Reform Judaism for the Rest of Us: Faith versus Political Activism

These policies also raised great tensions with the more traditional movements. Orthodox and Conservatives rejected the validity of Reform conversions already before that, though among the latter, the greater proclivity of CCAR rabbis to perform the process under halachic standards allowed for many such to be approved. Patrilineal descent caused a growing percentage of Reform constituency to be regarded as non-Jewish by the two other denominations.

The Union consists of four administrative districts, West, East, South and Central, which in turn are divided into a total of 35 regional communities, comprising groups of local congregations; 34 are in the United States and one represents all those affiliated with the Canadian Council for Reform Judaism. The URJ is led by a board of trustees, consisting lay members. This board is overseen by the 5,member General Assembly, which convenes biennially. It was first assembled in Cleveland on 14 July , and the most recent biennial was held in Boston on 5 - 10 December Spiritual guidance is provided by the Central Conference of American Rabbis , which has some 2, clergy members who convene annually.

The RAC advocates policy positions based upon religious values, and is associated with political progressivism , as part of the vision for Tikkun Olam. The URJ has an estimated constituency of , in the United States, , Jews and further 90, non-converted gentile spouses. A greater number identifies with Reform Judaism without affiliating with a synagogue. Cohen estimated there were 1,, identifying non-member adults in addition to those registered, not including children.

Citing those findings, the URJ claims to represent a total of 2. The Reform Jewish Youth Movement exists to supplement and support Reform youth groups at the synagogue level. About local youth groups affiliate themselves with the organization, comprising over 8, youth members. The Union offers various Israel programs for seminarians and students. Standing in opposition to a more stringent establishment, formed from English-born immigrants, Harby and his followers were mainly concerned with decorum. They demanded English-language sermons, synagogue affairs handled in English rather than Middle Spanish as was prevalent among Western Sephardim and so forth.

However, they also arrived at more principled issues. On their first anniversary, Harby delivered an oratory in which he declared Rabbinic Judaism a demented faith, no longer relevant, and that America was "the Promised Land of Scripture. The three leaders authored a prayerbook in which they completely excised any mention of the Messiah, restoration of sacrifices and return to Zion. It was published in Far more moderate alterations along these lines, in the first liturgy considered Reformed, caused an uproar at Hamburg in The Society, numbering several dozens, dissipated and merged back into Beth Elohim during But they did not cease being a factor.

In , the unified congregation hired Gustavus Poznanski as cantor. He spent time in Hamburg and knew the rite of the Hamburg Temple. Traditional at first, Poznanski soon turned to a different course. In he attempted to abolish the Second Day of Festivals and later published his own version of the Maimonedes' Creed , which lacked reference to Resurrection of the Dead and the Messiah.

He also instituted various ritual reforms. Supported by many of the former secessionists, he eventually resigned in A year before that, Isaac Mayer Wise arrived from Europe. In a country where Jewish immigrants lacked an organized and established religious leadership, Wise quickly rose to prominence. While far from traditional belief, he was disinterested in offering a comprehensive new approach, focusing on pragmatic compromises. Wise introduced family pews for the first time in known synagogue history by random, when his congregation bought a church in Albany on Shabbat Shuvah , 3 October His attempts to forge a single American Judaism motivated him to seek agreement with the conservative Isaac Leeser.

While the former stressed continuity with the past, and described Judaism as an entity that gradually adopted and discarded elements along time, Holdheim accorded present conditions the highest status, sharply dividing the universalist core from all other aspects that could be unremittingly disposed of. Declaring that old laws lost their hold on Jews as it were and the rabbi could only act as a guide for voluntary observance, his principal was that the concept of " the Law of the Land is the Law " was total.

He declared mixed marriage permissible — almost the only Reform rabbi to do so in history; his contemporaries and later generations opposed this — for the Talmudic ban on conducting them on Sabbath, unlike offering sacrifice and other acts, was to him sufficient demonstration that they belonged not to the category of sanctified obligations issurim but to the civil ones memonot , where the Law of the Land applied.

Another measure he offered, rejected almost unanimously by his colleagues in , was the institution of a "Second Sabbath" on Sunday, modeled on Second Passover , as most people desecrated the day of rest. In , a group of radical laymen determined to achieve full acceptance into society was founded in Frankfurt, the "Friends of Reform". They abolished circumcision and declared that the Talmud was no longer binding. In response to pleas from Frankfurt, virtually all rabbis in Germany, even Holdheim, declared circumcision obligatory.

Similar groups sprang in Breslau and Berlin. These developments, and the need to bring uniformity to practical reforms implemented piecemeal in the various communities, motivated Geiger and his like-minded supporters into action. Between and , they convened three rabbinical assemblies, in Braunschweig , Frankfurt am Main and Breslau respectively.

Those were intended to implement the proposals of Aaron Chorin and others for a new Sanhedrin , made already in , that could assess and eliminate various ancient decrees and prohibitions. A total of forty-two people attended the three meetings, including moderates and conservatives, all quite young, usually in their thirties. The conferences made few concrete far-reaching steps, albeit they generally stated that the old mechanisms of religious interpretation were obsolete. The first, held on 12—19 June , abolished Kol Nidrei and the humiliating Jewish oath , still administered by rabbis, and established a committee to determine "to which degree the Messianic ideal should be mentioned in prayer".

