The Americanization of Reform Judaism
The introduction of Reform into
American Judaism is usually associated with the arrival of intellectual
German-speaking Jews fleeing Europe’s failed republican revolutions of
1830 and 1848, and with German-born rabbis such as David Einhorn of
Baltimore and Isaac Mayer Wise of Cincinnati. Yet the first stirrings of
American Reform had native roots in Congregation K. K. Beth Elohim in
Charleston, South Carolina.
In December, 1824, forty-seven Charleston Jews, led by
Isaac Harby, petitioned the leaders of Beth Elohim for major changes in the Shabbat service. At that time, Beth Elohim
followed the Spanish and Portuguese minhag (customary ritual), which
the leadership saw as the service used by observant Jews since the time of
the Second Temple. The dissidents asked that each Hebrew prayer in the
service be immediately followed by an English translation; that new prayers
reflecting contemporary American life be added; that the rabbi offer a
weekly sermon - in English - that would explain the Scriptures and apply
them to everyday life; and that services be shortened.
Isaac Harby was an unlikely reform leader. He was
descended from a Sephardic family which had fled Spain for Portugal then
Morocco, London and Jamaica before moving to Charleston in 1782. Harby’s
father Solomon married Rebecca Moses, the daughter of one of South
Carolina's leading Jewish families. Isaac, born in 1788, became a noted
teacher, playwright, literary critic, journalist and newspaper editor.
Isaac Harby demonstrated little interest in religion in
his younger years, but in the early 1820's he became alarmed by organized
Protestant efforts to convert American Jews, and the emergence of
anti-Semitism in politics. Harby wanted his fellow Charleston Jews to be
able to defend Judaism from its critics, and themselves from proselytizers,
but worried that they knew too little about their religion, were
ill-tutored in Hebrew or other languages, could not understand the
traditional Spanish and Portuguese rituals at Beth Elohim, and were thus
defenseless against the Protestant challenge.
To make Judaism more accessible, Harby and his fellow
reformers thought that services at Beth Elohim had to become more
"American" -- frankly, more like services those in surrounding
Protestant churches -- while retaining orthodoxy’s core liturgy and
teachings. They wished to worship no longer, as they put it, as
"slaves of bigotry and priestcraft," but as part of the
"enlightened world."
The leaders of Beth Elohim refused to consider their
petition, citing the congregation's constitution which required that at
least two-thirds of the membership join in any call to amend synagogue
rituals or practices. In response, the reformers created an independent
"Reformed Society of Israelites for Promoting True Principles of
Judaism According to Its Purity and Spirit."
Meeting at a separate site, the Reformed Society of
Israelites wrote its own prayer book, introduced music into the service and
worshiped without head coverings. Harby became an active leader of the
Society, serving as orator and, in 1827, as president. On the first
anniversary of the reform petition, he delivered a lengthy and eloquent
address explaining the Society's goals, which he circulated widely as a
pamphlet. Though understandably the pamphlet received a mixed reception
within the Jewish community, many non-Jewish readers praised it. Even
octogenarian Thomas Jefferson wrote to say that he found the reforms
proposed "entirely reasonable," though confessing that he was
"little acquainted with the liturgy of the Jews or their mode of
worship."
While the Reformed Society of Israelites flourished for
a few years, the leaders and loyal members of Beth Elohim never ceased
their relentless criticism and ostracism of the reformers, and many members
became discouraged as their families split apart on religious grounds.
Harby left Charleston for New York in 1827, profoundly affected by the
premature death of his wife that year (Harby himself died suddenly in
1828), and other reform leaders either died or drifted away. Although the
Society never officially disbanded, it ceased to exist sometime after the
mid-1830's.
But the spirit of reform in Charleston did not die with
Harby. When an accidental fire destroyed Beth Elohim in 1838, the
congregation met to plan its rebuilding. The remaining reformers seized
their opportunity, and thirty-eight members petitioned the trustees that
"an organ be erected in the synagogue to assist in the vocal part of
the service." The "Great Organ Controversy", as it came to
be known, split the congregation as nothing previously. The synagogue
leadership again turned down the request, because playing the organ during
services would violate the injunction against labor on Shabbat. Following
the congregation’s by-laws, the reformers convened a general meeting of
the congregation. After much debate, a two-thirds majority reversed the
decision.
Beth Elohim became the first synagogue in America to
provide organ music at services. This break with the orthodox minhag opened the way for other changes in the ritual, many of which had been
requested a decade earlier by the Reformed Society: confirmation classes
for boys and girls, abandoning the second day of festival observances and,
eventually, family seating rather than the separation of men and women.
The defeated traditionalists split away to form a new
Orthodox congregation, which they called Shearith Israel, "the Remnant
of Israel." Beth Elohim thereafter evolved at the forefront of reform
Judaism in America. The influences on Charleston’s reformers were clearly
native, not imported from Germany. They sincerely believed that Judaism in
America could not survive if it could not modernize to combat assimilation.
The traditionalists argued, in turn, that such a watered-down Judaism was
itself assimilated bend recognition. The debate between American reformers
and traditionalists begun in Charleston 250 years ago has yet to be
resolved.
Sources: American Jewish
Historical Society |