The attempts to organize on a more general scale, and to consolidate or federate existing organizations, which are frequently made and are more often successful than in the preceding periods, are the clearest manifestation of the spirit of the times in American Jewry. In most of the large cities outside of New York the important local Jewish charities are now federated, and the plan of federation is continually gaining in favor. The federations, of which there are now more than a dozen, and many other benevolent institutions of large and of smaller communities, are represented in the National Conference of Jewish Charities of the United States (organized 1899). There is also noticeable in our communal life, as in American public life in general, that tendency to self-criticism which often degenerates into slander――that eternal dissatisfaction with things accomplished and with present conditions, which implies a sincere desire to achieve still better results. While this discontent and the poor opinion which many of us have of the spiritual condition of the Jews in America are of immense value as incentives to improvement, it dims the eye of the foreign observer, especially if he comes from a country where complacency and self-praise are the rule. It may still be too early to summarize the communal activities of the Jews in America, or to attempt to indicate how far we have approached the solution of the most pressing problems. But signs of throbbing life are visible everywhere, and the interest of the individual Jew in Jewish affairs is increasing. There is, therefore, every reason to believe and to hope that the opportunity which is afforded here to set the ♦Jewish house in order――the best, and perhaps the first, in the diaspora――will be utilized to its full extent by the future generations of native American Jews.