A STUDY GUIDE

INTRODUCTION

To study the history of American Judaism is, among other things, to be reminded anew of the theme of human potential, in our case, the ability of American Jews—young and old, men and women alike—to change the course of history and transform a piece of their world (page xx).

This sweeping, optimistic statement sets the tone of Dr. Sarna’s comprehensive yet accessible work. Timed for publication during the commemoration of the 350^th anniversary of American Jewry, American Judaism explores the relationships between those who “shaped events” (author’s emphasis, page xx) both within the always-small Jewish community as well as the mostly-Christian community at large. As important, readers learn how the dominant American Protestant ethic of individual freedom influenced the establishment of fledging Jewish institutions in America as much as did centuries of formal Jewish European tradition. Sarna’s point is echoed by Rabbi David Ellenson, who states that, since “the United States was created as a fully modern nation with no medieval past . . . there were no set communal structures . . . that would guide the directions Judaism would take. America was a relatively blank slate . . .” (Forward, July 16, 2004).

Sarna fills in this blank slate, not in the usual fashion, which would compartmentalize history into generational achievements and disappointments, what happened to the Jews as they once again established homes in a distant place. Instead, his themes identify and explain the many innovations the Jews themselves made in America. Sometimes making small changes and at other times forcing through more significant ones, Jews modified their religious customs in many different ways to accommodate the ever-shifting situations of their new home.

Sarna focuses on the following:

· Why did the first Jews who arrived at the colonies strive for civil and economic equality, rather than fight for religious rights?

· What factors in the 1820s led to the break-up of their unified Jewish synagogue-community, replaced by a more diverse community of synagogues?

· In the mid-nineteenth century, how did three competing strategies—to uphold Jewish traditions, to adapt Judaism to new conditions of life in a new land, and to preserve a strong sense of Jewish peoplehood— aid the survival and evolution of American Judaism?

· What changes did nation-wide religious “revivals and awakenings” of the post-World War I era and the flight to suburbia after World War II bring to the burgeoning American Jewish communities?

· And finally, how did the Holocaust and the establishment of Israel contribute to Jewish identity and continuity in the final decades of the twentieth century?

American Judaism responds to these issues and more, helping its readership to prepare for the future of American Jewry by appreciating and learning from its past.

About the Author

When Dr. Sarna first became interested in American Jewish history, more than thirty years ago, he went to an eminent Jewish scholar for advice and was told: “ . . . the Jews came to America, they abandoned their faith, they began to live like goyim [Gentiles], and after a generation or two they intermarried and disappeared. . . .Don’t waste your time. Go and study Talmud.” It is a testament to Sarna’s character and perseverance that he ignored both this advice and the then-prevalent low esteem in which the whole genre was viewed, to make American Jewish history his life’s work.

Born in Philadelphia and raised in New York and Boston, Sarna attended Brandeis University, Boston Hebrew College, Merkaz HaRav Kook (Jerusalem) and received his doctorate in 1979 from Yale University. He taught at HUC-JIR (Cincinnati) 1979-1990, becoming professor of American Jewish history and director of the Center for the Study of the American Jewish Experience. In 1990 Sarna returned to Brandeis, where he became the Joseph H. and Belle R. Braun professor in American Jewish history. In addition, he chairs the Academic Advisory and Editorial Board of the Jacob Rader Marcus Center of the American Jewish Archives (Cincinnati) and serves as the chief historian of Celebrate 350, the national commemoration of the 350^th anniversary of American Jewish Life. He has authored or edited twenty books and numerous articles, reviews and commentaries. Sarna lives in the Boston area with his wife, Prof. Ruth Langer, and their two children.

CRITICAL DATES IN THE HISTORY OF AMERICAN JUDAISM

(from American Judaism, pages 429-439)

1654 Portugal recaptures Brazil and expels Jews and Protestants. Twenty-three Jews make their way to New Amsterdam.

1655 Jews win the right to settle in New Amsterdam and establish a Jewish community.

c.1695-1704 New York Jews make a transition from covert worship in a private home to public worship in a rented house.

1730 New York Jews build North America’s first synagogue, Shearith Israel.

1730s-50s Jewish communities established in Savannah, GA; Charleston, SC; Philadelphia; and Newport, RI.

1788 Ratification of the Constitution permits Jews to hold federal office.

1791 First Amendment to the Constitution forbids Congress from making any laws “respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.”

1819 Female Hebrew Benevolent Society, the first Jewish women’s organization and the first non-synagogue Jewish charitable society of any kind, is established in Philadelphia.

1825 Collapse of synagogue-community in Charleston and New York. Dissident Charleston Jews organize the Reformed Society of Israelites; dissident New York Jews form B’nai Jeshurun, the city’s first Ashkenazic congregation.