Repeating the response of the Paris Grand Sanhedrin to Napoleon , it declared intermarriage permissible as long as children could be raised Jewish; this measure effectively banned such unions without offending Christians, as no state in Germany allowed mixed-faith couples to have non-Christians education for offsprings. It enraged critics anyhow. A small group of traditionalists also attended, losing all votes. On the opposite wing were sympathizers of Holdheim, who declared on 17 June that "science already demonstrated that the Talmud has no authority either from the dogmatic or practical perspective The men of the Great Assembly had jurisdiction only for their time.

We possess the same power, when we express the spirit of ours. The harsh response from the strictly Orthodox came as no surprise. Moshe Schick wondered, "why shall we not disclose the truth about the sentence of these men Yet they also managed to antagonize more moderate progressives. Rapoport and Zecharias Frankel strongly condemned Braunschweig. Another discontented party were Christian missionaries , who feared Reform on two accounts: Frankel was convinced to attend the next one, held in Frankfurt on 15—28 July , after many pleas.

But he walked out after it passed a resolution that there "were subjective, but no objective, arguments for retaining Hebrew in the liturgy". While this was quite a trivial statement, well grounded in canonical sources, he regarded it as a deliberate breach with tradition. The s, commented Meyer, saw the "Reform movement crystallized both intellectually and institutionally", narrowing from "reformers in the generic sense " who wished to modernize Judaism to some degree or other including both Frankel and the Neo-Orthodox Samson Raphael Hirsch "a broad stream that embraced all opponents of the premodern status quo", to "a more clearly marked current which rejected not only the religious mentality of the ghetto, but also the modernist Orthodoxy which altered form but not substance".

Rabbi David Einhorn elucidated a further notion, that of the Mission to bring ethical monotheism to all people, commenting that, "Exile was once perceived as a disaster, but it was progress. Israel approached its true destiny, with sanctity replacing blood sacrifice. It was to spread the Word of the Lord to the four corners of the earth. The last meeting, convened in Breslau 13—24 July , was the most innocuous. The Sabbath, widely desecrated by the majority of German Jews, was discussed. Participants argued whether leniencies for civil servants should be enacted, but could not agree and released a general statement about its sanctity.

Holdheim shocked the assembled when he proposed his "Second Sabbath" scheme, astonishing even the radical wing, and his motion was rejected offhand. They did vote to eliminate the Second Day of Festivals , noting it was both an irrelevant rabbinic ordinance and scarcely observed anyway. While eliciting protest from the Orthodox, Frankfurt and Breslau also incensed the radical laity, which regarded them as too acquiescent.

In March , a small group formed a semi-independent congregation in Berlin, the Reformgemeinde. They invited Holdheim to serve as their rabbi, though he was often at odds with board led by Sigismund Stern. They instituted a drastically abridged prayerbook in German and allowed the abolition of most ritual aspects. Geiger and most of the conferences' participants were far more moderate.

While Holdheim administered in a homogeneous group, they had to serve in unified communities. Though practice and liturgy were modified, it was decidedly restrained. Except Berlin, where the term "Reform" was first used as an adjective, the rest referred to themselves as "Liberal". Two further rabbinical conferences much later, in and at Leipzig and Augsburg respectively, were marked with a cautious tone. While common, noted Michael Meyer, the designation "Liberal Jew" was more associated with political persuasion than religious conviction.

The general Jewish public in Germany demonstrated little interest, especially after the law under which communal affiliation and paying parish taxes were no longer mandatory. Apart from that, Reform had little to no influence in the rest of the continent. Radical lay societies sprang in Hungary during the Revolution but soon dispersed. Only in Germany, commented Steven M. Lowenstein, did the extinction of old Jewish community life lead to the creation of a new, positive religious ideology that advocated principled change.

Secular education for clergy became mandated by mid-century, and yeshivas all closed due to lack of applicants, replaced by modern seminaries; the new academically-trained rabbinate, whether affirming basically traditional doctrines or liberal and influenced by Wissenschaft , was scarcely prone to anything beyond aesthetic modifications and de facto tolerance of the laity's apathy.

Further to the east, among the unemancipated and unacculturated Jewish masses in Poland, Romania and Russia, the stimulants that gave rise either to Reform or modernist Orthodoxy were virtually unheard of. Regarded as boldly innovative in their environs, these were long since considered trivial even by the most Orthodox in Germany, Bohemia or Moravia. In the east, the belated breakdown of old mores led not to the remodification of religion, but to the formulation of secular conceptions of Jewishness , especially nationalistic ones.

While the title "Reform" was occasionally applied to them, their approach was described as "neo- Karaite ", and was utterly opposite to continental developments. Only a century later did they and other synagogues embrace mainland ideas and established the British Movement for Reform Judaism. At Charleston, the former members of the Reformed Society gained influence over the affairs of Beth Elohim.

In , Gustavus Poznanski was appointed minister. At first traditional, but around , he excised the Resurrection of the Dead and abolished the Second day of festivals , five years before the same was done at the Breslau conference. Apart from that, the American Reform movement was chiefly a direct German import. Adopting the Hamburg rite, it was the first synagogue established as Reformed on the continent. In the new land, there were neither old state-mandated communal structures, nor strong conservative elements among the newcomers. While the first generation was still somewhat traditional, their Americanized children were keen on a new religious expression.

