Excerpt from Judæan Addresses, Vol. 2: Selected; 1900-1917

And so the ten years that have passed have not been entirely fruitless. It seems to me - and I have had my moments Of doubt, because the group has not grown very much - it seems to me now - now more than ever, much more than when it came into existence - that there is need for just such a society. It needs no justification. The Jewish population of this town in the last ten years has increased more than in any ten years in the history of the Jewish community Of any city. Twenty-two years ago, when I was engaged in the work Of organizing the Hebrew Technical Institute, which had for its purpose to help in solving part of the problem Of coping with that volume Of im migration which had just begun to pour in, there were about Jews in New York City. Ten years from now there will probably be a million and a quarter. And our Jewish problem, which is attracting so much attention on the part Of sociologists and litterateurs, must have the attention of every educated brain and every sympathetic heart and every bit of intelligence in the entire Jewish community, because the Jewish community itself needs education as much as anybody else. The influx Of the Jewish Russian has changed the attitude Of those Jews who were here before, to the Jewish problem. We ourselves need education in an appreciation Of the idealism, the power and the value, of this stream Of immigration sent by God to this land Of freedom and opportunity. We have never before had such a Spectacle as is exhibited in this city daily, Of the marvelous transformation of men. I rub my eyes sometimes and think what has happened in twenty-five years under my own Observation. Transformations! I have seen immigrants twenty-five years ago landing penniless on Ellis Island or Castle Garden, and now landed proprietors, merchant princes, teachers, principals Of schools, in this imperial American city! Was there ever such a Spectacle exhibited be fore in human history? Was there ever such a theater in the world before, where such a drama was being played as is now being played right under our eyes?

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