But pessimism apart--nor is self-criticism altogether undesirable--we may say that spiritually also the Jew in America has achieved no mean things. The very fact that we have succeeded in transplanting Judaism to this country, so different from the Old World, is an achievement of importance. And the transplanting has been rapid. There have been losses, quite naturally, but there have been gains, too, and, whatever is said to the contrary, there is an intense and manifold Jewish activity in this country today unsurpassed anywhere else, though perhaps only the historian of the future will acknowledge it, just as our historians today laud the glories of the past. When we think of our educational institutions, of our Rabbinical colleges, of our historical associations, of our synagogues, of such an achievement as the Jewish Encyclopedia and its counterpart in the Hebrew language, and many other enterprises, we cannot help but wonder that in so short a time the Jews of America should have done as much as they have in the spiritual sphere, particularly when we recall that the last half-century was a period of sceptism and materialism, which put all Religion on the defensive, and which made the course of Judaism in this country, and the process of re-adjustment, so much more difficult than it might have been. It is this spiritual and material advance of the American Jew that has made it possible for him time and again to come to the rescue of his fellow-Jews in other countries. It would take us too far afield to go into detail. But no survey of the connection of America with the Jew is adequate without at least a reminder of how America championed the rights of her Jewish citizens in Switzerland and Russia, and of how she intervened in behalf of persecuted Jews in Damascus and in Morocco, in Rumania and in Russia. When the history of the emancipation of the Jews is written, a place of honor surely will be accorded to the help rendered by America, through some of her foremost and most humane statesmen, from Theodore Fay to John Hay, and through the energy and self-sacrifice of her Jewish citizens. Nor would our survey be sufficient without a reference to the patriotism of the American Jew. If the patriotism of the Jew has been proved in every country, nowhere has it been more ardent and ready than here. We know the early story of Asser Levy who insisted on his right to stand guard like every other citizen of New Amsterdam, rather than be exempted and taxed. He is the patriotic prototype of the American Jew in every age and crisis, in peace and in war. Whoever doubts the patriotism of the American Jew, does not know him. And never was the Jew of America more ready than today to do his patriotic duty, to make all the sacrifices demanded by the hour, to stand guard for the Republic and for Democracy. This he has shown already, and is going to continue to show, as the War goes on.