Reform quickly spread even before the Civil War. While fueled by the condition of immigrant communities, in matters of doctrine, wrote Michael Meyer, "However much a response to its particular social context, the basic principles are those put forth by Geiger and the other German Reformers — progressive revelation, historical-critical approach, the centrality of the Prophetic literature.

The rabbinate was almost exclusively transplanted — Rabbis Samuel Hirsch , Samuel Adler , Gustav Gottheil , Kaufmann Kohler , and others all played a role both in Germany and across the ocean — and led by two individuals: Wise was distinct from the others, arriving early in and lacking much formal education. He was of little ideological consistency, often willing to compromise.

Quite haphazardly, Wise instituted a major innovation when introducing family pews in , after his Albany congregation purchased a local church building and retained sitting arrangements.

Union for Reform Judaism

While it was gradually adopted even by many Orthodox Jews in America, and remained so well into the 20th Century, the same was not applied in Germany until after World War II. Wise attempted to reach consensus with the traditionalist leader Rabbi Isaac Leeser in order to forge a single, unified American Judaism. In the Cleveland Synod, he was at first acquiescent to Leeser, but reverted immediately after the other departed. The enraged Leeser disavowed any connection with him. Yet Wise's harshest critic was Einhorn, who arrived from Europe in the same year.

Demanding clear positions, he headed the radical camp as Reform turned into a distinct current. On 3—6 November , the two and their followers met in Philadelphia. Described by Meyer as American Reform's "declaration of independence", they stated their commitment to the principles already formulated in Germany: A practical, far-reaching measure, not instituted in the home country until , was acceptance of civil marriage and divorce.

A Get was no longer required. In , he established the movement's rabbinical seminary, Hebrew Union College , at Cincinnati, Ohio. He and Einhorn also quarreled in the matter of liturgy, each issuing his own prayerbook, Minhag America American Rite and Olat Tamid Regular Burnt Offering respectively, which they hoped to make standard issue. Eventually, the Union Prayer Book was adopted in The movement spread rapidly: By , a mere handful of the existing were not affiliated with it.

In , Reform Judaism in America was confronted by challenges from both flanks. To the left, Felix Adler and his Ethical movement rejected the need for the Jews to exist as a differentiated group. On the right, the recently arrived Rabbi Alexander Kohut , an adherent of Zacharias Frankel, lambasted it for having abandoned traditional Judaism. Einhorn's son-in-law and chief ideologue, Rabbi Kaufmann Kohler , invited leading rabbis to formulate a response.

The eight clauses of the Pittsburgh Platform were proclaimed on 19 November. It added virtually nothing new to the tenets of Reform, but rather elucidated them, declaring unambiguously that, "Today, we accept as binding only the moral laws, and maintain only such ceremonies as elevate and sanctify our lives. It indeed motivated a handful of conservatives to cease any cooperation with the movement and withdraw their constituencies from the UAHC. It united all non-Reform currents in the country and would gradually develop into the locus of Conservative Judaism. The Pittsburgh Platform is considered a defining document of the sanitized and rationalistic "Classical Reform", dominant from the s to the s.

At its height, some forty congregations adopted the Sunday Sabbath and UAHC communities had services without most traditional elements in a manner seen in Europe only at the Berlin Reformgemeinde. However, change loomed on the horizon. From to , over 2,, immigrants from Eastern Europe drastically altered American Jewry, increasing it tenfold.

The 40, members of Reform congregations became a small minority overnight. The newcomers arrived from backward regions, where modern education was scarce and civil equality nonexistent, retaining a strong sense of Jewish ethnicity. Even the ideological secularists among them, and more so the many who were or became lax or nonobservant, had a very traditional understanding of worship and religious conduct. The leading intellectuals of Eastern European Jewish nationalism castigated Western Jews in general and Reform in particular not on theological grounds, which they as laicists wholly rejected, but for what they claimed to be assimilationist tendencies and the undermining of peoplehood.

This sentiment also fueled the often cool manner in which the denomination is perceived in Israeli society. While at first alienated from all native modernized Jews, a fortriori the Reform ones, the Eastern Europeans did slowly integrate. Growing numbers did begin to enter UAHC prayerhouses. The CCAR soon readopted elements long discarded in order to appeal to them: The five-day workweek soon made the Sunday Sabbath redundant.

Temples in the South and the Midwest , where the new crowd was scant, remained largely Classical. In Germany, Liberal communities stagnated since mid-century. Full and complete Jewish emancipation granted to all in the German Empire in largely diffused interest in harmonizing religion with Zeitgeist. Immigration from Eastern Europe also strengthened traditional elements. It numbered 37 members at first and grew to include 72 by , about half of Germany's Jewish clergy, a proportion maintained until The Union had some 10, registered members in the s. It stressed the importance of individual consciousness and the supremacy of ethical values to ritual practice, declared a belief in a messianic age and was adopted as "a recommendation", rather than a binding decision.

