174 FROM THOSE WHO KNEW HIM BEST 



Various plans have then been devised to help divert 

 the stream from the large centers along the Atlantic 

 coast to the interior of the country and smaller com- 

 munities. The Baron de Hirsch Fund sought to avoid 

 serious consequences by helping other organizations to 

 establish immigrants in less congested localities, by sup- 

 porting farm settlements, by erecting dwellings near New 

 York, known as Borough Homes, and by subsidizing 

 industries in Woodbine. 



Professor Sabsovich paid particular attention and took 

 special pride in Woodbine not alone because of the ad- 

 vantages of country life and wholesome social surround- 

 ings it offered to the immigrant, but also because of the 

 monumental opportunity it afforded to demonstrate be- 

 fore the world the willingness and readiness of the Jew 

 to adapt himself to the new forces which are moving a 

 free people and his recognition and acceptance of the 

 duties and responsibilities imposed, as well as the rights 

 and privileges bestowed upon him by a free democracy. 



Indeed, the early Woodbine settlers have proven that 

 the real and immediate solution of the problem of Amer- 

 icanization lies not so much in organized propaganda 

 and neighborhood influence as in the mental make up and 

 ethical conception of the immigrant himself. 



Without any external and, if I may so call it, profes- 

 sional Americanization programs, and not brought in 

 direct and frequent contact with the native population, 

 the newcomers at Woodbine have, spontaneously and 

 instinctively, as if by the mere breath of the free atmos- 

 phere, taken America as their ideal and reality. And it 

 cannot be otherwise. Those who know the Jewish life 

 in the centuries of wandering and the source from which 

 it draws its spiritual and cultural subsistence must know 

 the Jewish view and interpretation of the relationship of 



