There are Jewish lodges, unions and societies whose names are well known to the public, and which seem to be the counterpart of similar groups among the nonJewish population, but these are not the groups upon which to focus attention. Within and behind them is the central group, the inner government, whose ruling is law and whose act is the official expression of Jewish purpose.
Two organizations, both of which are as notable for their concealment as for their power, are the New York Kehillah and the American Jewish Committee. By concealment is meant the fact that they exist in such important numbers and touch vitally so many points of American life, without their presence being suspected.
If a vote of New York could be taken today it is doubtful if one per cent of the non-Jewish population could say that it had ever heard of the New York Kehillah, yet the Kehillah is the most potent factor in the political life of New York today. It has managed to exist and mold and remold the life of New York, and very few people are the wiser. If the Kehillah is mentioned in the press, it is most vaguely, and the im- pression is, when there is any impression at all, that it is a Jewish social organization like all the rest.
The Kehillah of New York is of importance to Americans everywhere because of two facts: it not only offers a real and complete instance of a government within a government in the midst of America’s largest city, but it also constitutes through its executive com¬ mittee District XII of the American Jewish Commit¬ tee, through which pro-Jewish and anti-Gentile propa¬ ganda is operated and Jewish pressure brought to bear against certain American ideas. That is to say, the Jewish government of New York constitutes the es¬ sential part of the Jewish government of the United States.