It served as the cornerstone of Liberal Judaism in Britain. Montefiore was greatly influenced by the ideas of early German Reformers. He and his associates were mainly driven by the example and challenge of Unitarianism , which offered upper-class Jews a universal, enlightened belief. Meyer noted that while he had original strains, Montefiore was largely dependent on Geiger and his concepts of progressive revelation, instrumentality of ritual et cetera. His Liberal Judaism was radical and puristic, matching and sometimes exceeding the Berlin and American variants.

They sharply abridged liturgy and largely discarded practice. It eventually evolved into the Liberal Jewish Movement of France. Seligmann first suggested the creation of an international organization. On 10 July , representatives from around the world gathered in London. Shankman wrote they were all "animated by the convictions of Reform Judaism: After weighing their options, they chose "Progressive", rather than either "Liberal" or "Reform", as their name, founding the World Union for Progressive Judaism. It began to sponsor new chapters globally.

The history of Judaism

The first was founded in the Netherlands , where two synagogues formed the Verbond voor Liberaal-Religieuze Joden in Nederland on 18 October In the coming decade, waves of refugees from Nazi Germany arrived in Britain, bringing with them both the moderation of German Liberal Judaism few mingled with the radical JRU and a cadre of trained rabbis.

Only then did British Reform emerge as a movement. German refugees also founded a Liberal community named Emet ve-Emuna in Jerusalem , but it joined the Conservatives by Kohler retired in Cohon, born near Minsk , was emblematic of the new generation of East European-descended clergy within American Reform.

Deeply influenced by Ahad Ha'am and Mordecai Kaplan , he viewed Judaism as a Civilization , rather than a religion, though he and other Reform sympathizers of Kaplan fully maintained the notions of Election and revelation, which the latter denied. Cohon valued Jewish particularism over universalist leanings, encouraging the reincorporation of traditional elements long discarded, not as part of a comprehensive legalistic framework but as means to rekindle ethnic cohesion. So did Solomon Freehof , son to immigrants from Chernihiv , who advocated a selective rapprochement with Halakha , which was to offer "guidance, not governance"; Freehof advocated replacing the sterile mood of community life, allowing isolated practices to emerge spontaneously and reincorporating old ones.

He redrafted the Union Prayer Book in to include more old formulae and authored many responsa, though he always stressed compliance was voluntary. Cohon and Freehof rose against the background of the Great Depression , when many congregations teetered on the threshold of collapse. Growing Antisemitism in Europe led German Liberals on similar paths. The Nazis' takeover in effected a religious revival in communities long plagued by apathy and assimilation. The great changes convinced the CCAR to adopt a new set of principles.

While no one imagined the enormity of the tragedy that would befall European Jewry, the possibilities were apparent. In response to the changing political environment, the Reform movement began to accept and eventually embrace a more particularistic understanding of Jewish identity, including political Zionism. The Reformers began to accept a definition of Judaism centered on Jewish peoplehood. Nevertheless, Reform rabbis continued to speak of ethical monotheism, which stressed that the Jewish belief in one God would lead to the highest ethical behavior.

The Reform movement changed its direction as a consequence of the increasingly brutal nature of the 20 th century. World War I jump-started the process of reexamining the liberal sense that had propelled Reform religious thought until that time. The movement's optimistic view of human progress in collaboration with God underwent further change after the rise of the Nazi movement in Germany and the subsequent murder of six million Jews.

In the aftermath of that tragedy, the Reform movement veered away from its universalistic triumphalism toward a more ethnically based cultural identity. But the breakdown of this optimism did not mean the end of either Reform Judaism or the Reform movement. Congregations continued to attract new adherents as sociological patterns shifted. Many Jews found that the Reform temple met their need for a nominal religious identification, while allowing them to join the stew in the American melting pot. From until , the Reform movement grew slowly relative to the increase in the American Jewish population, with 99 congregations consisting of 9, members in and congregations with 23, in while the American Jewish population increased fold.

The Reform movement went from being the single most important voice of the Jewish American community to being a small minority. Although the elite nature of many Reform Jews meant they retained a high profile, they were swamped by the eastern European organizations and ideologies. The eastern European mass immigrations increased the American Jewish population from , in to 1 million by and 3. The bulk of the immigrants came from Russia, Ukraine, Lithuania, Poland, Romania, and other regions where there had not been full emancipation.

Since most of the native population in their home countries had viewed these Jews as an alien presence, they came to America from an insular Jewish background. As a consequence, few joined the Reform movement. The immigrants did not like the Reform service, which they found lacking in traditional Jewish elements. Many Reform Jews maintained a haughty attitude toward the newcomers, preferring not to remember that their own parents or grandparents had arrived in the United States one or two generations earlier under similar circumstances.

Indeed, a mythology developed that had the "German" Jews descended from aristocrats. Historically inaccurate, it reflected a widely held perception. Nevertheless, over the course of time increasing numbers of eastern Europeans joined Reform congregations. Under their influence, the Reform movement inched back toward a more traditional approach to Jewish thought and practice, hastened by world events. By the s and especially the s, with the worldwide rise of antisemitism, this direction became clear.

Even though the Declaration of Principles had argued that Jews should remain together solely as a religious group to fulfill their mission of bringing ethical monotheism to the world, the rise in antisemitism threatened Jewish physical survival, a concern that far outweighed theology or ideology.

