Reform Judaism

n.

The branch of Judaism introduced in the 19th century that seeks to reconcile historical Judaism with modern life and does not require strict observance of traditional religious law and ritual.

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Trend in Judaism which rejects the view of the immutability of the Written Law and has consequently adapted Jewish thought and practice to accord with contemporary outlooks and requirements. It is also known as Liberal and Progressive Judaism. Moses Mendelssohn, although he always remained an Orthodox Jew, helped to create the climate in which Reform emerged. The idea that Jews might live as free and equal citizens spoke with added force because of his advocacy; his teaching that the doctrines of Judaism were derived from reason and were therefore universalist in character made Judaism compatible with Enlightenment ideas and encouraged Jews to look beyond the traditional rabbinic outlook and value education outside the narrow rabbinical system.

Except where decreed otherwise by the secular power, the Jewish religious polity is based on the autonomous local congregation, not on any national or transnational hierarchy. Hence the parameters of Reform were not always established definitively, especially as they were often laid down in polemical statements. Some deviation---minor or major---from pre-existing practice was always involved, whether the text of the Liturgy, the playing of the Organ, the replacement of ancient chants by European-style music, the prerogatives of Women, or the location of the Bimah in respect to the ark. The origin of the movement lay in Germany. This was due partly to the preeminence of Germany in the spheres of theology and philosophy and the existence of a measure of religious pluralism. along with close government supervision. In the Latin world, both the Catholic and atheistic viewpoints disinclined people to experiment with new forms of religion.

Within a few years of Mendelssohn's death, the French Revolution made Emancipation a practical possibility. Emerging from the ghettoes and acquiring a secular education, the Jews of Germany could now make comparisons between the condition of Judaism and that of the surrounding churches, and their dissatisfaction focused on the style of public worship. In 1810, Israel JACOBSON built a new-style temple at Seesen in Westphalia; when it was closed, at the end of the French occupation there, he transferred his activity to Berlin (1815). As a result of representations made by the representatives of Orthodoxy, the services in Berlin were prohibited by the Prussian government (1817); a decree in 1823 forbade the slightest innovation in the language, ceremonies, prayers, or songs in Jewish worship.

In the meantime, a Reform temple was established in Hamburg (1818), with its own revised prayer book. This was a direct challenge to the authority of the Hamburg rabbinate. As a result of the curtailment of the autonomous corporate structure of Jewish life, the rabbinate could no longer resort to punitive measures. To bolster their position, the Hamburg rabbis secured opinions from colleagues throughout Europe who were firmly against both changes in the prayer service and the use of the vernacular.

Sermons in the vernacular, introduced by the Reformers, had been denounced as a violation of Jewish tradition; however, in his Gottesdienstlichen Vorträge der Juden (1832), the scholar Leopold Zunz demonstrated that such sermons were a venerable Jewish institution which had fallen into disuse during the ghetto period. In later works, Zunz showed how the liturgical poetry and ritual customs of the Jews had developed through the ages.

Coincident with the new development of the scientific study of Judaism (Wissenschaft Des Judentums) came a new approach to the training of rabbis which deemed that their education should no longer be confined to the Talmud and its derivative codes of law. In 1838, the Breslau Jewish community decided that they needed a rabbi of the new school and their choice fell on Abraham Geiger.

Geiger, who had already achieved a reputation as a scholar, had expressed himself as a decided advocate of Reform. His nomination brought on a long and bitter controversy which not only divided the Breslau community but involved the Prussian government and rabbis throughout Europe. Geiger was not content with the external embellishment of the worship service, but formulated the principles on which the Judaism of the new age must be based. There was no eternal validity to the mass of doctrines and observances which had come down from the past; all were part of a process of evolution, discernible in the Bible as well as in the Talmud, by which the Jewish people gave expression to its belief in ethical monotheism. The Jewish people had gone through a transformation. Now that they were no longer a closed and segregated community, observances of a nationalistic or particularistic character were at variance with real life. Therefore, prayers for a return to Zion or the restoration of Sacrifices had no place in the liturgy and furthermore it was inappropriate that Hebrew should be the language of prayer when German had become the mother tongue of German Jews.

Geiger's practices were far more conventional than his principles. At Breslau, Frankfurt-on-Main, and Berlin he ministered to congregations which included a considerable traditionalist element and he recognized that as rabbi he could not enact reforms which did not enjoy general support. In this he may be contrasted with Samuel Holdheim, who, after becoming the first rabbi of the Berlin Reform Congregation in 1846, eliminated Hebrew and transferred the Sabbath to Sunday. At three rabbinical conferences---Brunswick (12-19 June 1844), Frankfurt-on-Main (15-26 July 1845), and Breslau (13-24 July 1846)---the general attitude and the atmosphere were permissive. The Brunswick conference declared that mixed marriages were not forbidden, provided the State permitted the children to be brought up as Jews. It also declared that the Jew is bound to consider the land to which he belongs by birth and civic condition as his fatherland and that he must protect it and obey all its laws.

