Every thinking Jew realizes that immigration has a powerful influence upon the spiritual life of the Jews in America. The immigrants generally are from two classes: the radical workers and the Orthodox Jews. Heavy immigration strengthens both camps, the Orthodox and the radical. When immigration ceases, both camps become weaker because the second generation is not as radical nor as Orthodox as the first generation.

The children of both classes of Jews have been Americanized, and have become somewhat sophisticated. If the children are Orthodox, then they are calm and moderate and their Orthodoxy, at any rate, is not fanatical. If the children are radicals, they are, at any rate, not "Yom Kippur ball-heroes" nor "candle gluttons" [Editor's note: Reference is to nonobserving Jews who attempted to show their freedom of thought by profaning holy days]. For the most part, the 2children of radicals are radicals because the American atmosphere is not in harmony with Jewish radicalism. On the contrary, a moderate Orthodoxy, i.e., an Orthodoxy of beautiful and pure forms, is very much in harmony with Americanism. If the Orthodox Jews in America are sincere in their attempt, they can easily rear their children in the Orthodox spirit.

But Orthodox Judaism is not only a question of will but also a question of knowledge and understanding. We must rear the younger generation in an Orthodox manner if we want it to remain Orthodox. We can do so only by using the language in which it thinks; the language which it speaks fluently, and which it best understands, and that is English. The attempt to rear American-born children of Jewish parents in an old-fashioned Orthodox manner, with a sort of strange Yiddish as the language of Orthodoxy, cannot under any circumstances succeed. The Jewish children born in America do not love Yiddish because it is not their mother language. A mother language is the language that the child hears on the street and learns in school.

To such a child we must speak English, and Judaism must be taught to him in English or Hebrew. If we want to acquaint him with the Judaism of the synagogue, we must speak to him in English--in beautiful English.

If the large Jewish synagogues of Chicago want the younger generation to respect rabbinical Judaism, they must offer it sermons in English. The rabbi of the synagogue must be able to instruct the youth in English, and must also be able to explain in English everything that concerns Jews and Judaism.

As long as the rabbi is a teacher and guide, the younger generation needs him more than the older generation does. The older generation, whether or not it has a rabbi, will remain Orthodox anyway, while the younger generation may still wander from the right path. If the older generation needs a rabbi, and it certainly does need one, then this rabbi has only one mission: to study. The younger generation, on the contrary, needs a rabbi--as a teacher.

For six years immigration from Eastern Europe has been at a standstill. During 4these six years an Orthodox Jewish youth has grown up in America, but no modern Orthodox rabbinate or Americanized Orthodox rabbi has appeared. The Yeshiva Isaac Elchonon in New York should have been reorganized ten years ago in order to be able to present, at this time, a generation of Americanized Orthodox rabbis. Soon, however, we will have modern Orthodox rabbis, because the Yeshiva Isaac Elchonon is now in a position to graduate from fifteen to twenty rabbis each year, that is to say, young men who are authorities on Judaism as well as college graduates.

The elderly Orthodox rabbis in America, who are eminent scholars and conscientious men, fulfill their duties in a distinguished manner. Every Jewish group must have a class of Jews whose only occupation in life should be the study of the Torah. The Americanized Orthodox rabbis also fulfill their duties magnificently because they are both rabbis and teachers for the Americanized Jewish youth.

On the other hand, the younger set of Orthodox rabbis in America presents a 5problem for Orthodox Judaism, and in general does not fulfill any mission. This younger Orthodox rabbi is not learned enough to satisfy the older generation; he has nothing at all to tell them. Since he does not know English, he is often a ridiculous figure to the Americanized Jewish youth. The latter usually does not understand his Yiddish because it is a corrupt Yiddish, nor his English because it is so poor. When he begins to speak English the younger generation can hardly restrain its laughter, and when a rabbi becomes a ridiculous figure in the eyes of youth, then the latter can have no respect for Orthodox and will eventually break away from it.

The synagogues blessed with such rabbis, must engage another rabbi who knows English, or must state emphatically to the present rabbis: "Either study and become eminent scholars in the style of the old-fashioned rabbis, or learn English and acquire a little modern knowledge and become modern rabbis, because as it is, you are neither the one nor the other."

But do our synagogues have representatives with statesmanlike vision?