This new platform embraced Jewish peoplehood and leaned toward support of political Zionism. The culmination of a revolutionary shift in the ideology of the American Reform movement, it encouraged a greater diversity of opinion and a multiplicity of approaches. By the Reform movement was well on its way to accepting Zionism and the soon-to-be-created State of Israel.

The interwar period saw the rise of two strongly Zionistic Reform rabbis, Stephen S. Wise and Abba Hillel Silver. Wise no relation to Isaac Mayer Wise began his rabbinic career in Portland, Oregon, then moved to New York, where he established his own congregation after Temple Emanuel refused to promise him freedom of the pulpit. Wise believed in both the importance of social justice and the centrality of Jewish peoplehood.

Like him, Abba Hillel Silver was a prominent leader in American and world Jewish affairs as well as a congregational rabbi. After serving as a rabbi in Wheeling, West Virginia, he became rabbi of the temple in Cleveland, Ohio. From this pulpit he worked tirelessly to build up the American Zionist movement in the hope of establishing a Jewish state.

General observations

Congress on behalf of the Zionist movement. Silver was the leader who announced to the United Nations that Israel had declared itself an independent state. Both men were Classical Reformers devoted to Jewish nationalism, a synthesis that would have been incongruous just a few decades earlier. The aftermath of World War II brought a massive suburban construction boom that within American Judaism benefited the Conservative branch most. Conservative Judaism appealed to the now Americanized Eastern European immigrants and their children, because it appeared substantially more traditional than Reform but allowed far greater flexibility than Orthodoxy.

Nevertheless, Reform Judaism benefited from this suburbanization trend as well. The congregations in , with 59, members in the UAHC , grew by to congregations and , members. Many suburban Jews who joined Reform congregations saw the temple mainly as an extracurricular activity for their children. Congregations that moved most rapidly to meet the needs of these new suburbanites thrived. The temple became a social center that substituted to some degree for the loss of the old Jewish neighborhoods, such as those once clustered on the Lower East Side or Brownsville in New York and its equivalences in other major urban settings.

The Reform leadership faced the challenge of conveying a religious message to congregants who had not joined their synagogues primarily to share a religious vision. Yet the leaders needed to captivate and motivate them to care and to feel that the congregation was helping them fulfill themselves as ethically concerned people. The Reform movement grew in large part because it benefited from strong leadership. While much of this strength was more perception than reality, it nevertheless inspired many in the rank-and-file. A tremendous amount of private infighting remained largely hidden from public view.

Eisendrath , who became UAHC executive director in and president in , moved the national headquarters from Cincinnati to New York — and thus geographically separate from Hebrew Union College — where he constructed an entire building for the organization on Fifth Avenue across the street from Central Park and next to Congregation Emanu-El. He called the new headquarters the "House of Living Judaism," and it remained the operating center of the Reform movement until it was sold under the presidency of Eric H. Unlike the Conservative Movement, where the titular leadership of the movement is the chancellor of the Jewish Theological Seminary, the president of the Union is the titular and actual head of the Reform Movement.

Nelson Glueck, a world-famous archeologist who had appeared on the cover of Time , became president of HUC in While many viewed him as more interested in his archaeological pursuits than in his administrative responsibilities, his fame brought a great deal of attention to the movement. Although this growth may have owed more to the burgeoning of the American Jewish community than to Glueck, the perception grew that the Reform movement had competent and visionary leadership.

The leaders could project this image of a strong, unified movement partly because of the number of pressing causes that could galvanize members of Reform congregations. In the s many Reform Jews became involved in the U. As they worried about its ability to survive in the face of Arab promises to destroy the country during the tense three weeks preceding the war, many came to realize how important the State of Israel had become to them. This fear resurfaced in when Israel's physical survival was in doubt during the early stages of the Yom Kippur War.

The cumulative effect was to increase dramatically the Zionist fervor of most American Jews, a sea change felt throughout the movement. Interest in liturgical issues also increased. Many began to feel that The Union Prayer Book , used in Reform congregations since the s, had become outdated; new prayers would better express how people felt in response to the volatile s. Joseph Glaser, executive vice president of the CCAR , initiated a campaign in to write and publish new forms of liturgy.

A thick blue prayer book, The Gates of Prayer, replaced The Union Prayer Book in to a mixed response — great excitement at the numerous options offered, along with horror at the drastic changes. Both new prayer books contained a great deal more Hebrew than their predecessors and reintroduced many traditionalist elements deleted from The Union Prayer Book. There were 10 different Friday night services offered, most of which presented a specific theological approach, as well as services that catered specifically to children or those preparing for bar mitzvah.

Synagogues introduced new ceremonies and experimented with various types of innovations. While many congregants embraced these changes, others resisted — some who had ideological objections, some who missed the liturgy they had been using their entire lives. The Reform movement's boldness in its liturgical publications matches its brave leadership in the realm of social justice, as well as its willingness to break with traditional belief and practice. Schindler , who became president of the UAHC in , gained renown for his assertive support of the social action agenda of the Reform movement of the s and s, including civil rights, world peace, nuclear disarmament, a "Marshall Plan" for the poor, feminism, and gay rights, as well as his opposition to the death penalty.

