Information about the Union's early activities can be gleaned primarily from recorded proceedings of convention assemblages of those years.¹ From 1901 to 1915, the national (or more correctly, binational) conventions were held at mostly yearly intervals, in the New York area. Thereafter, for many years, these major assemblages were to convene with irregular frequency. From the Fiftieth Anniversary Convention (in 1948) on, the binational convocations, North American Orthodox Jewry's premier forums, have taken place with unfailing regularity on a biennial schedule, in late November of each even-numbered year, at varying locations.

From the first, efforts were made to address the needs of the young generation and to counter adverse influences. Dr. Mendes waged an untiring campaign against the flagrant imposition of Christianizing teachings on the Jewish children who, in those yeshivah-less years, ² all attended public schools. Likewise, he fought missionary snares aimed at Jewish children left to their own devices while their parents toiled day and night to eke out a livelihood. He carried the campaign to the public arena as Jews had never dared to do before. His public statements were reported frequently in leading daily newspapers. ³

From the start, too, action was taken against the menace-unprecedented on such a scale in Diaspora history-to Sabbath observance. In a mounting tide, thousands upon thousands of the immigrant masses, although typically deep-rooted in traditional observance, were swept from their moorings. Driven by the struggle for bread and exploited in their desperate need by those offering means of livelihood at cost of conscience, more and more succumbed to transgression of the most pivotal and most universally cherished of all Jewish sanctities.

A special unit of the Union, designated the Jewish Sabbath Association, was instituted to focus on this area. Besides educational work to rally loyalty to Sabbath observance and prevailing upon business establishments to remain closed on Shabbath, employment opportunities were sought for the Shomrey Shabbath. In 1907, Dr. Bernard Drachman, as chairman of that committee (which subsequently became an autonomous organization, the Jewish Sabbath Alliance), reported that within the preceding years jobs had been obtained for 1,500 Sabbath observers.

Another officer, Albert Lucas, reported on religious classes conducted under his direction at several downtown New York synagogues. These, he said, drew upon

... volunteer teachers whose influence over the children is distinctly Jewish, I mean religiously Jewish. . . . The classes not only teach the children how to read Hebrew and how to translate it, they not only teach the history of our people, they teach 'Thou shalt" and 'Thou shalt not" because it is or is not right or wrong for a Jew.

Clubs and study circles were also part of the project, and Mr. Lucas pleaded for the provision of

. . . Small centers ... places spread through the districts where the children, and not less the young men and the young women, can go during their leisure hours and find their recreation in an atmosphere that is truly Jewish, rather than be drawn to the [de-Judaizing, assimilationist sponsored centers and settlement houses as sole alternatives to the pool rooms, dance halls or the streets.

Presently a few of the proposed neighborhood centers were set up, but the means to do so on the scale and permanence required were altogether beyond the young Union's possibilities.

Also reported at the trail-blazing assemblages were:

Obtaining Sabbath-observance privileges for college students, transfer of Bar examinations from the Sabbath, and leaves of absence for Jewish municipal employees on Yom Tov days. Also, promotion of enactment of provisions for exemption of Sabbath-observing businesses from Sunday Closing Laws restrictions; fighting attempts to enact anti-Shechitah legislation in several states; and representation to Washington "concerning the proposed immigration bill and its supposed exclusion of Hebrews able to speak [only) in Yiddish, on the theory that Yiddish was not a recognized language."

Dr. Mendes also called upon the United States government to provide "an emblem other than the Red Cross for Jewish physicians, surgeons, and nurses who had conscientious scruples against wearing an emblem associated with a religion whose doctrines are antagonistic to their own."

A notable early success on behalf of Jewish interests was the assent by the War Department, at the time of the Spanish-American War, to the Orthodox Union's request that Jewish soldiers and officers be given furloughs for observance of Jewish holy days. This was followed, in 1904, by an order from President Theodore Roosevelt himself, in response to a letter from Dr. Mendes, that "commanding officers be authorized to permit Jewish soldiers to be absent for services on Jewish holy days."⁴

Thereupon, the War Department issued an official regulation that the requisite leave be granted to:

... such enlisted men of the Jewish faith as may desire to avail themselves of the privilege to be absent from their duties for such length of time as may be necessary to enable them to attend Divine Service.

In addition to such moves were the mobilization of aid to victims of the Galveston Flood and on behalf of overseas communities suffering outrage, including the murderous Kishineff Pogrom and outbreaks in Rumania and Morocco, and also in protest of discriminatory acts in some Latin American countries.

A summation of the activities range to that date, appearing in the foreword of the printed Reports of the 1913 convention, said:

During the fifteen years [the Union] has been in existence it has been occupied with the following subjects:

Russian persecutions; immigration laws that hinder Jews coming to America; the passport question; International and Labor arbitration; kashruth, Shechitah, Milah, Get, etc.; Organization of a Sabbath Society.

