Nearly all the larger European Jewish communities have already found their historians, and there are even a number of historical monographs dealing with the history of minor Jewish communities. One of the best known Jewish historians of recent times, Professor Brann of Breslau, has made a name for himself as a local historian. His history of the Jews in Silesia is a monumental contribution to modern Jewish historiography. The American Jewish communities, of course, most of which have been established in the latter half of the nineteenth century and are still in the process of consolidation, could not have found their historians, because they have no history in the real meaning of the term. A few decades in the life of a people like ours do not mean anything and can scarcely be considered as a historical past. American Jewry is now making history, and engaged in creating the perspectives for the future historian, but in the main, it 2has no history to speak of. One might compile a monograph of the first Jewish settlement in America, and another monograph of the recent Jewish settlement in America, but both only form historical monographies and would not constitute an American Jewish history. To write the history of a group of people, the historian must not only possess dates, figures, facts, documents, etc., but he must also have the necessary historical perspective to enable him to describe and review the past in a certain light, and this perspective is just now being created. Consequently one cannot think as yet of American Jewish history or of the history of a certain American Jewish community. The best we can do is to establish a Jewish archive, a Jewish historical record, or an official Jewish chronicle, to serve as material for the future historian. This can be done in every Jewish community.

If the founders of the Jewish Historical Society of Illinois have this in mind, the enterprise is a laudable one and a credit to the initiators of the movement, but if the men heading the Jewish Historical Society of 3Illinois believe that the time is ripe to write a history of the Jews in Illinois, they are badly mistaken and the enterprise must only result in failure.

The Jewish community of Chicago is not quite fifty years old. Most of the things that have happened in the Jewish community of Chicago are more or less known to every intelligent Jew in Chicago, and thousands of Chicago Jews have been witnessing the rise and development of the Chicago Jewish community. How a history of the Chicago Jewish community or of the Jews in Illinois is possible under such circumstances, we fail to understand. A history of a community cannot possibly give a description of recent happenings. A compilation of happenings and events of recent date can at the very best be described as a chronicle, but not as history. In short, a community without a past, without traditions, and without a definite historical background, has no history, because the very notion of history involves the notion of a historical past, and Chicago Jewry or Illinois Jewry has not a historical past as yet. While it is a praiseworthy undertaking to begin to gather 4material for the future Jewish historian of Chicago, it is altogether wrong to begin now with the writing of a history of a Jewish community that has no historical past.

We fully sympathize with the movement to establish in Chicago a sort of an official Jewish chronicle, and we pledge our support to such a movement, but we cannot possibly sympathize with the impossible attempt to create a Chicago Jewish history, because it is a futile attempt. Chicago Jewry has no history as yet, and consequently it cannot as yet be written.