American Jewish Archives Journal [PDF]

The

American Jewish Archives Journal

Volume LXIII 2011 • Number 1

Academic Advisory & Editorial Board Jonathan D. Sarna, Co-chair

Brandeis University, Waltham, Massachusetts

Gary P. Zola, Co-chair

Hebrew Union College–Jewish Institute of Religion, Cincinnati, Ohio

Martin A. Cohen

Hebrew Union College–Jewish Institute of Religion, New York, New York

Norman J. Cohen

Hebrew Union College–Jewish Institute of Religion, New York, New York

Sara S. Lee

Hebrew Union College–Jewish Institute of Religion, Los Angeles, California

Pamela S. Nadell

American University, Washington, DC

Kevin Proffitt

American Jewish Archives, Cincinnati, Ohio

Mark A. Raider

University of Cincinnati, Cincinnati, Ohio

Marc Lee Raphael

College of William and Mary, Williamsburg, Virginia

Shuly Rubin Schwartz

The Jewish Theological Seminary, New York, New York

Robert M. Seltzer

Hunter College, New York, New York

Lance J. Sussman

Congregation Keneseth Israel, Elkins Park, Pennsylvania

VOLU M E L X I I I N U M BE R 1 (2 011)

A Journal Devoted to the Preservation and Study of The American Jewish Experience Gary P. Zola, Ph.D., Editor Dana Herman, Ph.D., Managing Editor Phil Reekers, Editorial Assistant Jacob Rader Marcus, Ph.D., Founding Editor (1896–1995) Published by

The Jacob Rader Marcus Center of the

American Jewish Archives Located on the Cincinnati campus of the

Hebrew Union College–Jewish Institute of Religion Cincinnati • New York • Los Angeles • Jerusalem

Publication of this journal is made possible, in part, by gifts from

Congregation Emanu-El of the City of New York and by the

Dolores and Walter Neustadt American Jewish Archives Journal endowment fund. The Jacob Rader Marcus Center of the

American Jewish Archives Located on the Cincinnati campus of the

Hebrew Union College–Jewish Institute of Religion Cincinnati • New York • Los Angeles • Jerusalem

Dr. David Ellenson, President On the cover: Handwritten title page of Jefferson’s work.

(Courtesy Mercantile Library, Cincinnati, Ohio);

Thomas Jefferson

(Courtesy Library of Congress);

Cyrus Adler (Courtesy American Jewish Archives)

The American Jewish Archives Journal is indexed in the Index to Jewish Periodicals, Current Contents, American Historical Review, United States Political Science Documents, and the Journal of American History. Information for Contributors: The American Jewish Archives Journal generally follows The Chicago Manual of Style (16th Edition) but issues its own style sheet, which may be accessed by visiting the American Jewish Archives website at: www.AmericanJewishArchives.org ISSN 002-905X © 2011 by The Jacob Rader Marcus Center of the American Jewish Archives ii • American Jewish Archives Journal

CONTENTS

To Our Readers

Gary P. Zola, Editor pp. vii–xi

Articles Resurrection and Life: Cyrus Adler and the Jefferson Bible

Greg Robinson pp. 1–17

One outstanding product of the American Enlightenment is the “Jefferson Bible,” Thomas Jefferson’s rationalist compilation of the New Testament. This paper explores the central but unknown “Jewish history” of the Jefferson Bible: its rediscovery by the pioneering American Jewish scholar Cyrus Adler, its connection with Adler’s own creed of Jewish universalism, and the debates over Adler’s participation and the use of public money in its publication.

William Sparger: Enigmatic Pioneer of the American Reform Cantorate Howard M. Stahl pp. 18–37 William Sparger, a young Hungarian Jewish immigrant, arrived in the United States in 1882. He rose to the pinnacle of both the rabbinate and the cantorate, serving two prestigious New York congregations. Following the High Holy Days of 1903, Sparger’s life began a downward spiral that ultimately lead to a bizarre series of events culminating in his resignation as cantor of Temple Emanu-El of the City of New York. In this article, Stahl explores what motivated Sparger, what animated his life and career, and how he catalyzed and transformed the American reform cantorate.