1829 Isaac Leeser appointed hazan [prayer leader] of Mikveh Israel in Philadelphia. He introduces English-language sermons and other innovations designed to educate community within parameters of traditional Jewish law and practice.

1838 Rebecca Gratz in Philadelphia establishes America’s first Jewish Sunday School.

1840-46Dispute over installation of a synagogue organ divides Charleston Jewry between “Reform” Jews and those calling themselves “Orthodox.” Civil courts refuse to intervene, thereby setting an important precedent.

1851 Congregation Anshe Emeth in Albany, NY becomes first synagogue to seat men and women together in mixed pews.

1854 Isaac Mayer Wise, who immigrated to America in 1846, attempts to create an “American” form of Judaism.

1862 Military chaplaincy law amended, following Jewish protests, allowing those ordained by non-Christian denominations to serve as chaplains in Union army.

1862 General Grant, blaming “Jews as a class” for cotton speculation and smuggling, expels all Jews from his war zone, the most sweeping anti-Jewish act in American history. President Lincoln is appealed to by a Jew and overturns the order.

1873 Union of American Hebrew Congregations (now Union for Reform Judaism) established, aiming to create a rabbinical seminary, strengthen Jewish education, and preserve Jewish identity.

1875 Hebrew Union College founded in Cincinnati under the presidency of Isaac Mayer Wise. Its graduates promote Reform Judaism.

1877 Joseph Seligman, a prominent banker, is refused admission to a luxury hotel in New York State, allegedly because he is a Jew.

1881 Pogroms and anti-Jewish legislation in Russia cause thousands of Jews to leave for the United States and begin mass East European Jewish immigration.

1883 Tenth anniversary of the UAHC and first ordination from HUC is marked by a non-kosher (trefa) banquet.

1885 Eight-point Pittsburgh Platform seeks to demonstrate “what Reform Judaism means and aims at.”

1887 Jewish Theological Seminary opens in New York to serve “Jews of America faithful to Mosaic law and ancestral tradition.”

1893 National Council of Jewish Women founded in Chicago.

1898 Orthodox Jewish Congregational Union founded, opposing the UAHC.

1898 Federation of American Zionists established in New York City.

1912 Henrietta Szold founds Hadassah, the Women’s Zionist Organization of America.

1913 United Synagogue of America founded as the congregational arm of the Jewish Theological Seminary, signaling growing tensions between “Conservative” congregations and the Orthodox Union.

1916 Louis Brandeis, leader of the Zionist movement in America, becomes America’s first Jewish Supreme Court justice.

1920 Henry Ford’s Dearborn Independent publishes ninety-one articles purporting to describe an “international Jewish conspiracy known as The Protocols of the Elders of Zion.

1922 Stephen S. Wise founds the Jewish Institute of Religion in New York, a rabbinical seminary open to all [male] Jews and committed to Zionism and social justice. In 1949 it merges with HUC.

1937 The Columbus Platform provides a new set of guiding principles for Reform Jews, emphasizing Jewish peoplehood, religious practices, and Palestine as a “Jewish homeland.”

1942 Nazi plans to annihilate European Jewry reach Stephen Wise and are confirmed by the State Department. Wise announces that 2 million Jews have been killed.

1948 The state of Israel declares its independence and is recognized by the United States. Increasingly, Israel becomes central to American Jewish Identity.

1950 Israel’s Prime Minister, David Ben Gurion, and the president of the American Jewish Committee exchange statements concerning the relationship between American Jews and Israel, affirming American Jewry’s independence.

1955 Will Herberg’s best selling book Protestant-Catholic-Jew elevates Jews to insider status in American religion and introduces concept of a religious “triple melting pot.”

1956 Leaders of fervent Orthodoxy ban official contact between Orthodox rabbis and their Reform and Conservative counterparts.

1962 The Reform Movement opens the Religious Action Center in Washington, D.C., dedicated to social justice and religious liberty.

1965 Abraham Joshua Heschel walks arm in arm with Martin Luther King and other black leaders on the civil rights march from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama.

1967 Six Day War between Israel and its Arab neighbors propels the fate of the Jewish state to the forefront of American Jewish consciousness. Both tourism and emigration to Israel rise dramatically.

1968 Students in Massachusetts form Havurat Shalom, devoted to fellowship, peace, community, and a “new model of serious Jewish study.”

1971 Ezrat Nashim, founded by young, well-educated Conservative Jewish women, begins to agitate “for an end to the second-class status of women in Jewish life.”

