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TEMPLE ISRAEL
GEN
ALLEN COUNTY PUBLIC LIBRARY
3 1833 01800 3852
GENEALOGY 974.402 B65TE
13 -
THE ETERNAL OVR GOD IS ONE
TEMPLE ISRAEL
Temple Israel
Growth and Achievement: Temple Israel
1854 - 1954
Edited by Arthur Mann Foreword by Oscar Handlin
CONTRIBUTORS LEE M. FRIEDMAN, ROLAND B. GITTELSOHN BERTRAM W. KORN, ARTHUR MANN, MOSES RISCHIN
PRINTED FOR THE BOARD OF TRUSTEES OF TEMPLE ADATH ISRAEL BY The Riverside Press Cambridge 1954
COPYRIGHT, 1954 BY CONGREGATION ADATH ISRAEL OF BOSTON
Issued on the Occasion of the One Hundredth Anniversary of Temple Adath Israel of Boston
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOG CARD NUMBER: 54-9783
The Riverside Press CAMBRIDGE ยท MASSACHUSETTS PRINTED IN THE U.S.A.
THE WHITE HOUSE WASHINGTON
April 6, 1954
Dear Rabbi Gittelsohn:
Please extend my warm congratulations to all members of your congregation on the occasion marking the one hundredth anniversary of Temple Israel of Boston.
The long history of this religious institution is evidence of its success in serving the spiritual needs of the people of Jewish faith in its com- munity. I know, moreover, that the influence of this temple has reached far beyond the boundaries of Greater Boston, and it is my hope that this beneficial influence will continue to exert itself for many more years.
Sincerely,
Rabbi Roland B. Gittelsohn Temple Israel Longwood Avenue and Plymouth Street Boston 15, Massachusetts
To the Men, Women, and Children of Temple Israel
Contents
From President Dwight D. Eisenhower iii
Foreword vii
Editor's Preface
ix
Part One: Early Milieu and Growth
One American Jewry in 1854 3
Two 1854 - Boston and its Jews 14
Three Congregational Life: 1854-1954 25
Part Two: The Making of a Reform Pulpit
Four Solomon Schindler: German Rebel 45
Five Charles Fleischer: Ardent Americanist 63
Six Harry Levi: Jewish Pastor 84
Seven Joshua Loth Liebman: Religio-
Psychiatric Thinker 100
Part Three: The Rabbi Looks at the Future Eight Temple Israel's Tomorrow 119
Our Contributors 128
Foreword
merican religious institutions have not in the past received the serious study they deserve. There are books enough that deal with the careers of the leaders, and there are numerous accounts of theology. But there has been little effort to probe the nature of the social forms that give meaning and order to the faith of the mass of people.
Among the factors that have kept us from understand- ing more fully this whole area of national experience has been the absence of useful studies on the local level. Every now and then a commemorative occasion has pro- duced a memorial volume, largely self-congratulatory and replete with the names of lay and clerical digni- taries. But rare indeed has been the work that went be- yond the personal details to a serious effort at self-com- prehension.
Yet self-understanding is precisely what is most
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viii
Foreword
needed. Given the variety of religious sects in the United States, and the diversity of their cultures, it is difficult for outsiders to understand the inner meaning of each of the many faiths to which Americans adhere. They can come to do so only if the communicants them- selves acquire the capacity to write about themselves with candor and detachment. As important, the com- municants themselves through want of those qualities are often deprived of the means of understanding their own past, and of seeing their own development in the perspective of time.
This congregation has been fortunate in securing for its own celebration the devoted services of a group of historians who have brought to their subject unusual skills and drawn from it a series of valuable conclusions. The writers who have contributed essays to this volume have viewed the history of Temple Israel in the light of a whole pattern of American religious development and at the time have seen this institution within the con- text of the community in which it was situated. From their study they have contrived a work that will be widely read by Americans, and that should be under- stood by all the members of the congregation they de- scribe. Those who read this book will know better the meaning of their own affiliation, and the significance of the processes of historic Judaism in which they have been involved for a century.
OSCAR HANDLIN
Editor's Preface
T. emple Israel's celebration coincides with the tercentenary of the American Jewish community. Clearly, 1954 is a year for stock-taking. In Boston, where stock-taking is dear to the heart, it is characteristic that New England's oldest reform congregation should want a history of itself. This volume has been prepared to satisfy that want.
