"Local Jews Are for Taft," read the headline on a small item in the Pittsburgh Press on July 20, 1908. The article went on to report about a meeting of the Allegheny County Political Club the night before, where "about 500 Jews" gathered in the Hill District to endorse the Taft/Sherman ticket for president.
In the next issue of the Jewish Criterion, editor Charles H. Joseph lampooned the meeting: "There may be a plank in the Republican platform which makes for a stricter observance of the Mosaic Dietary Laws, or, perhaps, there may be a more progressive plank advocating a more liberal use of English in the services now Orthodox. But, as we have observed, not having given to the platforms that close attention which is incumbent upon every true Jew, we are not prepared to say whether the 'angle' our good fellow-religionists finally agreed to decide upon was the best under the circumstances."
In a letter to the editor the following week, Allegheny County Political Club President Adolph Edlis took a different approach. He said that the club had been created to provide voters with information about candidates and policies, not to deal with religious affiliation. "It is true that 95 percent of the members are Jews, which right, as American citizens, we have to organize," he said.
Today, more than a century later, each election cycle inevitably revives and expands their debate about the appropriate relationship between Jewish identity and American politics. And, of course, that debate is really just one small piece of a much larger conversation about the way individual and group identities across American life can and should influence our democracy.
Those questions form the heart of the Heinz History Center exhibit "American Democracy: A Great Leap of Faith,"
which is closing October 10 after a five-month run. In coordination with the exhibit, the next segment of our ongoing look at Jewish club life in Western Pennsylvania will focus on political clubs.
All this year, the Rauh Jewish Archives is highlighting stories of Jewish club life in Western Pennsylvania. If you would like to donate records of a local Jewish club, or just chat about clubs, contact the archive or call 412-454-6406.
