Although he began his career as a professor of political science, Leonard Fein went on to play important roles in the Jewish community, especially in the areas of social action and building Jewish pride and knowledge. In 1974, he founded Moment Magazine, and eleven years later he founded Mazon: A Jewish Response to Hunger. On March 12, 1969, he addressed the Synagogue Council of America (an organization of American Synagogue associations) at Columbia University. His basic message was that the Jewish community had overreacted to black anti-Semitism. An excerpt from Fein's speech appears below.