Growth and Achievement describes the acculturation of a portion of an ancient people in modern America. Like other immigrants, Jews have acquired new habits, ideas, and occupations without losing a sense of con- tinuity with the folk past. This blend of the old and the new is the product of a free society and of a people who linked their individual futures to the future of America. We have attempted in this volume to sketch the major outline of that process as revealed in the institutional and ideological life of Temple Israel.
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Editor's Preface
In the late nineteenth century the congregation spliced the values that flowed from the new England Renaissance with the ethics of prophetic Judaism. The result was liberal Judaism, and can be measured by the important roles that the rabbis and congregants have played in the preservation and expansion of free society in America. Facing outward, the congregation has yet managed to retain an inner life all its own without vio- lating its commitment to the larger community. The varied activities that have developed at the temple have made life richer for persons who are both and at once Jews and Americans.
The contributors to this volume examined as far as possible materials relevant to their essays. The volume, however, is by no means definitive, and the task remains of writing the full history that New England's oldest Re- form congregation merits. In the absence of a formal bibliography, let me note that the sources include the Minutes of Temple Israel; newspapers; pamphlets, ar- ticles, sermons, and books written by the rabbis; manu- scripts and scrapbooks held by the families of Rabbis Solomon Schindler, Charles Fleischer, Joshua Loth Lieb- man, and Harry Levi; and interviews with congregants of long memory. The footnote, which in this case might distract rather than help, was put in the waste-paper basket.
A number of persons had a hand in the preparation of Growth and Achievement. Mr. Joseph H. Cohen, Mr.
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Editor's Preface
Lee M. Friedman, and Rabbi Roland B. Gittelsohn made the decision to secure the services of the contri- butors who wrote this volume. Rabbi Gittelsohn was always available to me for cheerful and helpful com- ment. Miss Fanny Goldstein, Mrs. Claire Schindler Hamburger, Mrs. Mabel Leslie-Fleischer, Mr. Robert Levi, and Dr. Jacob R. Marcus (Chief of the American Jewish Archives) made available relevant manuscripts and newspaper clippings; while Mr. Lewis L. Martinson, Mr. Samuel A. Nemzoff, and Miss Frances Thumim assisted in the location of materials. Dr. Stephen T. Riley of the Massachusetts Historical Society was good enough to provide us with our picture of Boston one hundred years ago. Mr. Abraham S. Burack arranged for the publication of the volume by The Riverside Press, and Riverside's Mr. Howard Bezanson kept his promise to give us a handsome book on a terribly tight schedule. Miss Bernice M. Bianchi, Miss Nancy P. Ran- dall, Miss Bessie R. Berman, and Mrs. Fred Alexander typed the manuscript, while Mrs. Fan Liebman and Mrs. Arthur Mann read proof. I wish, finally, to thank Mr. Robert Levi, Mrs. Fan Liebman, Dr. Jacob R. Mar- cus, and Dr. John Haynes Holmes, who read Part II and separated error from fact.
ARTHUR MANN
Part One
Early Milieu and Growth
CHAPTER ONE
American Jewry in 1854
I
At first blush t first blush, the coincidence of Temple Is- rael's centennial celebration with American Jewry's ter- centennial makes for a deprecatory comparison. Any other year would make sense, some might say, to mark a one hundredth anniversary - but not this year when American Jews are so conscious of their three hundredth anniversary in North America. But we know that the first two and one half centuries of Jewish life in America were a prologue to the third. Temple Israel's life spans the years in which the decisions were made, the patterns laid, which transformed American Jewry from a provin- cial outpost into the most powerful Jewish community in the world.
For the Jews in this land, as well as for American society in general, the period 1840-1875 was character- ized by rapid growth. These were the years in which the Jews of Boston first became numerous enough to found three synagogues, among them Temple Adath Israel. No chain of historical continuity linked Boston's colonial
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Early Milieu and Growth
Jewry to the nineteenth century; and the same was true for many other cities. In 1790, there were perhaps two thousand Jews in America, in 1825 possibly fifteen thou- sand. Their organization and their lines of communica- tion were simple. It was only through increased immi- gration, beginning in the 1840's, that a substantial Jewish population came into being. On the eve of the Civil War nearly 150,000 Jews lived in America.