Documentary Analysis A Writ of Release from Levirate Marriage (Shtar Halitzah) in 1807 Charleston Jonathan D. Sarna and Dvora E. Weisberg pp. 38–55

Volume LXIII Number 1 • iii

Book Reviews Hasia Diner, Shira Kohn, and Rachel Kranson, eds., A Jewish Feminine Mystique: Jewish Women in Postwar America reviewed by Lila Corwin Berman pp. 57–58 Daniel Greene, The Jewish Origins of Cultural Pluralism: The Menorah Association and American Diversity reviewed by Lewis Fried pp. 59–60 Lori Harrison-Kahan, The White Negress: Literature, Minstrelsy, and the Black-Jewish Imaginary reviewed by Sarah Imhoff pp. 61–62 Ken Koltun-Fromm, Material Culture and Jewish Thought in America reviewed by Victoria Aarons pp. 62–65 John L. Loeb, Jr., Kathy L. Plotkin, Margaret Loeb Kempner, and Judith E. Endelman, An American Experience: Adeline Moses Loeb (1876–1953) and Her Early American Jewish Ancestors reviewed by Eli Faber pp. 65–67 Jonathan D. Sarna and Adam Mendelsohn, Jews and the Civil War: A Reader reviewed by Matthew Semler pp. 68–69 M.M. Silver, Our Exodus: Leon Uris and the Americanization of Israel’s Founding Story reviewed by Jennifer Glaser pp. 69–71 Henry Srebrnik, Dreams of Nationhood: American Jewish Communists and the Soviet Birobidzhan Project, 1924–1951 reviewed by Matthew Hoffman pp. 72–73

iv • American Jewish Archives Journal

Michael Weingrad, American Hebrew Literature: Writing Jewish National Identity in the United States reviewed by Eli Lederhendler pp. 74–75 Beth Wenger, History Lessons: The Creation of American Jewish Heritage reviewed by Jonathan Krasner pp. 76–78

Fellowship Recipients List Councils Index

pp. 79–80

pp. 81–82

pp. 83–91

Volume LXIII Number 1 • v

VISIT US ON THE WEB! THE JACOB RADER MARCUS CENTER OF THE

AMERICAN JEWISH ARCHIVES

WWW.AMERIC ANJEWISHARCHIVES.ORG RESEARCH & COLLECTIONS | ABOUT THE AJA | PROGRAMS | AJA JOURNAL | RESOURCES

The AJA’s website provides all visitors, scholars and nonscholars alike, with valuable and one-of-a-kind services. ►

The online catalogue and guide to the major manuscript collections are at the viewer’s fingertips for researching, browsing, or to use in planning a visit to our facility.

►

Those interested in the Marcus Center Fellowship Program can access an overview of the program along with a downloadable application form.

►

Americanjewisharchives.org also features media-rich, interactive, online exhibits, including The American Jewish Experience, Great Voices of Reform Judaism, and Hebrew Union College: 125 Years.

►

Past issues of The American Jewish Archives Journal as well as guidelines for submission are available online.

►

Learn about upcoming events and programs.

►

Join our Facebook fan page and sign up for email alerts of upcoming AJA events.

►

Discover the organizational genius behind the rise of American Reform Judaism through our Isaac Mayer Wise Digital Archive.

W W W. A M E R I C A N J E W I S H A RC H I V E S . O RG

vi • American Jewish Archives Journal

TO OU R R E A DER S… More than sixty years have passed since Professor Arthur M. Schlesinger, Sr. (1888–1965) published his penetrating analysis, “The American as Reformer.” Many scholars and social commentators have discussed and debated the validity of Schlesinger’s interesting thesis, wherein he argued that America possessed an ongoing and unparalleled commitment to the improvement of nearly all areas of life and culture. “The United States,…” Schlesinger wrote in 1950, “has nearly always set the pace for the Old World in reform zeal.”1 He cited many examples of how the nation’s reformist legacy had manifested itself over the years: (a) the spread of democratic suffrage to those who had been deprived; (b) the ongoing commitment to a separation of church and state; (c) the enhancement of public education; (d) the belief in the value of personal reform, and so forth. Schlesinger published this thesis at a time of heightened concern about true Americanism, when many people wanted to root out all that was “un-American” in society. Schlesinger may very well have been motivated to advance his famous thesis to counter this reactionary trend and remind Americans of the nation’s venerable reformist heritage.2 According to Schlesinger, two key factors in American history made progressivism an important trend. First—in contrast to the Old World—the New World was a social tabula rasa. The nation’s newness significantly lessened the human tendency to be emotionally tied to the dictates of tradition. Second, the majority of those who immigrated to the United States did so because they were determined to improve their own economic, social, and political circumstances. These people possessed little desire to recreate in America the inhospitable conditions they had voluntarily abandoned in Europe. In addition to these important factors, Schlesinger pointed out that the reform impulse in America has consistently been animated by Enlightenment ideology, which was particularly influential during so many of the nation’s transformational crises (viz., the Revolutionary War, the Civil War, the wars of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, etc.). The spirit of the Protestant dissenters also played a pivotal role in spurring America’s impulse to reform, wrote Schlesinger, particularly during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.3 The essay’s emphasis on the importance of “dissenting Protestantism” may have prompted twentieth-century scholars to consider the contributions that non-Protestant religions have made to the shaping of American culture. Histories of American Catholicism and American Judaism, for instance, inform us that these religions have also contributed to America’s legacy of reform—particularly in the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Only a few years after Schlesinger published his ideas about the American as reformer, a brilliant sociologist, Will Herberg (1901–1977), published another influential thesis that sought to explain why religious affiliation Volume LXIII Number 1 • vii