1972 Sally Priesand, America’s first woman rabbi, is ordained by Hebrew Union College.

1983 The Reform Movement adopts the principle of “patrilineal descent,” recognizing the offspring of a Jewish father as Jewish, even if the mother is not, so long as the child is raised as a Jew. Critics warn against two different definitions of what is a Jew.

1999 “Statement of Principles for Reform Judaism” invites Reform Jews to engage in a dialogue with tradition and calls for renewed attention to mitzvot, defined here as sacred obligations.

2002 Surveys point to a decline in America’s Jewish population, the first since colonial times.

2004 Jews celebrate 350 years of American Jewish history.

QUESTIONS FOR DISCUSSION

As you reflect upon the discussion questions, try to relate them to stories from your personal family history. Interview elderly family members and put together your own “American Judaism.”

“Colonial Beginnings”

“Already in the late colonial period, American Jews had begun to diverge from the religious patterns that existed in Europe and the Caribbean” (page xvii). What were some “divergences”? How did they mimic those established by colonial Protestant churches? Which others were caused by expediency?

“The Revolution in American Judaism”

1. How did women in particular benefit from individual freedoms during the first decades of the new American country? Were these freedoms accompanied by additional responsibilities? What were they?

2. Sarna believes that synagogue names reveal much about the times in which they were established and the identity of those who founded them. For example, colonial congregations like Shearith Israel (Remnant of Israel) and Mikveh Israel (Hope of Israel) were named by Jews who aspired to redemption in the new world; synagogues begun later were named Rodeph Shalom (Pursuit of Peace), Beth Elohim Unveh Shallom (sic) (House of the Lord and Mansion of Peace), and Achduth Vesholom (Unity and Peace) alluding to scaled-down hopes of communal unity. What is the name of your congregation, and how does this describe its early history?

3. What were some factors that transformed American Judaism from a “synagogue-community” to “a community of synagogues”? Do we still see these factors in action today, when break-away congregations are formed?

“Union and Disunion”

1. How did Jews who came to America in the mid-nineteenth century differ from later arrivals? Are these differences still significant?

2. When Isaac Leeser (1806-1868) was hired by Congregation Mikveh Israel in 1829, the scope of his congregational obligations were “to read the prayers in the original Hebrew according to the custom of the Portuguese Jews . . . to attend all funerals and subsequent mourning services,” and, with the permission of the congregational officers, to perform other life-cycle rituals (page 76). Yet, he quickly began to preach sermons in English in order to educate and reinvigorate his congregants, did away with the use of herem (excommunication) as a form of ultimate individual punishment, and insisted on being addressed as “reverend” or “minister,” attempting to lift up American Judaism rather than invoking any fundamental changes to Judaism itself. Explain the significance and successes of his “regeneration.”

3. What was “the most significant early controversy surrounding a synagogue reform, and the first to wind up in court” (page 83)?

4. “Jews,” Isaac Leeser explained, “have no ecclesiastical authorities in America, other than the congregations themselves” (page 105). How did first Leeser and then Isaac Mayer Wise (1819-1900), deal with this? Were they successful? Why or why not?

5. I. M. Wise is revered as the father of Reform Judaism, yet he was forced to depend on the lay leaders of his congregation to create his most important triumph, the Union of American Hebrew Congregations (1873). Why?

6. In the early 1880s, the spiritual leader of a congregation in Newark, NJ forbade the wearing of head coverings, which he described as a sin. How do you react to this, given what you know of the times?

7. During the Civil War, two extraordinary episodes occurred on the Union side that indicated to Jews how they were perceived by their Christian neighbors. The first revolved around controversy of a military chaplaincy law that mandated all chaplains to be “regular ordained minister[s] of some Christian denomination.” After months of debate that included support from President Abraham Lincoln, a revised bill was passed, changing the words “some Christian denomination” to “some religious denomination.”

The second stemmed from a general order issued by Gen. Ulysses S. Grant, which stated, “The Jews, violating every regulation of trade established by the Treasury Department . . . are hereby expelled from the Department [a vast territory of captured southern states]. . . . all of this class of people [will be] furnished with passes and required to leave.” One of those expelled, Cesar Kaskel from Paducah, KY, went directly to President Lincoln, who was unaware of the order. According to an unverifiable source, the following exchange took place:

“LINCOLN: And so the children of Israel were driven from the happy land of Canaan?

KASKEL: Yes, and that is why we have come unto Father Abraham’s bosom, asking protection.

LINCOLN: And this protection they shall have at once” (page 121).

What do these two events tell you about the perception of the Jews in the 1860s? What do the pro-active Jewish responses imply?

