1 LIONEL FRIEDMANN Philadelphia JOSEPH H. HAGEDORN2 Philadelphia REV. DR. NATHAN KRASS2 New York S. CHARLES LAMPORT2 New York EPHRAIM LEDERER ' Philadelphia FELIX H. LEVY3 New York 1 Term expires in 1926. * Term expires in 1927. • Term expires in 1928. 484 AMERICAN JEWISH YEAR BOOK HOWARD S. LEVY ' Philadelphia WILLIAM M. LEWIS ' ; Philadelphia REV. DR. LOUIS L. MANN 2 Chicago 3 ALPHONSE B. MILLER Philadelphia NATHAN J. MILLER2 New York SIMON MILLER3 Philadelphia 3 ADOLPH S. OCHS New York PHILIP B. PERLMAN 3 Baltimore DR. A. S. W. ROSENBACH3 Philadelphia 3 SOL. ROSENBLOOM Pittsburgh 1 LESSING ROSENWALD Philadelphia JACOB RUBEL 1 Philadelphia RABBI ABBA HILLEL SILVER3 Cleveland 3 HORACE STERN Philadelphia SELIGMAN J. STRAUSS2 Wilkes-Barre 2 CYRUS L. SULZBERGER New York LUDWIG VOGELSTEIN2 New York A. LEO WEIL l Pittsburgh 1 JULIUS S. WEYL Philadelphia EDWIN WOLF 1 Philadelphia HONORARY VICE-PRESIDENTS l ISAAC W. BERNHEIM Louisville REV. DR. HENRY COHEN 2 Galveston Louis K. GUTMAN ' Baltimore REV. DR. MAX HELLER3 New Orleans S. W. JACOBS 2 Montreal 2 Louis E. KIRSTEIN Boston JULIAN W. MACK2 New York SIMON W. ROSENDALE3 Albany MURRAY SEASONGOOD J Cincinnati M. C. SLOSS 1 San Francisco SIGMUND B. SONNEBORN 3 Baltimore REV. DR. JOSEPH STOLZ l Chicago PUBLICATION COMMITTEE DR. CYRUS ADLER, Chairman Philadelphia DR. DAVID S. BLONDHEIM Baltimore DR. S. SOLIS COHEN Philadelphia REV. DR. H. G. ENELOW New York RABBI HARRY ETTELSON Memphis DR. HERBERT FRIEDENWALD Washington FELIX N. GERSON Philadelphia DR. ISAAC HUSIK Philadelphia 'Term expire* in 1926. * Term expire* in 1927. ' Term expire* in 1928. JEWISH PUBLICATION SOCIETY 485 RABBI MAX KLEIN Philadelphia REV. DR. JACOB KOHN New York DR. MAX L. MARGOLIS ,. Philadelphia DR. ALEXANDER MARX New York LEON S. MOISSEIFF New York REV. DR. JULIAN MORGENSTERN Cincinnati REV. DR. DAVID PHILIPSON Cincinnati DR. A. S. W. ROSENBACH Philadelphia FRANK I. SCHECHTER New York REV. DR. SAMUEL SCHULMAN New York HORACE STERN Philadelphia OSCAR S. STRAUS New York SAMUEL STRAUSS New York HENRIETTA SZOLD New York I. GEORGE DOBSEVAGE, Secretary Philadelphia JEWISH CLASSICS COMMITTEE DR. CYRUS ADLER, Chairman Philadelphia DR. SOLOMON SOLIS COHEN Philadelphia DR. ISRAEL DAVIDSON i New York REV. DR. H. G. ENELOW New York DR. LOUIS GINZBERG New York REV. DR. KAUFMAN KOHLER New York DR. JACOB Z. LAUTERBACH Cincinnati DR. HENRY MALTER Philadelphia DR. ALEXANDER MARX New York REV. DR. F. DE SOLA MENDES New York REV. DR. DAVID PHILIPSON Cincinnati REV. DR. SAMUEL SCHULMAN New York I. GEORGE DOBSEVAGE, Secretary Philadelphia THE ANNUAL MEETING OF THE JEWISH PUBLICATION SOCIETY OF AMERICA The Annual Meeting of the Jewish Publication Society of America was held on Sunday evening, March 22, 1925, at the Carnegie Music Hall, Pittsburgh, Pa. The Honorable Josiah Cohen, of Pittsburgh, presided, while Mr. I. George Dobsevage, of Philadelphia, acted as Secretary. Judge Cohen sounded the keynote of the society's aim— namely, to place in every Jewish home a copy of the new English translation of the Bible, which has been prepared by the foremost Jewish scholars of America. The President of the Society, Mr. Simon Miller, in submitting the report of the Board of Trustees, touched upon the importance of making available in English the literature calculated to educate the Jew to a better knowledge of his history, religion and ethics, so that he may become self-respecting and in this way secure the respect of his non-Jewish neighbor. THE PRESIDENT'S REPORT We are gathered here to report the results of our stewardship for the year ending February 28th, 1925, which marks the completion of the thirty-seventh year of the activities of the Society. This occasion also marks the beginning of what we hope may be continued, namely, that our annual meetings may be held from time to time in other towns than the home city Philadelphia. For purposes of experiment we selected Pittsburgh because your city has always responded gen- erously to our appeals, and we have reason to hope that the success which will attend this meeting, and the deliberations JEWISH PUBLICATION SOCIETY 487 of your honorable committee which is sponsoring this meeting may result so favorably for the Society that other communities will follow in your footsteps. We are not political prophets though our business is to publish the works of our prophets, and yet we feel sure that speaking Jewishly we might say that as Pittsburgh goes, so will go the rest of the country. It might be well to state briefly the aims of the Society. The Jewish Publication Society of America was organized in 1888 for the purpose of