Several resolutions dealt with the Sabbath, reflecting the assumption that the traditional corpus of observance would remain intact. At the same time, they laid the groundwork for future innovation and more radical positions. Emphasis was placed upon "reconsecrating" the spirit of the Sabbath day (primarily in the synagogue but also in the home) and upon the "edifying" celebration of the Divine service. In keeping with the patriotic sentiments (and reflecting German veneration of the State), it was specifically noted that "a Jewish official may perform the duties of his office in so far as he is obliged to do so on the Sabbath." At Frankfurt, a majority agreed that the use of Hebrew in prayer was not "objectively" necessary, though its use to a certain small extent was advisable for the time being. All this was strongly contested by Zacharias Frankel, and he withdrew from the conference. In Frankel's view, changes were not prohibited, but the "needs of the day" were not a sufficient reason for change; change must proceed from the demands of the people as a whole, acting under the guidance of scholars. This viewpoint, which he called Positive Historical Judaism, was to form the basis for American Conservative Judaism.

In 1854, a theological seminary was opened in Breslau, with Frankel as director. The Berlin Hochschule---a seminary under Geiger's direction---was opened in 1872. The group within German Jewry that diverted from Orthodoxy and took its inspiration from Geiger and Frankel adopted the name "Liberal." The term "Reform" connoted for them the radicalism of Holdheim and his Berlin followers, which was not well received by a very conservative society. The Union of the Liberal Rabbis of Germany was formed in 1899, followed nine years later by the Union for Liberal Judaism. At its conference in 1912, the Union for Liberal Judaism endorsed a set of "Guide Lines" that had been prepared by the rabbinic group. The document drew strong protest from the Orthodox; at the same time it was unacceptable to the Liberal laity, who considered it too demanding. In popular usage "Liberal" also came to signify anti-Zionist.

Echoes of German Reform were heard throughout Europe. The program adopted in Vienna---traditional practices, purged of their excrescences and embellished with the eloquence of a Mannheimer and the music of a Sulzer---was the goal. By an odd quirk, it was on the tolerant soil of England that the ecclesiastical authorities excommunicated the earnest founders of a very moderate reformed synagogue (1842). However, by 1856, the independent new community was fully recognized by an Act of Parliament granting it the right to register weddings. For the most part, the Jews of England continued to be satisfied with the moderate Orthodoxy guided by the Chief Rabbinate. However, protest against continuing religious stagnation was voiced from time to time. Among the recurring suggested reforms were Sabbath afternoon services, emphasis on the vernacular and elimination of the Mi She-Berakh prayer of the service; musical accompaniment and decorum were also important issues. In 1902, a small but distinguished group founded the more outrightly liberal Jewish Religious Union. In each case, the adoption of a new prayer book was an important step in the public formulation of the religious position.

In Hungary, the 1867 decision of a congress of all Jewish communities to establish a modern rabbinical seminary drove the more rigid Orthodox elements to secede, leaving the majority to adopt a mildly reform position, known as Neology, which has been maintained to the present time.

Reform in the United States In the meantime Reform Judaism had become the accepted mode in the United States. The climate was favorable. Separation of church and state and nondiscrimination on grounds of religion were set forth by the constitution and there were no long-standing traditions to lend prestige to existing churches; religion was an entirely voluntary affair. However, freedom also brought its problems. When the United States came into being, the few existing Jewish congregations practiced a watered-down Orthodoxy, following the Sephardi ritual. This could not suffice for the large number of immigrants from Central Europe who settled in the country after 1815. Some change was necessary, but there were no trained leaders. The first breath of Reform touched the acculturated Jewish community of Charleston, South Carolina, where a short-lived Reform congregation came into being in 1824. Reforms were later introduced in the Sephardi congregation (1841). It was among the German-Jewish immigrants in the north that the movement spread. In Baltimore, Har Sinai (1842) and in New York, Emanuel (1845) were established as Reform congregations. In 1846 Isaac Mayer Wise arrived from Bohemia; in Albany and later in Cincinnati (from 1854) he was identified with the Reform viewpoint. More than once, however, he showed himself to be ambivalent on the question of Reform. His priority was a "union of American Israel" in which a representative synod would establish a rabbinical seminary, authorize a single Prayer Book (Minhag America) to replace the divergent rituals brought over from Europe, and sanction changes in practice. Out of the experience of joint action he foresaw the emergence of a form of Judaism particularly suited to the American environment. For this program Wise secured the support of a conference of rabbis which met in Cleveland in 1855. However, it aroused the bitter antagonism of David Einhorn (1809-1879) and other German-trained rabbis whose commitment to Reform came first. In this controversy, the prayer book, which should have been a unifying element within the Reform community, became instead an expression of diversity.