Although this advocacy landed Schindler frequently in the pages of the New York Times , he got along with traditional Jews and Israeli leaders better than had any of his predecessors. His command of Yiddish and his sense of humor and of fairness helped enormously. He played a central role as chairman of the Conference of Presidents' of Major American Jewish Organization in smoothing the way for Likud leader Menachem Begin, with whom he disagreed ideologically but with whom he established a warm and trusting personal relationship, to be accepted by American Jewish leaders who had long thought of Israel leadership as synonymous with Labor Israel.

Despite a disinterest in administrative issues, Schindler and his German accent became synonymous with Reform Judaism. His leadership inspired not only individuals, but also entire temples, to join the movement. During his presidency, the UAHC grew from congregations in to about in Of course, the continuing move to suburbia made much of this growth possible, but Schindler's inspirational leadership on issues meaningful to American Jews disconnected from traditional belief or practice played an important role.

Schindler is perhaps best remembered for two issues, his outreach to intermarried couples and his advocacy of patrilineal descent. Intermarriage had long been a taboo in the Jewish community, and many parents ostracized children who "married out. Schindler, who felt strongly that this taboo was counterproductive as well as inappropriate, came to believe that a bold gesture was in order. At a meeting of the UAHC 's Board of Trustees in Houston in December , he issued a public call to the Reform movement to reach out to the non-Jewish spouses in interfaith marriages.

Even more surprising, he urged making the Jewish religion available to unchurched gentiles. This controversial call to proselytize those with no connections of blood or marriage to the Jewish community appeared to be a dramatic departure from two thousand years of Jewish religious policy against proselytization. His critics argued that such a move would encourage certain Christian groups to launch opposing campaigns against the Jewish community, using Schindler's call as an excuse for proselytizing unaffiliated Jews.

Despite the attention that this suggestion created, little proselytizing of unchurched gentiles has occurred in the succeeding years, whereas many outreach programs to interfaith couples have been developed. During the Schindler years the Reform movement adopted the patrilineal descent resolution, which stated that the child of one Jewish partner is "under the presumption of Jewish descent.

This requirement of raising a child as a Jew was more stringent than halakhah. This would supplement rather than replace the traditional matrilineal descent policy, which established that the children of a Jewish mother would be Jewish regardless of their father's faith or even how they were raised. Also during Schindler's presidency, the Reform movement allowed women to assume a more central role in the synagogue, a direct consequence of the feminist movement that influenced every aspect of American life.

As American women in the s and s took on a far greater role in religious life than those of previous generations, the Reform movement responded quickly and actively to the changing sex-role expectations. Increasing numbers of congregations allowed women to assume responsibility for all aspects of religious and communal life, even the rabbinate.

In , Sally J. Since , hundreds of women have enrolled in HUC. As the changes in the Reform movement paralleled social changes, its character as an American religious denomination made it popular with an increasingly Americanized Jewish community. Reform practice today, especially in the synagogue itself, is characterized by the partial restoration of a number of formerly abrogated rites and rituals. Ritual items eliminated by the Classical Reformers, such as the yarmulke, tallit , and even tefillin , have been brought back. But because of the concept of religious autonomy, individual congregations cannot and do not require congregants to wear any of these traditional prayer items.

Rather, they are offered to those who find them religiously meaningful or who prefer to wear them as an expression of traditionalist nostalgia. This generates some incongruous and perhaps amusing situations. For example, it is not uncommon to find congregations where many of the women wear yarmulkes and tallitot , while most of the men sit bareheaded and bare shouldered.

This is the converse of the norm in traditional synagogues, where all men wear yarmulkes, tallitot , and on weekday mornings tefillin , and women rarely do. The Orthodox Jew who wanders into a Reform sanctuary by mistake would either break out laughing or withdraw in shock and horror.

Another dramatic trend has been the move away from a formal style of worship and music toward more jubilant and enthusiastic prayer. Certain particularly progressive congregations, such as the independent Congregation B'nai Jeshurun on the Upper West Side of New York, have served as models for most congregations that have been slowly evolving toward this more informal, exuberant style.

The formalized Classical Reform service, which could uncharitably be called sterile, no longer impresses many with its dignity and majesty. Younger people have grown up with a different aesthetic. In a remarkably smooth transition of leadership, Eric H. Yoffie , the president of the UAHC since , inherited a movement that had grown substantially in numbers yet was perceived as having fundamental problems.

Yoffie moved quickly and boldly to address these challenges, taking advantage of the new enthusiasm for spirituality and launching a systematic campaign to rebuild the entire Reform movement. He initiated a Jewish literacy campaign, which encouraged every Reform Jew to read at least four books with Jewish content every year. Recognizing that the NFTY , the movement's youth organization, had dwindled in effectiveness, Yoffie proposed a system that would include the appointment of full-time youth coordinators in each of the UAHC 's thirteen regions.

Yoffie has only begun the process of reorienting the movement to meet the sociological challenges that Reform Judaism faces in contemporary America. At the same time, the rabbinic leadership has proposed a number of interesting initiatives, most notably Richard Levy's new Pittsburgh Platform.