Their presence destroyed the simplicity of an earlier communal pattern. Before 1825, it had been possible to service a community with a single synagogue and with a single charity fund administered by the synagogue; with one religious school, one foster home, one hospital. After 1840, with New York, Philadelphia, Cincinnati, and New Orleans taking the lead, the multifaceted commu- nity arose. Between 1840 and 1851, forty-one synagogues were founded. Religious schools proliferated, as did charitable and fraternal organizations, hospitals and foster homes. By the 1850's it was also clear, as reformers and traditionalists disputed over ritual and theology, that there would no longer be a single rabbinical author- ity. Already the major outlines of modern Jewish life in America were visible.
II
The problems that Jews faced one hundred years ago derived from expansion and were largely internal. There
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American Jewry in 1854
was a shortage of textbooks for religious schools as well as books for adults. Competent rabbis were hard to come by, and this was as true for existing congregations as it was for new ones. American Jews lacked an organi- zation to supervise the collection of funds for poverty- stricken Jews abroad, and they had no common voice to urge the American government to protest to foreign powers their mistreatment of Jews. As yet no formal union bound the numerous and dispersed Jewish com- munities in America.
These problems were settled pragmatically, for no preconceived pattern could be imposed on the fluid American Jewish scene. No community like this had existed, in literally complete freedom, where every Jew could go his own way, and where the government did not compel him to support his own communal institu- tions. In the years 1840-1875, the first truly creative era in American Jewish history, a few rabbis and lay leaders attempted to discover avenues for the enhance- ment and advancement of Jewish communal life, both local and national. They were particularly concerned to get a congregational union, rabbinical synod, seminary, publication society, religious education union, and cen- tralized fund for overseas charity.
The initiative was seized by two outstanding rabbis, Isaac Leeser of Mikveh Israel Congregation, Philadel- phia, and Isaac Mayer Wise of Congregation B'nai Jes- hurun, Cincinnati. Leeser was the first to see the need
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Early Milieu and Growth
for the unification of American Jewry in answer to the existing chaos, and bombarded his followers with argu- ments in favor of national organization and service. In 1843, he started the monthly Occident and American Jewish Advocate, the first enduring national Jewish peri- odical. He translated the Bible as well as both the Ash- kenazic and Sephardic prayer books into English, and published several volumes of sermons. Wise, who left Albany for Cincinnati in 1854, where he shortly was to establish his own weekly journal, The Israelite, agreed with Leeser on the necessity for national organization to solve the problems of the day.
But Leeser and Wise, ideologically opposed to one another, were unable to work in concert. And this was unfortunate, for there were laymen who were receptive to the idea of an American Jewish conference (or com- mittee or congress or board or union). Leeser was a Conservative, bound to traditionalist interpretations of Judaism, while Wise was the first American rabbi to speak for Reform, the philosophy which sought to ad- just tradition to need.
Together with associates, Leeser attacked as heretical Wise's History of the Israelitish Nation from Abraham to the Present Time (1854), the first Jewish history writ- ten by an American rabbi. Wise's volume, containing a rationalist interpretation of Biblical events, was offensive to the Conservatives. Dr. Wise "has spoken out so plainly against the inspiration of the Bible and the truth of the
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American Jewry in 1854
miracles," Leeser wrote, "that no one who believes the ancient method [of interpretation] can be deceived ... the Bible is either true or not. .. . " Wise responded by attacking Leeser, in the very first issue of the Israelite, July 6, 1854, for an unscholarly translation of the Bible. Not until the 1870's did American Jews overcome per- sonal acrimony to organize formally on national lines.
Yet, by 1854, inter-community cooperation was not unusual. The press, in particular, aroused interest in the promotion of benevolent associations, Hebrew education societies, and synagogues. In 1854, the Jews of Savannah contributed one hundred dollars toward the building of Augusta's first synagogue. And in the same year Jews in many cities responded to the appeal of the New Orleans Benevolent Society, which, supporting invalids, widows, orphans, and mendicants, had exhausted its budget on the medical care and burial of more than a hundred Jewish victims of the yellow fever epidemic in the sum- mer of 1854.