Wise produced his Minhag America, a modified version of the Orthodox ritual; Einhorn produced Olat Tamid, in effect a new work in German with a few Hebrew paragraphs, reflecting the position adopted at the Frankfurt rabbinical conference.

Fresh waves of controversy followed in the wake of a conference of Reform rabbis which met in Philadelphia in 1869. Eventually, the Cincinnati laity summoned a conference of congregational delegates which resolved to establish the Union of American Hebrew Congregations (1873). The Union's constitution expressed no ideological viewpoint and expressly disavowed the right to interfere with the affairs of any congregation. The primary object of the Union was "to establish a Hebrew Theological Institute." Hebrew Union College was inaugurated in 1875, with Wise as president. Like the Union, the college refrained from adopting a particular theological stand, and Wise expressed the hope that it would train rabbis for all sectors of the American Jewish community. The serving of non-kosher food at the banquet celebrating the first ordination (1883) irritated the traditionalists and they withdrew their support. The breaking point came two years later when Wise presided over a rabbinical conference at Pittsburgh which adopted a radical position enunciated by Kaufman Kohler (Einhorn's son-in-law and spiritual heir), whereby the binding character of "the Mosaic legislation" was denied and the views and habits of modern civilization became the criterion of spirituality.

Nominally, the Pittsburgh Platform was not an official statement, but it gained acceptance as the acknowledged position of American Reform Judaism. "We recognize in the modern era of universal culture of heart and intellect the approach of the realization of Israel's great Messianic hope for the establishment of the kingdom of truth, justice and peace among all men ... We recognize in Judaism a progressive religion, ever striving to be in accord with the postulates of reason ..." The liberal optimism of the late 19th century spoke through the rabbis at Pittsburgh and it conformed to the feelings of their constituents.

The Pittsburgh Platform formalized the "Protestantization" of the American synagogue. The year 1889 saw the formation of the Central Conference of American Rabbis, with Wise as president. One of its first tasks was to compile a uniform liturgy. The resultant Union Prayer Book (1895) leaned heavily on Einhorn's Olat Tamid; thus, the objectives of Geiger and his colleagues, expressed at the Frankfurt conference, were realized in America. The Pittsburgh Platform served as a license to discard the whole corpus of personal observance and the manifestation of religion was concentrated in the weekly public service in which the rabbi's sermon was an essential element. Synagogues were designed to make the pulpit the central feature of the building. A Sunday school sufficed for religious education.

This pattern, sometimes called "American Judaism" and later "Classical Reform," became the dominant mode among the established German Jews in America. Its eventual influence on the wider community was considerably mitigated with the overwhelming flood of East European Jewish immigration in the latter part of the 19th century (see Orthodoxy). The newcomers had no affinity for "Classical Reform" and at first found their religious outlet through their own institutions. In 1903, Kaufman Kohler became president of the Hebrew Union College and his direction strengthened the impress of the "Classical" pattern on the training of Reform rabbis.

A considerable proportion of the student body in the College came from the East European segment of American Jewry and had inherited none of the ideological aversion to traditional Jewish practice characteristic of the German reformers. Moreover, the atmosphere of the Reform temples changed as more and more East Europeans joined them. World War I, the emphasis on Americanization, the economic crisis of the 1930s, rising anti-Semitism, and controversies over Zionism blunted the optimism that envisioned, in a haze of universalism, a world inevitably getting better.

Dissatisfaction with the Pittsburgh Platform eventually led to the adoption by the Central Conference of American Rabbis of the Columbus Platform (1937). Between the new statement and the old there was a marked difference in tone. Now "Judaism is the historical religious experience of the Jewish people ... Judaism is the soul of which Israel is the body...." The former rejection of the idea of a Messianic restoration to Zion is replaced by an affirmation of the obligation of all Jewry to aid in the upbuilding of Palestine as a Jewish homeland and there was a call for "moral discipline and religious observance and worship in the Jewish home." The Columbus Platform was of assistance to the rabbi who wished to direct the program of his temple along a more traditionalist path; it had less effect on the laity. The most recent statement of principles of the Reform movement was adopted by the Central Conference at the Pittsburgh Convention of 1999, where it affirmed the central tenets of Judaism---God, Torah, and Israel---"even as it acknowledges the diversity of Reform Jewish beliefs and practices." It also invited all Reform Jews "to engage in a dialogue with the sources of our tradition."

