Editing Reform Judaism (section)

===America and Classical Reform===
[[File:Wise-1.jpg|upright=0.6|thumb|right|[[Isaac Meyer Wise]].]]
[[File:David Einhorn.jpg|upright=0.65|thumb|right|Rabbi [[David Einhorn (rabbi)|David Einhorn]].]]
[[File:Kaufmann Kohler.jpg|upright=0.65|thumb|right|Rabbi [[Kaufmann Kohler]].]]
At Charleston, the former members of the Reformed Society gained influence over the affairs of ''Beth Elohim''. In 1836, [[Gustavus Poznanski]] was appointed minister. At first traditional, but around 1841, 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. In 1842, [[Har Sinai Congregation]] was founded by German-Jewish immigrants in Baltimore. 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."<ref>Michael A. Meyer, ''Judaism Within Modernity: Essays on Jewish History and Religion'', Wayne State University Press, 2001. p. 108.</ref>

The rabbinate was almost exclusively transplanted – Rabbis [[Samuel Hirsch]], [[Samuel Adler (rabbi)|Samuel Adler]], [[Gustav Gottheil]], [[Kaufmann Kohler]], and others all played a role both in Germany and across the ocean – and led by two individuals: the radical Rabbi [[David Einhorn (rabbi)|David Einhorn]], who participated in the 1844–1846 conferences and was very much influenced by Holdheim (though utterly rejecting mixed marriage), and the moderate pragmatist [[Isaac Meyer Wise]], who while sharing deeply heterodox views was more an organizer than a thinker. Wise was distinct from the others, arriving early in 1846 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 1851, after his [[Albany, New York|Albany]] congregation purchased a local church building and retained sitting arrangements. 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 1855 [[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 1869, 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: [[Kohen|priestly privileges]], the belief in Resurrection, and a personal Messiah were denied. A practical, far-reaching measure, not instituted in the home country until 1910, was acceptance of civil marriage and divorce. A ''[[Get (divorce document)|get]]'' was no longer required. In 1873, Wise founded the [[Union of American Hebrew Congregations]] (since 2003, Union for Reform Judaism), the denominational body. In 1875, 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 (Judaism)|Burnt Offering]]) respectively, which they hoped to make standard issue. Eventually, the [[Union Prayer Book]] was adopted in 1895. The movement spread rapidly: in 1860, when it began its ascent, there were few Reform synagogues and 200 Orthodox in the United States. By 1880, a mere handful of the existing 275 were not affiliated with it.<ref>Jack Wertheimer, ''The American Synagogue: A Sanctuary Transformed'', Cambridge University Press, 2003. p. 43.</ref>

The proponents of Reform or progressive forms of Judaism had consistently claimed since the early nineteenth-century that they sought to reconcile Jewish religion with the best of contemporary scientific thought. The science of evolution was arguably the scientific idea that drew the most sustained interest. A good example is the series of twelve sermons published as ''The Cosmic God'' (1876) by [[Isaac Meyer Wise]], who offered an alternative theistic account of transmutation to that of Darwinism, which he dismissed as ‘homo-brutalism’. Other Reform rabbis who were more sympathetic to Darwinian conceptions of evolution were [[Kaufmann Kohler]], [[Emil G. Hirsch]], and [[Joseph Krauskopf]]. These engaged with high-profile sceptics and atheists such as [[Robert G. Ingersoll|Robert Ingersoll]] and [[Felix Adler (professor)|Felix Adler]]<ref>Langton, Daniel R. "Discourses of Doubt: The Place of Atheism, Scepticism and Infidelity in Nineteenth-Century North American Reform Jewish Thought" in Hebrew Union College Annual (2018) Vol.88. pp. 203–253.</ref> as well as with proponents of biological evolutionary theory, with the result that a distinctly [[panentheistic]] character of US Reform Jewish theology was observable.<ref>Daniel R. Langton, ''Reform Judaism and Darwin: How Engaging with Evolutionary Theory shaped American Jewish Religion'' (Berlin: de Gruyter, Walter GmbH & Co, 2019).</ref>

In 1885, Reform Judaism in America was confronted by challenges from both flanks. To the left, [[Felix Adler (professor)|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 [[Zecharias 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." The platform was never officially ratified by either the UAHC or HUC, and many of their members even attempted to disassociate from it, fearing that its radical tone would deter potential allies. It indeed motivated a handful of conservatives to cease any cooperation with the movement and withdraw their constituencies from the UAHC. Those joined Kohut and [[Sabato Morais]] in establishing the [[Jewish Theological Seminary of America]]. 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 1860s to the 1930s. 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]]. In 1889, Wise founded the [[Central Conference of American Rabbis]] (CCAR), the denominational rabbinic council.

However, change loomed on the horizon. From 1881 to 1924, over 2,400,000 immigrants from Eastern Europe drastically altered American Jewry, increasing it tenfold. The 40,000 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, all the more so the common masses which merely turned 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 Judaism 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 manner in which the denomination is perceived in [[State of israel|Israeli]] society, originally established on the basis of these ideologies.<ref>Meyer, ''Response'', pp. 292–294, 350.</ref>

While at first alienated from all native modernized Jews, [[a fortiori]] 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: In the 1910s, inexperienced rabbis in the [[East Coast of the United States|East Coast]] were given as [[shofar]]s ram horns fitted with a trumpet mouthpiece, seventy years after the Reformgemeinde first held [[High Holiday]] prayers without blowing the instrument. The five-day workweek soon made the Sunday Sabbath redundant. Temples in the [[Southern United States|South]] and the [[Midwest]], where the new crowd was scant, remained largely Classical.