Shtadlanut and stewardship: Paternal diplomacy and leadership in American Jewry, 1860s to 1920s

Three individuals whose careers illustrate the combined action of philanthropic, political and diplomatic advocacy in the American Jewish leadership were Benjamin Franklin Peixotto, Jacob H. Schiff, and Louis Marshall. Their careers spanned the period between the 1860s and the 1920s, from the American Civil War-era to the emergence of American Jewry on the world Jewish stage as a community with trans-national interests. Their public careers were built upon the traditional style of leadership by ‘notables,’ but there is also a progression toward a more public and more institutionalized form of intervention in world Jewish affairs.