A history of
Orthodox Judaism in America from colonial times to World War II
By Moshe D. Sherman
The following article
is reprinted from the American Jewish Historical Society’s American
Jewish Desk Reference: The Ultimate One Volume Reference to the Jewish
Experience in America, published by
Random House.
Nascent American Orthodox Communities
The earliest communities of Jews who settled in America during
the colonial period established Orthodox congregations according to a Dutch
Sephardic version of ritual and custom. The synagogues they formed, including
Congregation Shearith Israel, New York (1686), Congregation Nephuse Israel,
Newport, Rhode Island (1754, changed to Yeshuat Israel in 1764), and
Congregation Mikveh Israel, Philadelphia (1771), were responsible for the early
institutions of Orthodox Jewish life in America. These congregations founded
America’s first mikvahs [ritual
baths], kosher slaughtering facilities, Hebrew schools and charities.
Following the arrival of large numbers of Jews from the
German states and Central Europe during the first half of the 1800s, most
Orthodox synagogues in American reflected Ashkenazi practice. [Ashkenazim are
Jews who trace their ancestry to the German lands.] By the middle of the
nineteenth century, with the arrival of Rabbis Abraham Rice (1802-1862) and
Bernard Illowy (1814-1871), an Orthodox rabbinic leadership emerged. Together
with several talented ministers, including Isaac Leeser (1806-1868), Samuel
Isaacs (1804-1878) and Morris Raphall (1798-1868), Orthodox clergy led the
struggle to protect the integrity of tradition in the face of the growing
influence of the Reform movement.
By the early 1880s, most Orthodox congregations were headed
by non-ordained ministers. Moreover, the leading Orthodox clergy at the time
were Western or American-born, English speaking, and university educated. Among
the prominent Orthodox religious leaders was American-born Bernard Drachman
(1861-1945), English-born and educated Henry Pereira Mendes (1852-1937),
Italian-born Sabato Morais (1823-1897), and American born Herny Schneeburger
(1848-1916). The institutions they founded, including the Jewish Theological
Seminary of America (1886) and the Union of Orthodox Jewish Congregations of
America (1898), had a profound influence on the development of Conservative and
Modern Orthodox Judaism.
Jewish immigrants change American Orthodoxy
Following the czarist-inspired pogroms in the early 1880ss,
almost one million Jews arrived from Eastern Europe, many of whom were
Orthodox. Numerous rabbis and Talmud scholars trained in the great yeshivas of
Eastern Europe joined the throngs of immigrants to America. By the turn of the
century, hundreds of small mikvahs, butcher shops, and Jewish bookstores dotted
the Lower East Side of New York City, soon spreading to Brooklyn and across the
Hudson to Newark, New Brunswick, and Trenton, New Jersey [… ]
These Eastern European immigrants were responsible for
developing America's first yeshiva institutions. Until the 1880s, Orthodox
children attended public school in the morning and Talmud torah Hebrew School
in the afternoon. In 1886, an elementary yeshiva day school was established on
the Lower East Side. In 1897, a higher-level yeshiva for older students was
established on the Lower East Side, named for the revered Chief rabbi of Kovno,
Rabbi Isaac Elchanan Spektor (1817-1896), who had died the previous year.
Several years later, under the direction of Bernard Revel, the Rabbi Isaac
Elchanan Yeshiva established a high school (1916), Yeshiva College (1928), and
numerous graduate and professional school programs. Since 1945, the school has
been known as Yeshiva University [...]
Ethnic and educational tensions
The growth of Orthodox Jewish life in America brought about
division among various communities of Orthodox Jews. American Orthodox Jews
were ethnically and culturally diverse. Congregations and religious
institutions were formed along lines of national and cultural background.
Sephardic, German, Lithuanian, Polish, Hungarian, and Galician congregations
were only some of the distinct communities represented in New York,
Philadelphia, Baltimore, and other cities throughout the United States. They
also differed in such matters as the modernization of synagogue services.
Tension between the Western-educated modern Orthodox clergy
and the Eastern European yeshiva trained rabbis was aggravated when an assembly
of fifty-nine rabbis representing the United States and Canada convened in New
York City in July 1902 to establish a rabbinic union known as Agudath
ha-Rabbonim (the United Orthodox Rabbis of America, later changed to the Union
of Orthodox Rabbis of the United States and Canada). The organization
emphasized the importance of encouraging Sabbath observance, improving kashruth
standards [dietary laws], developing religious education, supporting charitable
activity, assuring that marriages and divorces were performed by qualified
rabbis, and providing political and financial support for colleagues throughout
the country.
