The Month of Elul ( the twelfth month in the Jewish calender, corresponding to parts of August and September; has twenty-nine days, is considered more sacred than any other month; also precedes the Jewish New Year - trans.)

We can not accuse a business man of inhonesty if he, exaggerates more or less when making out a report of his financial condition to creditors or to Dun and Bradstreet just as we hold no complaints against the same business man for lessening his profit statement, when making out his report to the Board of Assessors. If, however, the same bueiness man conducts himself in a like manner at the end of the year when taking inventory of his own business, if the business man should begin twisting 2the accounts in order to deceive himself to add to his credit, property which he does not have or deny debts to himself which he owes and thus claim to be a millionaire, then the man (in a very short time) will be forced to dissolve his business.

We say this in comment on the Chicago Jewish community. Throughout the entire year it doesn't make any difference if we exaggerate a bit at times, when speaking of things pertaining to Chicago Jewry. Especially when we wish to distinguish ourselves among foreigners, we brag about our charities and good deeds. We exaggerate and forget the small things we do, whenever we want to show the world what fine creatures we are. During the year when we relate our activities to foreigners, it simply means a Dun and Bradstreet report.

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It would, however, be more than a crime if we should even attempt to exaggerate or deny anything in the month of Elul, when our religious and charitable year ends, when we must give an account of ourselves - what we have invested, what we have achieved, what we possess. We must admit the whole truth.

If a stranger, who did not know the truth, should look into Jewish affairs he would probably think that our poor are taken care of, that our famished ones are well-fed, that our naked are well-clothed, that our orphans are provided with all the good things of life, that our children - with an education, that our aged are provided with a home, our sick with medical attention, and our deceased with interment.

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However, people who wish to face facts, people who visit our Home for the Aged, our Marks Nathan Orphanage, our Hebrew Schools and Yeshiva, and our Hebrew Sheltering Home; people who are active in the West Side Ladies Charity Society, in the Jewish Consumptive Relief Society, in the Maimonedes Kosher Hospital, and all other institutions know that our braggadocio is saturated with lies. The balance shows that we are left in the lurch. Our total shows that we are, if not bankrupt, very close to it. We do not possess one single institution. Not one sound charitable society can be found. We are proficient in creating deficits - expert debtors. We have nothing.

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Still worse, we have boasted and lied about our charity work so long that we are beginning to believe in it ourselves. We really think that we are providers. We are just like babies who get a penny and think they are millionaires. If we should face the truth we would feel ashamed of ourselves, knowing that we are playing with pennies; that our foundation was laid on sand, our bridges - paper, our constructions-decayed timber, and yet, we are continuously bragging and feeling proud. The pride of a beggar is pitiful; the genealogy of a knave is abominable; the bluff of a boor is ridiculous.

Hundreds of thousands of Chicago Jews brag about the small mortgage of the Home for the Aged; twenty thousand families feel proud of supporting two hundred orphans in a building whose mortgage is greater than the value; the next to the largest Jewish community in America feels 6proud of having a half completed kosher hospital; let alone speaking of providing a stranger with food and sleeping quarters in the Hebrew Sheltering Home, or furnishing a widow with one-half tone of coal, or of the West Side Ladies Charity giving a pregnant woman a bed sheet, or offering a free course to a poor child in the Talmud Torah or Yeshiva.

When we ask a Chicago Jew whether Chicago's Jewish community fulfills its obligations as a Jewish community should, he lifts his head proudly and points to the Federated Orthodox Jewish Charities, an achievement with which no Jewish orthodox community can be compared.

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Since the Jews are in the Diaspora such a feat has not been undertaken. He will also show how the orthodox Jews established this institution within one year, which is a matter of pride not only for Chicago orthodox Jewry, but also for all American Jewry.

And this is actually the only asset of the Chicago Jewish inventory. However, if we take a look at the other side of the ledger, we find that of the $15,000 which was subscribed to the Federation, $45,000 remains unpaid. More than three thousand Jews have promised to contribute and they do not pay. They forget that the existence of all charity institutions depend on their contributions. Upon examining the Federation's subscription book, one discovers that it is short thousands of Jewish names, which means that there are thousands of Jewish business men who do not contribute one penny towards the widow and orphan, the sick and the impoverished.

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It is the month of Elul, the month in which every Jew takes inventory of himself. Can we, without a guilty conscience, face our fellow men, knowing that we are indebted to the orphans and widows and do not pay them?