and identification were seemingly so important to materialistically inclined Americans. Protestantism, Catholicism, and Judaism were all “religions of democracy,” Herberg wrote in 1955, and each one served as an effective means of “self-identification and social location” in America’s cultural landscape. In America, he wrote, religious identification (as opposed to ethnic identification) helped citizens to find their place in the greater society. All three of these religions pushed adherents to work for universal justice and the betterment of humankind.4 More recently, Andrew R. Heinze (b. 1955) argued that the American psyche or “soul” may have been overwhelmingly shaped by Protestant mores during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, but the ethical ideals of Judaism became a second powerful influence during the twentieth century. The prominent role that American Jews have played in a wide range of social reform initiatives during the last century lends testimony, Heinze wrote, to the validity of his thesis.5 This issue of the journal contains three illuminating examples of what may be called the “reform impulse” in American Jewish life. Although each essay focuses on a distinctly different topic, the influence of the American reformist tradition is evident in all three investigations. In the first, Greg Robinson examines the little-known contributions that Cyrus Adler (1863–1940) made to the study of the so-called “Jefferson Bible.” This essay sheds light on the interesting role that Adler—an American Jewish intellectual—played in preserving and promulgating this valuable byproduct of Thomas Jefferson’s commitment to religious reform. No one in American history has been more prominently identified with the values of religious freedom and church/state separation than Jefferson, yet the nature of his personal religious convictions has long been a topic of keen interest. Jefferson repeatedly eschewed supernaturalism, and he took a dim view of mindless ritualism. Yet the framer of the Declaration of Independence was unquestionably a strong advocate of religious reform and, in his writings about Jews and Judaism, repeatedly emphasized his conviction that Jews, like other Americans, must immerse themselves in the world of secular learning if they hoped to be full participants in American society.6 Jefferson practiced what he preached. He unquestionably valued religious teachings, but he was concomitantly and profoundly interested in secular studies. These ideological convictions inclined him toward religious reform, and he insisted that there was one “moral basis on which all our religions rest.” 7 Determined to identify that “moral basis,” Jefferson sat down and, with scissors in hand, began to cut verses out of his own personal copies of the Bible. He selected verses that he believed contained the true essence of Jesus’s teachings and that were free from superstition and supernaturalism. In his effort to remove “the diamonds from the dung hill,” Jefferson assembled verses that he believed were viii • American Jewish Archives Journal

historically authentic and thoroughly rational. He pasted them in chronological order on blank pages of a book. The result of Jefferson’s fascinating biblical redaction was a compilation he called “The Philosophy of Jesus”—though most who are familiar with the president’s idiosyncratic creation refer to it by the nickname that Cyrus Adler invented: the Jefferson Bible.8 Adler, a prominent Jewish communal figure who ultimately became the president of the Jewish Theological Seminary of America, was the first Jewish scholar to work as a librarian at the Smithsonian Institute. Robinson explains how Adler came to play a central role in locating the Jefferson Bible during his tenure at the Smithsonian and how, in 1904, this Jewish scholar became the editor of The Life and Morals of Jesus of Nazareth, the first critical edition of the Jefferson Bible. Readers will also discover that Adler faced an array of political obstacles in his effort to expose the American public to Jefferson’s biblical innovation. The fact that Adler was a practicing Jew caused some to maintain that he was not the right man to edit the Jefferson Bible. The spirit of religious reform that impelled Jefferson to redact his own version of the Bible intrigued Adler, who shared many of Jefferson’s intellectual interests. Both of these men possessed a reforming impulse, and the story of Adler’s interest in the Jefferson Bible sheds light on how Enlightenment thought influenced both Christians and Jews in their use of “higher criticism” as a key to understanding the essence of the Bible’s moral teachings. The second essay in this journal focuses on the life and career of an American Jewish religious reformer, William Sparger. Regular readers of the journal will recall that in the previous issue we published Judith S. Pinnolis’s groundbreaking study on the life and career of Julie Rosewald, a talented vocalist who served as “cantor soprano” at San Francisco’s Emanu-El Temple for more than a decade and may very well have been the first woman to function as a cantor in an American synagogue. In this issue, Howard Stahl’s essay on William Sparger represents another contribution to the growing body of writing on the history of the American cantorate. Stahl resurrects the life of a pioneering religious leader, whose contributions to the liturgical and educational development of American Reform Judaism—along with his enigmatic character and disappearance—have been all but forgotten. Sparger, born and educated in Hungary, immigrated to the United States in 1882. In 1884, he became the rabbi of Brooklyn’s Beth Elohim Congregation. He quickly established himself as an impressive vocalist and a talented minister who knew how to sermonize in English and chant a beautiful worship service. In 1891, Sparger was called to Congregation Emanu-El of New York City to serve as its service reader and cantor. Like many of his immigrant peers, Sparger quickly assessed the religious landscape and the aesthetic tastes of his American coreligionists. Convinced that the traditional Jewish worship service needed to be reformed, Sparger’s Volume LXIII Number 1 • ix