publishing and disseminating in English the best available literature of Jewish interest. The Society is strictly an educational and not a commercial institution. Its primary object is to publish books so that the Jewish people of America should not stand solitary and alone, among all the sects inhabiting the land, without a literature to unite them. Our Society recognizes all shades of Judaism. Avoid- ing all narrowness, the Society has succeeded in perhaps a greater degree than any other organization that was ever started among the Jews of the United States, in welding into one body Jews whose interpretation of Judaism dif- fered most widely, and yet consciously or subconsciously who recognized that in some way, somehow, they are related to each other by a common tradition. Moreover, as the Jews are a minority people it becomes a duty not only to avoid being misunderstood, but to secure a patient hearing and a fair judgment. But to understand ourselves is the first and most important problem. If we would inspire our youth to helpful partisanship in our cause, they must learn that we are the bearers of something worth preserving; that we have done, and do still, great work for mankind. The Society aims to instruct the Jew 488 AMERICAN JEWISH YEAR BOOK in his history, literature and tradition so as to produce a cultured Jewry and a sympathetic public. As an indication of what we have accomplished in this direction, our one hundred and twenty titles, of which about two million copies have been distributed among our members and to the public generally, speak for themselves. It is not the intention to recite to you our catalogue, yet mention must be made of the writings of Abrahams, Ahad Ha'am, Davidson, Nina Davis Salaman, Dembitz, Dubnow, Ginzberg, Greenstone, Graetz, Halper, Husik, Jacobs, Karpeles, Kohler, Lazarus, Magnus, Malter, Mar- golis, Perez, Philipson, Schechter, Steinberg, Wolfenstein, Yehoash, and Zangwill. Their works cover the general field of Jewish religion, history, literature, life and thought, and constitute more than a five-foot Jewish bookshelf and a library of information of which any people might be proud. This is but an earnest of what we aim to realize. During the past year the Society sent to its members before the Jewish New Year two books, the American Jewish Year Book and Professor Schechter's "Studies in Judaism", Third Series. The American Jewish Year Book, edited by Harry Schneiderman, consists of over 800 pages and includes a mass of very worthwhile and interesting material of a miscellaneous character. It contains the biographies of Mayer Sulzberger, jurist, publicist, scholar and com- munal leader; Simon Wolf, lawyer, communal leader; Rabbi Joseph Krauskopf, founder of the National Farm School and one of the founders of this Society; Doctor Henry Berkowitz, author and initiator of the Jewish Cha- tauqua movement, and Doctor Benzion Halper, scholar, teacher, and editor for the Jewish Publication Society. Aside from these it contains a special article, in realty a JEWISH PUBLICATION SOCIETY 489 book, dealing with "The Yiddish Press—an American Agency", the work of Dr. Mordecai Soltes, of New York City, which gives a vivid and fascinating picture of the r61e of the Yiddish Press in that process of the adjustment of the immigrant to his new environment which has come to be called "Americanization". The most significant and noteworthy events of the previous year are recorded by Doctor Harry S. Linfield, of the Bureau of Jewish Social Research. The Statistics form an important part of the book and are brought up to date, including an abstract of the recent government results in Palestine. The report of the American Jewish Committee, which is printed at the end of the volume, contains statements on subjects of vital importance to the Jews of America, such as the Ku KluxKlan, the so-called "Jewish Vote", immigration and anti-Jewish propaganda. The report of the Society together with that most valuable list containing the membership of the Society completes the volume. This list is of service to every communal worker; it has been aptly called the "Blue Book of American Jewry". In September we also sent to our members "Studies in Judaism" by Professor Schechter. This important work, forming the third of the series of remarkable essays, has been favorably received by our members and friends. The volume covers the full range of Professor Schechter's literary activity from the early years of his life in England to his last days in the New World. It contains a mine of information and fresh ideas, and combines great learning with literary charm.