Reform continued to develop in other parts of the world, albeit on a smaller scale. In England, the Liberal Jewish Synagogue was founded in 1912. Its spiritual leader was Israel I. Mattuck, who had graduated from Hebrew Union College not long before. He had considerable ability but his adherence to the "Classical Reform" pattern retarded development. As for liturgical modernization, in a society in which the 1662 Book of Common Prayer held sway, there was no keen appetite for such change. The movement became identified with anti-Zionism and this helped to isolate it further. In 1926, the English group, led by Lily Montagu, established the World Union for Progressive Judaism.

World War II brought about the end of an era in Jewish history, crystallizing the growing awareness among the leaders of American Reform that the movement had not responded to the challenges facing it. Dissatisfaction focused on the narrow program of the Union of American Hebrew Congregations. After 1943, when Rabbi Maurice Eisendrath became its Director (he received the title "President" in 1946), the Union exhibited a new dynamism, building up its organization and thrusting itself into areas from which it had previously held aloof. It developed a strong concern in matters of social action, sometimes to the dismay of its more conservative adherents. The Union had lost influence through being situated in the isolationist Midwest: Eisendrath moved its headquarters from Cincinnati to New York.

Reform Judaism benefited from the "return to synagogue" which characterized the postwar years. Between 1940 and 1980 the number of congregations affiliated with the Union increased from 400 to 730. This expansion was matched by an increase in the number of rabbis ordained by Hebrew Union College. During the period 1940-1981, membership in the Central Conference of American Rabbis increased from 400 to 1,286. Dependence upon teachers from the European seminaries now being out of the question, the College established facilities for postgraduate training. It took over the Jewish Institute for Religion and thus acquired a presence in New York; later, it opened a school in Los Angeles to serve the growing Jewish community of the western United States. It has invested heavily in a Jerusalem branch in which American rabbinic students do the first part of their training, and which also has an ordination program for men and women preparing for the Israeli rabbinate. The first Israeli student was ordained in 1980 (see also below). Continuing to grow, the movement could boast 900 congregations in the year 2001 and a share of somewhat over 40% of America's 2.8 million synagogue-affiliated Jews.

Another relatively new direction which has been encouraged by the Central Conference since World War II is the area of personal observance outside the synagogue. Expressions of this direction are the Gates of the House (1977) and its companion, Tadrich LeShabbat (1972) and the Gates of Mitsvah, A Guide to the Jewish Life Cycle (1979). This tendency has continued, with greater emphasis among many Reform rabbis - especially the more recently ordained ones - on mitsvah as it affects daily life. This increased emphasis has even been the cause of dissension among the Reform rabbinate. While various factors have been cited to account for this phenomenon, a possible cause may be the innovation mentioned above of having rabbinical students spend the first year of rabbinical studies at the Hebrew Union College center in Jerusalem, where they are exposed to the entire gamut of religious observance in the city and the country

Reform Judaism has also been active in outreach programs, toward the non-Jewish spouses of Jews and toward gays and lesbians, even, in some cases, actively soliciting converts with no prior connection to Judaism.

The European center of Jewish life had all but disappeared as a result of World War II and the mood among the remnant was not overly receptive to the old program of Reform Judaism. Nonetheless, small but deeply-rooted Reform communities in France, Germany, the Netherlands, Belgium, Sweden and Switzerland continued to develop, each according to its own patterns. For example, the French Reform community dates back to 1903, when the Union Israelite Liberals first established the guidelines for the Liberal Temple. The Temple in Rue Copernic, Paris, was dedicated in 1907 and continues to be the central pivot of the French Reform Movement.

The English Liberal community, while divided between the Reform faction, under the leadership of the West London Synagogue, and the Liberals, spearheaded by the St. John's Wood Liberal Jewish Synagogue, did band together to establish the Leo Baeck (Rabbinical) College in 1958. Both English movements have produced numerous innovative prayer books (from 1856); liturgically, the Liberal wing broke new ground with the publishing of Service of the Heart (1967) and the companion Maḥzor, Gate of Repentance (1973). The former served as a model for the Gates of Prayer, the new version of the Union Prayer Book which the Central Conference of American Rabbis issued eight years later.

Reform communities are also found in South Africa, Zimbabwe, Australia, New Zealand, India, South America, Canada and Israel. In 1970, the World Union moved its headquarters to Jerusalem, where the Israel Movement for Progressive Judaism had been founded two decades previously. Reform Judaism has had to wage a constant struggle to gain a foothold in Israel, where its institutions include 15 congregations and two kibbutzim in the Aravah, representing a joint effort of native-born Israelis and recent and veteran immigrants. The educational groundwork previously provided by the Leo Baeck School in Haifa (1939) has been augmented by kindergartens throughout the country and the early grades of elementary school in Jerusalem.

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Note: click on a word meaning below to see its connections and related words.

The noun has 2 meanings:

Meaning #1: the most liberal Jews; Jews who do not follow the Talmud strictly but try to adapt all of the historical forms of Judaism to the modern world

Meaning #2: beliefs and practices of Reform Jews

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