Page:The New International Encyclopædia 1st ed. v. 11.djvu/245

* JEWS. 219 JEWS. it soon took hold of the .Jewish people, and Zion- ist societies aud clubs are now to be found wher- ever .Jews exist. Its object is to found a secure and legal home for the oppressed .Jews in Pales- tine. Since 1S97 five international Zionist con- gresses have been held, four in Basel and one in London. The Jewish Colonial Trust has been organized by the Congress, and has its head offices in London. There being no international Jewish organiza- tion, except that of the Zionist congresses, the Jews in each country have been forced to band themselves together in various ways in order to subserve interests, social and economic, which they have in common. In France, the AUinnce Israelite Vnirerselle (q.v.), founded in Paris in 18G0, has not only looked after the interests of Jews in Mohammedan countries supposed to be in the sphere of French influence, but has also on several occasions used its good offices to procure the amelioration of the condition of the Jews wherever its influence could be brought to bear. In England the Board of .Jewish Delegates has attempted to do the same thing. Austria has its Israelitish Alliance, and Germany its Union of Congregations I Drutsch-isrnelitisclie Gemeinde- Bund) . In the United States no such single union has been possible. The Union of the American Hebrew Congregations comprises those bodies which belong to the reform wing of the syna- gogue : and a union of orthodox Hebrew congrega- tions was founded in Xew York in 1886. About the middle of the nineteenth century, when Jews were scattered in out-of-the-way places, a number of orders similar to that of the Free ilasons were tailed into being. The B'nai B'rHh ('Sons of the Covenant'), founded in the L'nited States in 1843, in 1901 had 315 lodges in America and a few in Germany, Rumania, Austria, Algeria. Bulgaria, and EgApt. Other similar societies are the Sons of Benjamin, the Free Sons of Israel, and the Free Sons of .Judah. As the number of .Jews in the United States increased, extensive calls were made upon the .Jews already domiciled here to provide adequately for their more unfortunate Virethren. There were in 1002 fifteen homes for orphans in the United States, twelve homes for the aged, and nine hospitals. In 1889 Rabbi Gus- tav Gottheil organized the first Sisterhood for Personal Service, in connection with the Temple Emanu-EI. in Xew York City. Since then such societies, in which the work is done by the women of the congregation, have become attached to nearly every important synagogue in the land. In most of the cities the work of the .Jewish charities has been organized, so that one central body directs it in a large measure — the L'nited Hebrew Charities of the City of Xew Y'ork. On December 1. 1899. a national conference of .Jew- ish charities in the L^nited States was held at Cincinnati, with the end in view nf bringing about a greater cooperation among the relief societies situated in the various parts of the country. Of more recent date is the attempt by the .Jews to do settlement work in the congested districts of the large cities where the poorer .Jews live — a work until now undertaken almost exclusively by Christian organizations. The Educational In- stitute, in Xew York, is a sort of people's palace, and a regular .Jewish settlement exists in Chi- cago. No account of Jewish charitable endeavor during the nineteenth century- woiild be com- plete without the particular mention of Baron Vox,. XI.— 13. and Baroness de Hirsch. who bequeathed three hundred million francs for the purpose of aid- ing the oppressed .Jews of Eastern Europe. This fund is in the hands of a private corporation composed of a few trustees, and has its seat in Paris. It has spent vast sums in colonizing some five thousand .Jews in the Argentine Republic; it assists colonization in Canada, and has recently taken over the .Jewish colonies established by Edmund de Rothschild in Palestine ; it also maintains schools and homes in several American cities to which the Russian .Jews have emigrated. Statistics. The entire number of .Jews in the world has been variously estimated at from 7,400,- 000 to 11,000,000, According to the latest issue of the American Jeirish Year-Book (1902) the number is 10,37S,.530. of whom, in round num- bers, S.400,000 are assigned to Europe, 420,000 to Asia, 38.5,000 to Africa, 20,000 to Australasia, 1,140,000 to Xorth America, 10,000 to South America. The same authority .states the numbers in Austria-Hungarj- at 1,868,222, in Germany 581,519, in Rumania 269,015. in the British Em- pire 230,356. in Russia 5,186,000, in the United States 1,136.240. The distribution of the Jews in the United States is estimated in the Tear Book as follows: .labama Arrzona Arkansas California Colorado Connecticut No- and So. Dakota Delaware Dist. of Columbia. . Florida Georgia Hawaiian Islands. . Idaho Illinois Indiana Iowa Kansas Kentucky Louisiana Maine JIarj'land Massachusetts. . . . Michigan Minnesota Mississippi Missouri Montana 7.000 Nebraska 2.000 Nevada 3.085 New Hampshire. .. 25.000 New Jersey 8.000 New Mexico 15.000 New York 3„50O North Carolina. . . 1.200 Ohio .... 3,500 Oklahoma 3.000 Oregon 6.135 Pennsylvania .... 20 Philippine Islands 300 Porto Rico 75.000 Rhode Island .... 25.000 South Carolina.. . . 5.000 Tennessee 3.000 Texas 12.000 Utah 12.000 Vermont 5.000 26..500 Washington 60.000 "W' est irginia .... 9.0(10 Wisconsin 10,000 Wyoming 3.000 50,000 Total 2,500 3.000 300 1.000 25.000 1..500 500.000 6.000 50.000 1,000 5.500 95.000 100 100 3.500 2.500 10.000 15.000 5 000 700 15,000 2.800 1.500 15.000 1.000 LAXGIWGE AND LITERATXrKE. By the Hebrew L.^xguage is usually meant the language in which the books of the Old Testament are written. For the sake of distinction, the speech of post-biblical times may be called new or late Hebrew. The expression Hebrew language is not found in the Old Testament. In its place we have 'speech of Canaan' (Is. xix. 18) and '.Jews' language' (II. Kings xviii. 26. 28; X^^eh, xiii. 24), corresponding to the general use of the term .Jew (i.e. .Judean) for the entire nation in the later books. This 'language of Canaan' be- longs to the northern branch of the Semitic family of languages. It is practically identical with the Phoenician, the Moabitic. and the other Canaanitish tongues. It was probably developed among the Hebrew clans at the time of the eon- quest of Palestine — possibly earlier during the nomadic period. Slight traces of dialects appear in the Old Testament (cf. .Jud. xii. 5. 6), but it is not probable that within the small compass of Palestine many dialects existed. In writing this language the alphabet employed was the Phoeni- cian, and this was still used for ofl[icial purposes (e.g. on coins) nearly down to the Christian Era.