Editing Reform Judaism (section)

===Beginnings===
{{Main|Hamburg Temple disputes}}
[[File:Hamburg1818b.jpg|upright=0.9|thumb|right|A segment of the 1818 Hamburg prayer book. Stating "accept '''the uttering of our lips instead of [[Korban|our obligatory sacrifices]]'''" and omitting the traditional "[[Gathering of Israel|O gather our dispersions]]... Conduct us [[Third Temple|unto Zion]]" passage.]]

With the advent of [[Jewish emancipation]] and [[acculturation]] in Central Europe during the late 18th century, and the breakdown of traditional Jewish life, the proper response to the changed circumstances became a heated concern. Radical, second-generation Berlin ''[[maskilim]]'' (Enlightened), like [[Lazarus Bendavid]] and [[David Friedländer]], proposed to reduce Judaism to little above [[Deism]], or allow it to dissipate entirely. A more palatable course was the reform of worship in synagogues, making them more attractive to a generation whose aesthetic and moral taste became attuned to that of Christian surroundings.<ref>Meyer, ''Response'', pp. 16–22.</ref> The first considered to have implemented such a course was the [[Amsterdam]] [[Ashkenazi]] congregation, "Adath Jessurun", In 1796. Emulating the local [[Sephardim|Sephardic]] custom, it omitted the "[[Av HaRachamim|Father of Mercy]]" prayer, beseeching God to take revenge upon the gentiles. The short-lived community employed fully traditional ("orthodox") argumentation to legitimize its actions, but is often regarded a harbinger by historians.<ref>David Harry Ellenson, ''After Emancipation: Jewish Religious Responses to Modernity'', Hebrew Union College Press, 2004. p. 103.</ref>

A relatively thoroughgoing program was adopted by [[Israel Jacobson]], a philanthropist from the [[Kingdom of Westphalia]]. Faith and observance were eroded for decades both by Enlightenment criticism and apathy, but Jacobson himself did not bother with those. He was interested in decorum, believing its lack in services was driving the young away. Many of the aesthetic reforms he pioneered, like a regular vernacular sermon on moralistic themes, would be later adopted by the [[Torah im Derech Eretz|modernist Orthodox]].<ref>Michael K. Silber, [http://www.yivoencyclopedia.org/article.aspx/Orthodoxy "Orthodoxy"], [[The YIVO Encyclopedia of Jews in Eastern Europe]].</ref> On 17 July 1810, he dedicated a synagogue in [[Seesen]] that employed an organ and a choir during prayer and introduced some German liturgy. While Jacobson was far from full-fledged Reform Judaism, this day was adopted by the movement worldwide as its foundation date. The Seesen temple – a designation quite common for prayerhouses at the time; "temple" would later become, somewhat misleadingly (and not exclusively), identified with Reform institutions via association with the elimination of prayers for the Jerusalem Temple<ref>Meyer, p. 42.</ref> – closed in 1813. Jacobson moved to Berlin and established a similar synagogue, which became a hub for like-minded intellectuals, interested in the betterment of religious experience. Though the prayerbook used in Berlin did introduce several deviations from the received text, it did so without an organizing principle. In 1818, Jacobson's acquaintance Edward Kley founded the [[Hamburg Temple]]. Here, changes in the rite were eclectic no more and had severe dogmatic implications: prayers for the [[Third Temple|restoration of sacrifices]] by the [[Messiah in Judaism|Messiah]] and [[Gathering of Israel|Return to Zion]] were quite systematically omitted. The Hamburg edition is considered the first comprehensive Reform liturgy.

While Orthodox protests to Jacobson's initiatives had been scant, [[Hamburg Temple disputes|dozens of rabbis throughout Europe united to ban the Hamburg Temple]]. The Hamburg reformers, still attempting to play within the limits of rabbinic tradition, cited canonical sources in defence of their actions; they had the grudging support of one liberal-minded rabbi, [[Aaron Chorin]] of [[Arad, Romania|Arad]], though even he never acceded to the removal of prayers for the sacrifices. 

The massive Orthodox reaction halted the advance of early Reform, confining it to the port city for the next twenty years. As acculturation and resulting religious apathy spread, many synagogues introduced mild aesthetic changes, such as vernacular sermons or somber conduct, yet these were carefully crafted to assuage conservative elements (though the staunchly Orthodox opposed them anyhow; secular education for rabbis, for example, was much resisted). One of the first to adopt such modifications was Hamburg's own Orthodox community, under the newly appointed modern Rabbi [[Isaac Bernays]]. The less strict but still traditional [[Isaac Noah Mannheimer]] of the [[Vienna]] [[Stadttempel]] and [[Michael Sachs (rabbi)|Michael Sachs]] in [[Prague]], set the pace for most of Central and Western Europe. They significantly altered custom, but wholly avoided dogmatic issues or overt injury to Jewish Law.<ref>Meyer, ''Response'', pp. 55–58, 111–115, 150–157.</ref>

[[File:ReformHarby.jpg|upright=0.9|thumb|right|A passage from the Reformed Society's prayerbook, which was mostly in English and theologically more radical than Hamburg's.]]
An isolated, yet much more radical step in the same direction as Hamburg's, was taken across the ocean in 1824. The younger congregants in the [[Charleston, South Carolina|Charleston]] synagogue "[[Congregation Kahal Kadosh Beth Elohim|Beth Elohim]]" were disgruntled by present conditions and demanded change. Led by [[Isaac Harby]] and other associates, they formed their own prayer group, "The Reformed Society of Israelites". Apart from strictly aesthetic matters, like having sermons and synagogue affairs delivered in English, rather than [[Middle Spanish]] (as was customary among [[Western Sephardim]]), they had almost their entire liturgy solely in the vernacular, in a far greater proportion compared to the Hamburg rite. And chiefly, they felt little attachment to the traditional Messianic doctrine and possessed a clearly heterodox religious understanding. In their new prayerbook, authors Harby, Abram Moïse and David Nunes Carvalho unequivocally excised pleas for the restoration of the Jerusalem Temple; during his inaugural address on 21 November 1825, Harby stated their native country was their only Zion, not "some stony desert", and described the rabbis of old as "Fabulists and Sophists... Who tortured the plainest precepts of the Law into monstrous and unexpected inferences". The Society was short-lived, and they merged back into Beth Elohim in 1833. As in Germany, the reformers were laymen, operating in a country with little rabbinic presence.<ref>Meyer, ''Response'', pp. 232–235. See Harby's discourse in: [https://books.google.com/books?id=dc49rZ-qc_YC&pg=PA57 ''A Selection from the Miscellaneous Writings of the Late Isaac Harby, Esq'', 1829, p. 57]. See also: [https://archive.org/details/sabbathservicemi00refo The Sabbath service and miscellaneous prayers, adopted by the Reformed society of Israelites, founded in Charleston, S. C., November 21, 1825].</ref><ref name="Chryssides">{{cite encyclopedia |title=Reform Judaism |surname=Chryssides |given=George |author-link=George Chryssides |encyclopedia=Encyclopedia of new religious movements |page=525 |publisher=Routledge |year=2006 |editor-surname=Clarke |editor-given=Peter B. |editor-link=Peter B. Clarke |place=London; New York |isbn=9-78-0-415-26707-6}}</ref>