The establishment of Orthodox Jewish religious schools; schools for crippled and deaf and dumb Jewish children; Jewish school-books.

The defense of Judaism against misrepresentation by Reform Jews or Christians; Jewish rights in public schools; Conversionists' activity; College examinations on our Holy Days; Government employees and Holy Days observance.

Our co-religionists in Russia, Rumania, Turkey, Cuba, Haiti, Central America, etc.

Yet, for all the astonishing range and quantity of activities enumerated, it appears that the listing was by no means all-inclusive. This is indicated by numerous references in various sources, one of which is an agenda item in the previously cited notice of an April 29, 1914, Executive meeting: "Shall we head a proposed Federation of Orthodox Synagogues of New York, to take up Orthodox Jewish requirements not met by existing organizations?" This probably related to the ambitiously conceived but short-lived "New York Kehillah" project initiated by Dr. Judah Magnes.

Item 2 of the same meeting notice agenda pertains to an ugly development of the time: "The disclosures of gangster-life and our duty to do something to remedy conditions affecting Jews."

MATCHING AIMS AND MEANS

The pattern thus set in the Mendes era was to continue through the years. In the course of time, new services were added in irregular, mostly unplanned sequence under the constant pressure of ever-unfolding areas of need. Under the financial constraints of the organizations' situation, the means to carry out the work were chronically dwarfed by what was required, so that, especially after the end of the Mendes presidency, much was done in sketchy fashion rather than with the necessary thoroughness.

Once the instrument of cohesion was launched, many more congregations registered their affiliation, with the original enrollment multiplied manyfold. In the Torah-loyal sphere as a whole, among congregations that did not bother to undertake UOJCA affiliation as well as those that did, the Union was looked upon as their central force.

From the beginning, however, a less advantageous feature of the Orthodox Union's situation became apparent, to persist through the years. On the one hand, the feeling prevailed-with little distinction between those with or without formal affiliation-that the Union was bound to provide such services as Orthodoxy's needs might require and was the address to which any traditional synagogue or community might freely apply with its special concerns, or to which Jews of traditional loyalty at large might turn with their problems. On the other hand, lacking from the beginning was a sense of shared obligation for the maintenance of the organization, or of shared responsibility for its work. A basic impediment to the Union's development, long years were to pass before this disparity was to be remedied to a degree.

Although discussion of the constituency relationship in the early years was not set forth in the recorded proceedings, indications of such concern are to be detected in the background of surviving reports and other references. An example, perhaps, is an agenda item, "Finances and Propaganda," listed for the April 29, 1914 meeting of the Orthodox Union Executive Board-no doubt a rubric for discussion of this matter.

Those at the helm of the organization and in its active circles were bound to be aware that the relationship limitation derived from the lack of organic tie between the central Union and its constituent congregations. They had to reckon with the fact that it was an unavoidable consequence of the restricted frame of competence under which the Union had been launched, as dictated by experience-born practicality.

It is apparent that the leadership circle, from its earliest days, realizing that the Orthodox Union's course must of necessity be steered within the confines of governing conditions, aimed to develop the Union - constituency relationship to the optimum point within those bounds. At the same time, the leaders found effective action on the multiple areas addressed critically hampered by the financial limitations resulting largely from the relationship limitation.

The very coming into existence of the Orthodox Union had loosed upon it a flood of urgent calls for action on a multiplicity of Torah-community needs. As the citation of matters addressed shows, the unstinting response resulted in the Union's becoming engaged in a limitless array of endeavors. Functioning as it did on a hand-to-mouth basis with such sparse funds as could be scraped together, and devoid of professional staff, with its devoted officers and board circle as its volunteer work force, the Union's acrossthe-map efforts were not equally effective in all cases. It is remarkable, in fact, that under the circumstances so high a degree of practical accomplishment was achieved in so many areas.

The deficiency of resources, at that stage, defied remedy. Each congregation, having come into self-constituted existence independently, from its own more or less spontaneous sources, was its own "boss." In the majority of cases, each was concerned only with its own immediate sphere of affairs. In contrast to movements whose constituent units are branches of the parent tree or arms of the central entity, the Union of Orthodox Jewish congregations originated as an accessory of its constituency. Thus, while the Union's role in relation to the communities could be seen, in effect, as obligatory, the role of the communities vis-a-vis their common arm was looked upon as voluntary. Membership dues, set at minimal amounts, were seen by some congregations as a token of support-to be paid or not, as a congregation's administration might decide-rather than as a basic budgetary obligation. Affiliation with the national body was often apt to be thought of as a manifestation of religious identity rather than of sharing in a great nationwide (or binational) religious force.

The personal aura of the founding president and the extraordinary volition of his personal direction and conduct of the work served, during his lifetime, at least, to offset the structural limitation. The effects were felt in trends toward stabilization of the synagogue sphere and an improved climate of religious fife. Better promise of alleviation of the community's entrenched problems came into view, although the young Union carefully avoided entanglement with the spheres of prior disaster.