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“The New America, the American Jewish Woman: A Symposium,” Mrs. Caesar Misch
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218 “The New America, the American Jewish Woman: a symposium” Mrs. Caesar Misch R Born in Allentown, Pennsylvania (although some sources list her birthplace as Newark,New Jersey),Marion Simon Misch (1869–1941) studied with Rabbi de Sola Mendes and at age fourteen organized the first Jewish Sabbath school in Pittsfield, Pennsylvania.In 1900 (some sources say 1890),she married Caesar Misch and had oneson.Aftermarrying,thecouplemovedtoProvidence,RhodeIsland,andopened a department store, which Marion Misch operated after her husband’s death in 1921, making her at the time the only female department store owner in New England. She served on the Providence school board for fifteen years and became the first Jewish woman to become president of the Rhode Island Federation of Women’s Clubs. Among other philanthropic efforts, she was founder of the Providence Plantation Club, director of the Providence Society for Organizing Charity, and director of the Providence District Nursing Association. She served as president of the National Council of Jewish Women from 1908 to 1913 and served on the executive board of the National Federation of Temple Sisterhoods (NFTS). Initially the NFTS devoted itself to supporting the synagogue and other institutions of Reform Judaism (including religious education and museums), to awarding scholarships, and to performing public relations functions. Within a few years, however, it became more vocal in national and international affairs, and passed a resolution protesting literacy requirements for new immigrants. In the aftermath of World War I,the group also worked for world peace and justice.1 American Hebrew, Sept. 26, 1919, 462, 466. TheAmerican Hebrew,theperiodicalthatpublishedMisch’s“TheNewAmerica, the American Jewish Woman,”2 was begun in 1879 in New York City by Philip CowenandfavoredOrthodoxoverReformJudaism.Devotingitself tomaintaining high literary standards and covering international Jewish news, the American Hebrew published fiction, poetry, including the work of Emma Lazarus, and essays on a wide range of topics,among them anti-Semitism and immigrant rights. In 1906, Cowen sold his controlling interest to leading New York Jews including Isaac Seligman, Oscar S. Straus, Cyrus L. Sulzberger, Nathan Bijur, and Adolph Lewisohn. Joseph Jacobs assumed editorship for the next ten years, followed by Herman Bernstein. During 1918–1937, when Rabbi Isaac Landman edited the paper,the American Hebrew often took anti-Zionist positions and emphasized the importance of fostering Jewish-Christian understanding. It ceased publication in 1956.3 How can one write with finality of such kaleidoscopes? America today is in a stage of evolution, of indecision, of groping upward to higher ideals, of downward plunges under undisciplined passions and class-antagonism.If we continue our present class and race riots, our bitterness and greed, we must pass through a period of darkness, of blood-shed and of shattered ideals before we emerge purified by our trials and chastened by the cost of our experience. As with the New American so with the New American Woman. She also is in a chaos of bewilderment. Under war conditions the complacent dowagers, and the card-playing, matinee-attending, window-shopping contingents found that this suddenly opsy-urvy [sic] world had no use for Qutens [Queens?] or drones—it needed workers. All women of worth had but the one watchword—“America,” and everywhere stlf [self] was routed by the Spirit of Nobility which War, the most cruel of school masters, yet instills into his pupils. And now that his lash is laid aside, the American Jewess is like the American Protestant or the American Catholic. Americanism knows no creed. We are all American women, now led upwards by patriotic or religious fervor, now depressed to the depths by War’s aftermath of sorrow and suffering. The sudden cessation of war-work, dread of the jobbery which threatens us with civil war, the determination to put into helpful channels our new-found energy and initiative, the uncertainty as to the immediate future and the firm confidence in the ultimate future—all these are moulding the American woman. And whatever her Spirit of Religion, for this also does War give his pupils. In the midst of our Job-like questionings come also his flashes of faith. We may say with him “The earth is given into the hand of the wicked,” but we also say with him “God is excellent in power and in judgment and in plenty of justice.” What then is the future of the New America and the New American? I see first a strong feeling that though we cannot now fathom God’s purposes, in the fullness...