8. Sarna states that, of the many reforms adopted by Jews in the decades following the Civil War, mixed seating was the most contentious (page 127). To this day, the existence of “family pews” remains the single most telling indication defining Orthodox synagogues from less traditional congregations. In fact, a recent article in the Forward begins, “One of America’s last family-seating Orthodox-affiliated synagogues with mixed-gender seating voted this month to join the Conservative movement, leaving only one family-seating Orthodox synagogue in the entire country” (June 25, 2004). Of all the customs and rituals, why do you think that mixed seating is the one that distinguishes denominations?

“Two Worlds of American Judaism”

1. from “The Banner of the Jew” (Emma Lazarus, 1882)

O deem not dead that martial fire,

Say not the mystic flame is spent!

With Moses’ law and David’s lyre,

Your ancient strength remains unbent.

Let but an Ezra rise anew,

To lift the Banner of the Jew! (page 139)

Of the three strategies to continue American Judaism mentioned in the Introduction—to uphold Jewish traditions, to adapt Judaism to new condition, and to preserve Jewish peoplehood—which one does Lazarus’ poem speak to? Explain your answer by discussing the poem’s biblical allusions.

2. “ . . . some critics argued that Reform, far from being the solution to the crisis facing American Jews [in the last decades of the nineteenth century], was actually part of the problem” (page 144). Defend or oppose this statement.

3. Between 1881 and 1914, at least two million Eastern European Jews immigrated to the United States. How did they differ from the Jews already established in America? Do you still see evidences of these differences?

4. A UAHC resolution passed in 1898 stated, “We are unalterably opposed to political Zionism. The Jews are not a nation, but a religious community. Zion was a precious possession of the past. . . . As such it is a holy memory, but it is not our hope of the future. America is our Zion . . .” (page 202). What forces were at work in the Jewish and non-Jewish American communities that led to this resolution?

“An Anxious Subculture”

1. In the years between the two World Wars, American Jews developed “a new sort of Jewish identity.” What traits did this new identity reveal?

2. Rabbi Mordecai Kaplan (1881-1983) changed the focus of Judaism from a religion to a “civilization,” placing the Jewish people, rather than God, at its center. How did Kaplan’s understanding of Judaism as practiced in “a shul with a pool” reflect his often-repeated maxim, that Jewish tradition should have “a voice but not a veto”?

3. The brilliant Jewish educator Emanuel Gamoran (1895-1962) changed the “goal of Reform Jewish education [from] turn[ing] Jewish young people into better human beings to shap[ing} them into devoted adherents of the Jewish people. . . .” The multi-talented Jane Evans (1907-2004) “did the same for Reform Jewish sisterhoods” (pages 251-252). Briefly review the lives of these two extraordinary individuals in light of their accomplishments for the growth of American Judaism.

4. “By World War II, Reform Judaism had successfully reinvented itself, accommodating Zionism, Jewish peoplehood, and many traditional customs and ceremonies as well” (page 254). Where would you place your congregation in the religious spectrum of beliefs and observed practices? Have you seen a change? Where do you feel most comfortable?

“Renewal”

1. After World War II, Jews began to leave their tightly-knit urban communities for the open spaces of suburbia. To a large degree, their Judaism became planning, designing, fundraising for, and furnishing the more than 1,000 synagogues built between 1945 and 1965. How did synagogue building and synagogue affiliation affect Jewish beliefs and observances during this time? What functions in addition to worship did these new synagogues fulfill?

2. Although the increase in suburban congregations brought more of the unaffiliated into formal Jewish communities, Jews were much more dispersed than they had been, more isolated from families who had kept “Jewishness,” if not Judaism, central to their lives. From universal causes such as world peace and civil rights, Jews began to pursue individual growth and personal meaning. What factors both within and without American Judaism contributed to this shift?

3. In 1967, how did Israel’s lightening-fast triumph of the Six Day War modify the opinions of American Jews regarding the State of Israel and, more intimately, themselves?

4. While the Holocaust ended in Europe in 1945, Americans did not, indeed could not, absorb its horrors for several decades. What evidences take place that indicated the silence had ended—in the community at large? In the Jewish community? In your own personal reflections?

5. How did the emergence of chavurot, small fellowships dedicated to serious Jewish worship and study, influence the general Jewish population’s Judaism?

6. In what ways did the ordination of women as rabbis and cantors that began in the 1970s affect the religious practices of liberal and even Orthodox American Jews?

7. At the conclusion of American Judaism, Sarna offers four challenges now confronting American Jewry: the issue of boundaries, the area of authority and leadership, the renaissance of Jewish culture as revitalization or assimilation, and the need to preserve Jewish unity. Which issue would you name as most important for the continued survival of American Judaism? Why?

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Francie Schwartz is the adult learning coordinator of the Union for Reform Judaism, Department of Lifelong Jewish Learning, and author of Passage to Pesach, recently published by the URJ Press.