Similarly, the publication in 1854 of the will of Judah Touro, New Orleans merchant and philanthropic pioneer, revealed that there was at least an informal union of American Jews. Touro's wealth was almost legendary. His eccentricity hid his true personality, yet his deeds of benevolence were known in many parts of the coun- try. Withal, American Jews were unprepared for his un- precedented will. He bequeathed a half million dollars to dozens of organizations and philanthropies, Catholic,
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Early Milieu and Growth
Protestant, and Jewish. The latter included the majority, if not virtually all, of the synagogues, benevolent socie- ties, hospitals, and educational institutions in the coun- try. He also left money to several rabbis and Palestinian causes. The universal homage paid to Touro's generosity, the non-sectarian character of his philanthropy, and the incalculable assistance which he rendered to weak and fledgling Jewish communal enterprises were of tremen- dous import for American Jewry.
Touro was the first American Jew to be respected and acclaimed as participant both in general American affairs and in Jewish life. Psychologically, his will helped every Jew to bask in reflected glory, to take courage in the task of being a Jew, to give his little in time and money to causes which were remembered by this man of large wealth. Judah Touro dignified Judaism in America, gave to it some of the mystic appeal which the Bible already had for most American Christians. Touro, without knowing it, helped to make America a warmer home for his fellow Jews, and gave to many of them the inspira- tion to work with greater piety and zeal in behalf of their faith.
American Jews paid homage to Touro in resolution, memorial meeting, and Kaddish. And because of his loyalty to the old Newport Synagogue, in which his father had conducted the ritual as cantor, there was yet another occasion for homage, his funeral in the New- port graveyard on June 6, 1854. Delegates came from
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American Jewry in 1854
many congregations to participate in the solemn service of burial and farewell.
One delegation arrived too late for the formal meet- ings and ceremonies prior to the funeral, six delegates from the newest congregation in the country - Temple Israel of Boston. It was pardonable that they were late, but ironic and symbolic, for their congregation might also have been remembered in Judah Touro's will to the sum of five thousand dollars, as was "Hebrew Congre- gation Oharbay Shalome of Boston" (it was spelled that way in the will), had it been organized in time for Judah Touro to know of it. No matter. Temple Israel's dele- gation, sharing in the outstanding event of American Jewish life in 1854, took an equal position on the Ameri- can Jewish scene with delegates of congregations one hundred and even two hundred years older.
III
In that year, Temple Israel's services were not Reform. Nor were those of Isaac Wise's synagogue, for despite the emotional and theoretical battle between Wise and Leeser, there was very little difference between the ritual of Reform and Conservative rabbis. Only in Charleston, Baltimore, and New York had Reform congregations with radical leanings been organized. In the years that followed, however, the Reform temple emerged. This
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Early Milieu and Growth
was characterized by the innovation of family pews with men and women sitting together; the creation of a mixed choir to assist or supplant the cantor; the introduction of the organ; the abandonment of male worship with covered head; the introduction of confirmation; the mod- ification of the traditional ritual and the translation of a large part of the service in English; the publication of distinctively Reform prayer books; and the abolition of the celebration of the extra day of the New Year and the festivals.
Theologically, the leaders of Reform were adamantly opposed to praying for the return of the Jewish people to Palestine; but in practice, they were as sympathetic to- ward helping the poor Jews of Palestine as were the tra- ditionalists. In 1854, for instance, a characteristic appeal for assistance for the inhabitants of the Holy Land was sent to several American rabbis by the distinguished British leader and statesman, Sir Moses Montefiore. Re- form congregations joined others to subscribe eight thou- sand dollars. There was hardly any discussion during the time of what we today know as Zionism, although a Philadelphia Quaker named Warder Cresson became so intrigued by the Judaism of Isaac Leeser that he went to Palestine as a settler and became a convert under the name Michael Boaz Israel. He wrote regular reports on Palestinian happenings for Leeser's Occident, including traces of the new "self-help" doctrine which was to be- come a practical counterpart of political Zionism. In
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American Jewry in 1854
1854, he won a law suit against his family, which at- tempted to prove him a lunatic - who but a lunatic, they reasoned, would want to become a Jew?
But prejudice against Jews in 1854 was slight and less significant than acts of friendship and cooperation on the part of non-Jews who were dedicated to interfaith amity. American life was by no means formed; it was fluid, developing. Pioneers were needed in many areas and in many enterprises, and, by no means least, in many aspects of human welfare. Walt Whitman and Ralph Waldo Emerson, in exalting the melting pot, merely expressed what so many Americans of good will accepted as a matter of course. In 1854, despite the Know-Noth- ing movement, the door was open to all peoples who wished to come to America and identify their future with that of the country.