This restating of Reform religious beliefs generated a firestorm of controversy in and Although the CCAR at its annual conference in Pittsburgh in May eventually passed a revised version called A Statement of Principles for Reform Judaism , supporters found it severely watered down, while Classical Reformers viewed it as a betrayal of the Reform legacy in America.

Reform Judaism: History & Overview

Despite a year-and-a-half of conflict over this issue, the values that inspired people to join the Reform movement have kept them from splitting off or leaving altogether. Although many remain persuaded that Reform Jews have no strong religious beliefs, the movement has created and propagated a religious vision that remains compelling after years.

It owes its success to its ability and willingness to respond theologically to changing times. Traditional Judaism had focused on the observance of the mitzvot , the commandments given by God and incumbent on every adult Jew. The Reformers argued that if the Sages developed specific laws as a response to historical conditions, then halakhah could be changed or even abrogated. The Reform movement thus viewed halakhah , Jewish law, as no longer obligatory. Yet there was never complete agreement over how to relate to ritual observance. By the middle of 19 th century, a wide spectrum of opinion existed on the issue.

The historical school, which developed into the Conservative movement, argued that although halakhah might develop over time, it nevertheless remained binding. The historical school developed innovative religious approaches as well. The main difference — a significant one — is that the historical school attempted to show that halakhah evolved in order to justify ritual change on the basis of contemporary needs.

The Conservative movement viewed itself as faithful to the halakhic process. But Reform thinkers understood the historical changes within Judaism as far more radical. According to a Reform understanding of the history of Judaism, the religion has evolved in a revolutionary fashion at several key points in its history. These changes were not simply adaptations of a minor nature, but dramatic developments that marked huge jumps in both belief and practice. Reform theologians believed that generations in different time periods fashioned a Judaism that suited their contemporary religious sensibilities.

But if Jewish law was not obligatory, then what was the purpose of Judaism? Many 19 th -century rationalists believed that human beings possessed an autonomous sense of ethics and morals. The rationalist philosophers argued that religion imposed an externally derived legal system on individuals that prevented them from exercising their autonomous will. Such reasoning could lead one to conclude that the essence of Judaism is ethics rather than law. That explains why so much of the early Reform literature stressed abstract ethical lessons and avoided describing ritual acts.

Religious law, the Reformists believed, was inferior to ethics; Judaism's challenge was to develop along Kantian lines. Revelation became a bit tricky, because one needed autonomy to choose the ethical path. If God made all the decisions and issued all the commands, then the individual would not have autonomous choice. Therefore, Reform thinkers developed the notion of man and God as partners in an unfolding process of continuing revelation. The rejection of halakhah as a legal system meant that every individual practice had to be justified on its own merits, which produced widespread inconsistencies and contradictions.

For example, the halakhah requires all Jews to fast not only on Yom Kippur, but also on Tisha be-Av, a fast day commemorating the destruction of the First and Second Temples and other catastrophic events, and four additional minor fast days. But if halakhah no longer bound Reform Jews, then they no longer had to abstain from eating even on the holiest fast day of the year. Most pulpit rabbis seem to have chosen to ignore the glaring problem of ritual inconsistency, particularly in the private sphere.

While Reform synagogues developed a standard liturgy and a formalized ritual, no corresponding code detailed how Reform Jews should live their lives outside the synagogue; each person had to decide what rituals, if any, remained meaningful. Perhaps the rabbis preferred not to interfere with the private habits of their congregants. Some theologians, however tried to provide an ethical justification for specific observance. In recent years, many Reform Jews have come to a new appreciation of the importance of ritual in religious life, which some Orthodox observers misinterpret as a return to halakhic observance.

Rather, these Reformists find that specific traditional practices provide spiritual meaning for the individual. And that is, at heart, what the Reform movement stands for. From the beginning, lay leaders who wanted specific practical changes implemented pushed Reform forward. Innovation developed in response to local needs and took into account no overarching theological system or broad religious blueprint.

Nevertheless, Reform thinkers had to develop a system for interpreting the tradition. One of their most important concepts was to differentiate between biblical and talmudic laws. In traditional Judaism, the Sages differentiated laws that were de-oraita , from the Torah, from laws that were de-rabbanan , from the rabbis.

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But both types of laws were obligatory to the same degree, and one could not justify nonobservance by pointing out that a given law was "only" de-rabbanan rather than de-oraita. What was important to the Reformers was to develop a religious system that synchronized Jewish belief with contemporary trends yet retained enough particularistic elements to distinguish their religion as a form of Judaism.

To this end, they wanted to eliminate laws and practices that would prevent or restrict their social and economic integration into the host society. Writing in the s and s, American Jewish sociologist Marshall Sklare argued that the Jewish rituals most likely to endure were those capable of being redefined in modern, universal terms. A ritual would command widespread observance only if it did not bring with it social isolation or the adoption of a unique lifestyle. The message of the ritual had both to accord with the religious culture of the larger community and to provide a Jewish alternative to it.

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These usually focused on children and were performed infrequently so as not to be overly burdensome. Reform Jews were quick to abandon practices such as kashrut that did not meet Sklare's criteria. Although it could be redefined in modern terms, for instance, keeping kosher would still demand a relatively high degree of social isolation as well as the adoption of a unique lifestyle. Nevertheless, some Reform Jews remained observant of the kosher laws, at least to some degree.

