Moses Schorr - Schorr and B'nai B'rith

Schorr and B'nai B'rith

From 1901 on, Schorr was a member of the humanitarian society B'nai B'rith "Leopolis" in Lviv, where for a few years he led the library. The B'nai B'rith "Leopolis" was founded in 1889 and since 1932 had its own building at 3 Maja street, 10. The archival documentation of B'nai B'rith "Leopolis" has been partially preserved and is still to be studied. From 1922 "Leopolis" was incorporated into the 13th district of B'nai B'rith Poland and numbered 217 persons, the largest lodge in Poland.

From 1921 Schorr was the president of the Lviv branch of B'nai B'rith in Galicia, part of the 12th district of B'nai B'rith Austria.

In 1922 Schorr was elected the vice president of the Polish district, while the president was lawyer Dr Adolf Ader from Kraków. From 1924 he was the president of the lodge Braterstwo ("Brotherhood") in Warsaw. This lodge numbered 85 members, including 32 merchants, 14 physicians, 13 engineers, eight lawyers, eight industrialists, six bankers, one writer, three senators (Moses Koerner, Schorr, and banker Rafael Szereszowski), one deputy (lawyer Dr Apolinary Hartgas) and two professors — Schorr and his close colleague, historian and friend Meir Balaban. The lodge reached its highest membership in 1931, when it had 130 members. After Schorr's resignation from its presidency, his role was taken over by Meir Balaban and consequently the lodge was headed by lawyer Maurycy Edelman, merchant Maurycy Meyzel, Seminary director Meir Tauber and lawyer Ignacy Bamberg.

The headquarters of Warsaw Braterstwo lodge were located at Rymarska 8 street. In the years of his presidency, Schorr organised many initiatives, undertakings, and cultural events, managed the meetings of so-called "speaking diaries" with the participation of renown personalities, writers and publicists. He took part in the creation of Auxilium Academicum Judaicum, an organisation formed for the erection of the Jewish Academic House in Warsaw. Schorr's brotherhood played a role in the founding of the Reform Institute of Judaic Sciences and the publishing society Menora that published the magazine Miesięcznik Żydowski (Jewish Monthly, 1930–1935), which was under the influence of B'nai B'rith. Through the Warsaw lodge, Schorr co-organised and supported the Relief Committee for the Jewish victims of the economic crisis, continuing his role in the religious affairs of the nomination of rabbis and Orthodox influences. While heading the Warsaw lodge, Schorr set up a special literary award for an outstanding writer of Jewish origin.

Rich members of the lodge played an important role in the charity activities of the lodege. Among them was a friend of Schorr, wood merchant Horacy Heller, who assigned for social activities 20,000 dollars. Significant sums were donated by his colleagues, banker Szereszowski (one of two Jewish colleagues in the Polish Senate), Dr. Joseph Landau, industrialist Maurycy Raabe, and others. In the years 1937–1938, a violent anti-Masonic campaign took place in Poland that led to the special decree of 1938 that dissolved any sort of free Masonic societies, including B'nai B'rith.

Moses Schorr performed the functions of vice president of the B'nai B'rith Lodge "Solidaność" (Solidarity) in Kraków. There are dozens of letters written by Schorr preserved in the B'nai B'rith collection of the State Archives in that city. During his presidency Schorr corresponded with a number of B'nai B'rith officials, including the Secretary of the Great Conventional Lodge in Chicago. Polish historian Dr Bogusława Czajecka delivered a paper "Moses Schorr as social activist in the light of B'nai B'rith documents (1922–1938)" during the scientific session on Schorr at the Polish Academy of Arts in Kraków in 1993.

Schorr's views on B'nai B'rith's goals and their practical application in terms of social activities are expressed in his work (Polish) "Ideals of the Order B'nai B'rith and their Application Towards Real Life Conditions." Schorr describes B'nai B'rith as follows:

... The union of B'nai B'rith, as an international organization (...) is characterized by two fundamental principles: the idea of solidarity of all the Jews in the entire world (...), the idea of universalism of humanity, the brotherhood of all the peoples and nations (...). These two ideas I consider for the highest goal of our spiritual and intellectual program ...

Schorr's initiative helped with the creation of the Lodge "Montefiory" in Łódź, then the second largest Jewish urban community in Poland, with 222,497 Jews. In 1928 lodges "Montefiore" and "Braterstwo" took up the discussion concerning the official name of the organisation, arguing between B'nai B'riss and B'nei B'rith formulations. Schorr's suggestion "...taking into consideration the scientific and practical views, the name of the order should be written "B’nei B’rith" was adopted unanimously.

Schorr authored an appeal of the information bureau of the lodge "Braterstwo" about the situation of the Jews in Germany and other countries after 1933. Schorr was a member of the committee which managed the bureau. His goal in the activity of B'nai B'rith was to unify the principle of national solidarity among the Jews with the ideas of universalism.