However, only rabbis who had been trained in the great
yeshivas of Europe and ordained by well-known European Talmud scholars were
eligible for membership. The exclusion of English speaking, Western-educated
rabbis from membership in the Agudath ha-Rabbonim was part of a growing tension
between the modern Orthodox rabbis who had emigrated from Western and Central
Europe prior to the 1880s and the Eastern European, Yeshivah-trained rabbis who
arrived in America from 1881-1914.
Staying Orthodox: The Next Generation
Orthodoxy in general, and the Eastern European immigrants,
in particular, faced the challenge of how to successfully pass on traditional
law and custom to the younger generation. By the second decade of the 1900s, a
growing community of American-raised, modern-educated Orthodox youth were
becoming alienated from the Yiddish-oriented, Orthodox synagogues. Objecting to
what they considered to be poor decorum, with the auctioning of Torah honors,
and the lack of congregational singing, groups of young people negotiated with
established synagogues to permit them to organize their own minyans [smaller prayer services] and
lead their own services. [Such a smaller group is often called a minyan after the term for the
quorum--traditionally, of ten adult males-- required for some communal
prayers.]
In time, new congregations of young adults, called Young
Israel, were established in the Lower East Side and elsewhere throughout New
York. These synagogues employed no rabbis or cantors, services included English
sermons, congregational singing, and limited pledging, if any, during Torah
reading. They also sponsored lectures and social events for young adults, and
arranged for kosher dining facilities on college campuses. Most Eastern
European rabbis viewed these developments as problematic accommodations to
American society.
Rabbinic Tensions between Modern and Traditional
The founding of the Rabbinical Council of America in 1935
aggravated the strain between modern Orthodox clergy and the Eastern European
rabbis of the Agudath ha-Rabbonim. Discouraged by their exclusion from the
Agudath ha-Rabbonim, and alienated from the attitudes and priorities of the
Eastern European-born Lithuanian-educated scholars, graduates of the Rabbi
Isaac Elchanan Theological Seminary and some other American yeshivas met in
Belmar, New Jersey, on July 2, 1935, to form their own rabbinic organization,
the Rabbinical Council of America. By the 1960s, the Rabbinical Council became
the predominant Orthodox rabbinic body, and an important institution in the
politics of American Jewish life.
Differences between Eastern European-trained rabbis and
modern Orthodox Eastern European immigrants were also evident in the direction
of the Rabbi Isaac Elchanan Theological Seminary (REITS). While the Agudath
ha-Rabbonim placed their official support behind the school, there was
disagreement about its direction. In 1915 the elementary school, Etz Chaim,
merged with the upper-level yeshiva, Rabbi Isaac Elchanan, forming one large
institution.
That same year, the yeshiva hired Rabbi Dov (Bernard) Revel
as administrative director of REITS. Under Revel's leadership, the school was
transformed from a small yeshiva into a large educational institution. Revel
established a yeshiva high school in 1916, developed a program of rabbinic
ordination, attracted high level rosh
yeshivas [heads of learning institutions] to teach Talmud, including the
eminent Rabbi Shlomo Polacheck and Rabbi Moshe Soloveitchik. In 1928 he
established Yeshiva College, a four-year liberal arts school. This alienated
some members of the Agudath ha-Rabbonim who were opposed to the formal
integration of secular studies at a yeshiva.
Beyond the Lower East Side
REITS was not the only yeshiva producing modern Orthodox
graduates. Following World War I, several other yeshivas were established in
America, including Torah Vodaath, founded in 1918 as an elementary school to
serve the growing community of Orthodox Jews in Brooklyn. Torah Vodaath, at
that time, taught religious subjects in Hebrew and emphasized the importance of
modern educational techniques…
Other yeshivas founded in the 1920s included the Hebrew
Theological College (1922) in Chicago, supplementing a yeshiva high school that
bad been founded two decades earlier. The Hebrew Theological College, like
REITS, included secular subjects in its course of study and trained young men
for the rabbinate. In New Haven, Rabbi Yehuda Heschel Levenberg and Rabbi Moshe
D. Sheinkop formed the New Haven College for Talmud (later called the Orthodox
Rabbinical Seminary) in 1923, one of the first yeshivas located outside of New
York City.
Moshe D. Sherman is an
Associate Professor at the Graduate School of Jewish Studies, Touro College. c. 1999 by The Philip Lief Group.