Reformers emphasized the prophetic ideals of justice and righteousness, arguing that these universalistic values formed the essence of Judaism. The Pittsburgh Platform, which differentiated moral and ritual laws and became the "principle of faith" for Classical Reform Judaism, stressed that most of the ancient laws were not to be observed. Classical Reform was not only a system of beliefs, but also an aesthetic approach to religious practice. Although as immigrant Jews Americanized, they wanted their synagogues to reflect American norms, even in Europe many had seen the Orthodox way of worship as disruptive and undignified.

Many of the central European Jews not only believed that houses of worship should be places of propriety but also wanted their synagogue worship to reflect American norms and standards; they borrowed structural and stylistic features from local Protestant churches, copying their architecture, seating arraignments, musical styles, and so forth.

Reform Jews also made a number of ritual changes solely on the basis of what they considered the most dignified approach. A Classical Reform aesthetic slowly developed into a compulsory system of ritual that replaced the halakhic system. While Reform Judaism stood for the autonomy of the individual and against the belief that halakhah was binding in its entirety, in the post—World War II period, Reformers took a variety of positions on religious authority and how it can be reconciled with individual autonomy.

While some argued against all boundaries, others tried to develop a post-halakhic justification for some form of Jewish legal authority. Reform thinkers understood that the freedom of action they advocated could result in unintended consequences. If individuals could make their own decisions over what to observe, then what would stop those individuals from observing nothing at all?

Indeed, there were those who used the Reform movement to justify apathy and even apostasy. But no obvious solution presented itself. The manual went much further than any previous CCAR publication in urging Reform Jews to perform certain mitzvot — to light Shabbat candles, to recite or chant the kiddush , and to avoid working or performing housework on the Sabbath. This watershed publication led to additional efforts to "return to tradition. Yet a return to tradition should not be misunderstood as an acceptance of halakhah as a binding system. Most Reform Jews believe that religion in general, and Judaism specifically, is very much a human institution.

They believe that it is impossible to know with absolute certitude what God wants from us. Certainly, behaving ethically is necessary for people of all faiths. But we cannot know what ritual behavior God expects from us. Borowitz, HUC - JIR theologian, has suggested that "when it comes to ritual, they [Reform thinkers] admit we are dealing largely with what people have wanted to do for God… ceremonial [behavior] discloses more of human need and imagination than it does of God's commands.

The question of whether the movement has theological boundaries was tested in the early s when Congregation Beth Adam of Cincinnati applied to join the URJ. An adherent of Sherwin T. Arguing that it was possible to follow Judaism without believing in God and certainly without a traditional conception of God, Wine had established the small movement in , along with the first Humanistic Jewish congregation, the Birmingham Temple, in Michigan.

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Beth Adam had grown unhappy with the organization, in particular, as Barr explained, because the group had begun ordaining its own leaders. After about 10 years of belonging to no national organization Barr and the congregation felt the need to be in closer touch "with the issues and concerns of the wider Jewish community. URJ president Alexander Schindler encouraged Beth Adam's application but took no public stand on what the Union should do, stating at the URJ biennial only that the controversy would "generate a boon to our community" by opening a debate on what a Reform congregation must accept, if anything.

The debate centered on the congregation's exclusion of God from its liturgy. Neither the Shema nor the kaddish was recited, the group's literature explained, because prayers "which presume a God who intervenes or manipulates the affairs of this world" would be inconsistent with its religious message. While some supported Beth Adam's application, the response was largely negative and even hostile, and in a majority of the CCAR Responsa Committee voted against accepting the group. Gunther Plaut wrote that its "elision of God" means the congregation "does not admit of Covenant or commandments"; while the Reform movement can accept individuals who may be agnostic or even atheist, it cannot accept congregations whose declared principals contradict the religious beliefs of Reform Judaism.

Three rabbis on the Responsa Committee disagreed with the majority view, arguing that to accept Beth Adam into the URJ would not necessarily imply that the Reform movement accepts its theological views. The debate continued through the early s. At the end of its deliberations, the board voted to 13 with four abstentions to reject the application.

The Beth Adam decision meant that while congregations still had the right to adopt the prayer book of their choice or write one of their own, there were theological limits on what could legitimately be regarded as Reform liturgy. The vote also reaffirmed that the drive for inclusion did not obligate the Reform movement to accept every group from every background espousing every ideology. Yoffie, a Reform rabbi and the president of the URJ , is leading the restructuring and revitalization of the Reform movement. When Yoffie took office the Reform movement had to either make dramatic changes or watch its fortunes fade rapidly.

Large numbers in the movement have been receptive to his proposals. New approaches to study, worship, and ritual practice are being implemented. Yoffie then outlined a plan to reform Reform. Like the original Reform revolution, it will be rooted in the conviction that Judaism is a tradition of rebellion, revival, and redefinition; and like the original too, this new initiative will make synagogue worship our Movement's foremost concern. The URJ leadership has prepared a series of initiatives that taken together constitute "a Reform revolution.

To bring the synagogue back as a central Jewish institution, Reformers are developing programs that appeal to a much broader range of individuals and client groups. Much of the success of this effort relies upon how deeply it can touch people's emotions.