and presided over by the organization's president, Rabbi Henry Pereira Mendes. The most important resolutions adopted at that meeting were one that deprecated the granting of a get (religious divorce document) to—or allowing subsequent re-marriage by—people who had not first obtained a civil divorce, and the request that congregations with mostly foreign-born members "secure an English-speaking rabbi for the benefit of their American-born English-speaking children". Pereira Mendes spoke in favor of the creation of a committee to bring victims of the Kishinev pogrom to the United States, and against a proposal by the Union of American Hebrew Congregations (UAHC) that the Jewish Sabbath be moved to Sunday. Pereira Mendes also announced that the UOJCA would "unite" with the UAHC and other national "religious, philanthropic, or educational" Jewish organizations in Washington "to discuss the subjects of vital concern to Judaism and Jews", while rejecting the proposition that "the main topic of the discussion at the first congress shall be the immigration problem." At the meeting Albert Lucas also spoke out strongly against attempts by Christian groups to proselytize Jewish children in nurseries and kindergartens. Ostensibly to combat this proselytization, in 1903 the congregation was one of several New York City synagogues that allowed Lucas the use of its premises for free religious classes, "open to all children of the neighborhood". In December 1905 a mass meeting was held at the synagogue to protest massacres of Jews in Russia and mourn their deaths, and the congregation donated $500 to a fund for the sufferers. In March 1909 Orthodox groups held meetings there to organize opposition to the constitution and make-up of Judah Leon Magnes's Kehilla, an overarching organization intended to represent all of New York's Jews, which lasted until 1922. A mass meeting of local residents and businessmen to combat Lower East Side gangsters was held at the synagogue in 1913. The Rivington Street synagogue was also a preferred venue for airing issues relevant specifically to Romanian-American Jews. In 1905 it was the site of New York City's only memorial service honoring United States Secretary of State John Hay, who had worked on behalf of oppressed Jews in Romania. In 1908, the synagogue hosted a meeting of over 30 religious organizations representing Romanian-American Jews, at which the formation of a federation of those organizations was proposed, and again in 1916 hosted a similar meeting of "two hundred delegates representing thirty-five organizations ...