It was characteristic for St. Paul's, an Episcopal Church in Baltimore, to contribute to the 1854 Palestine cam- paign. In San Francisco, Mayor G. K. Harrison, just before retiring from office, contributed one month's salary to the Jewish Eureka Benevolent Society. Cus- tomarily, prominent Christians were invited to Jewish balls and banquets where funds were raised. These Christians spoke appreciatively of Jewish philanthropy and the Americanism of Jews. In 1854, Senator Lewis Cass of Michigan, military hero, former Secretary of War, and Presidential nominee in 1848, wrote the fol- lowing to the Jewish charities of Philadelphia:
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Early Milieu and Growth
Washington, Jan'y 21, 1854.
Gentlemen:
The necessity of attending to my public duties here de- prives me of the pleasure of accepting your invitation to attend the second dinner in aid of Hebrew charities, to be given on the 2d of February next.
I should be much gratified to be present on that occasion, and to participate in the duties of the day. They will form a glorious commentary on our institutions, in their opera- tion; and certainly I should feel myself honored by perform- ing the task you have assigned to me, that of responding to the toast which proclaims our country to be "the strong- hold of liberty," and that "her gates shall never be closed to the oppressed of other lands." Never, indeed. Oppres- sion drove our fathers here, and the lesson will not be for- gotten by their sons, to the fiftieth and the hundredth genera- tion.
Your community is hallowed by many sacred recollections, by many impressive associations. To your people, in the days of the Prophets and Patriarchs, were committed the oracles of the true and living God, and your separate exist- ence through ages of calamities and persecutions, is one of those perpetual miracles which prove the truth of your his- tory - and that the end is not yet. Driven from your own promised land, Providence has provided you with another, un- known to the host that went forth out of Egypt; not a land of refuge merely, but of enjoyment, the enjoyment of social, political and religious equality; and where, though you do not cease to be children of Israel, you become Americans, proud of their home, and attached by all those ties of gratitude and affection which bind men to their country.
Order, industry, obedience to the law, the performance,
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American Jewry in 1854
indeed, of all the duties of faithful citizens, have marked your community, and I thank God with you, that you are in the land where all the avenues of distinction and prosperity are equally open to all.
I am, gentlemen, very respectfully, your obedient servant,
LEWIS CASS.
To A. Hart, L. J. Leberman, M. A. Dropsie, Esqs., Com- mittee, &c &c.
Expressions of friendship like Cass' helped immigrant Jews to adjust to life in the United States. In 1854, as in most of the other years of our three centuries, the ma- jority of the Jews were recent immigrants who struggled for a foothold in the New World. Language and liveli- hood they could attain; fraternal, religious, and philan- thropic organization they already had attained; but acculturation they would attain only if non-Jewish fel- low Americans accepted them and recognized their com- mon citizenship. Welcome was given to American Jews in 1854.
CHAPTER TWO
1854-Boston and its Jews
I
1854 was, for the twenty-three million people who made up the nation of thirty-one States of the United States, an important and exciting year, a turn- ing point in American history, a year of debate and contest, from which Abraham Lincoln and ultimately a Civil War would come. The country was rapidly ex- panding westward. The times were prosperous. It had been expected that the Compromise of 1850 would bring political peace by once and for all settling the contro- versy over slavery, which for so many years had caused sectional strife. The election of Franklin Pierce to the Presidency in 1852 was a sort of middle-of-the-road vic- tory for those who wanted to let things ride in the ex- pectation that time and practical men would work out a plan of national progress which avoided political and sectional conflict.
No sooner had 1854 got under way, when the opening
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(from old photograph) Back Bay, Boston, 1850's, showing Beacon Street
George M. Cushing, Jr.
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1854 - Boston and its Jews
up and the settlement of Kansas and Nebraska and the passage of Senator Stephen A. Douglas' Popular or Squatter Sovereignty Bill, which nullified the Missouri Compromise of 1820 as well as the Compromise of 1850, more than ever made slavery a live and agitating issue. Massachusetts assumed a leading part in the struggle. It became respectable to be an abolitionist. Leading citi- zens associated to finance the outfitting of free soil farmers to settle Kansas so as to rescue it from slave- holders attempting to make it a slave state. "Bleeding Kansas" was to become one of the foundation stones upon which a Republican party was to emerge.
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