The Man Who Inspired American Jews to Embrace Zionism and Americans to Fight Hitler

In her elegant essay on Abraham Cahan, Ruth R. Wisse writes that “[a]s editor of the world’s largest-circulation Jewish newspaper, his was almost certainly the most influential Jewish voice in America of the interwar years [1919–1939]; it mattered enormously that he came to choose Zionism over Communism and American democracy over Soviet dictatorship.”

Cahan’s opposition to Communism and Soviet dictatorship is illustrated by a speech he gave in 1940, and his views on American democracy and Zionism are reflected in an exchange of letters with Vladimir Jabotinsky that year. It’s worth looking closely at both the speech and the correspondence.

On May 5, 1940, the Workmen’s Circle—the mutual-aid society founded in 1900 by Jewish immigrants from Eastern Europe—held a rally at Madison Square Garden to celebrate its 40th anniversary. The principal speaker was Fiorello La Guardia, then in his eighth year as the mayor of New York, followed by Abraham Cahan.