musical talent enabled him to become a liturgical innovator. As the cantor of Congregation Emanu-El, Sparger not only embraced the liberalizing trends of the Reform worship service but, together with several cantorial colleagues such as Alois Kaiser (1840–1908) and Max Spicker (1858–1912), he helped to lay the musical foundations for a new American Jewish liturgical rite. Stahl’s essay informs our understanding of how cantorial reformers contributed to the Americanization of the Jewish worship service during the last decades of the nineteenth century. Finally, Jonathan D. Sarna and Dvora E. Weisberg remind us that the reformist inclination of American culture can paradoxically influence the pursuit of traditional Jewish practice. The authors provide a detailed examination of what seems to be the oldest surviving shtar halitzah (the traditional writ of release from levirate marriage) written in the United States. This curious document—written in Charleston in 1807—guaranteed Isaiah Moses’s new bride, Rebecca Phillips, that should her new husband die without having sired any children of his own, her brother-in-law, Levy Moses, would agree to release her from her legal obligation to marry him in accordance with the custom of levirate marriage. If need be, this release would be actualized by means of a ceremony known as halitzah. Sarna and Weisberg note that the shtar halitzah was rarely used in the colonial and early national period. Furthermore, they stress, Rebecca Phillips had no practical need for this legal document since her husband, Isaiah, was a widower who had four (!) sons from his first wife. If Isaiah died before Rebecca, one of his four sons would carry on his lineage, and there would be no need for her to marry her brother-in-law. The likelihood of Isaiah Moses and his four sons all predeceasing Rebecca would have been exceedingly remote. Although it is impossible to determine why, under these circumstances, Rebecca nevertheless wanted such a safeguard, it is evident that Isaiah was prepared to accept her terms. Regardless of whether the shtar was practicable or legally necessary, one can surmise that Rebecca and Isaiah did what they thought was best under the circumstances that prevailed. This particular phenomenon—making an effort to sustain Jewish practice in the context of new and unfamiliar circumstances—is emblematic of the overall nature of Jewish religious practice in America. Even when American Jews were bereft of knowledge regarding traditional practice, they repeatedly attempted to sustain Jewish practice as best they could—even if their efforts were not in keeping with the strict protocols of tradition. Schlesinger’s observation comes again to mind: The unconventional circumstances that prevailed in America gave Jews license to improve their own religion. In this sense, the reform impulse even affected the practice of traditional Judaism itself! In an eloquent and moving tribute to her friend and compatriot, Susan B. Anthony (1820–1906)—who remained single all of her life—Elizabeth x • American Jewish Archives Journal

Cady Stanton (1815–1902) noted, “To live for a principle, for the triumph of some reform by which all mankind are to be lifted up to be wedded to an idea may be, after all, the holiest and happiest of marriages.”9 Like so many other Americans, Jews have been inclined to work for the advancement of causes and concerns that were aimed at improving the quality of their own lives as well as the lives of their fellow citizens. The Jacob Rader Marcus Center of the American Jewish Archives preserves the records of these achievements, and this journal disseminates the history of American Jewry—a heritage that exemplifies the conviction that “every reform is a transition from the past into a regenerated future.”10

G.P.Z. Cincinnati, Ohio

Notes 1 Arthur M. Schlesinger, The American as Reformer (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1950), 5. 2 Louis Filler, “Arthur M. Schlesinger’s The American as Reformer,” The New England Quarterly 24, no. 1 (March 1951): 113–115. 3 Schlesinger, The American as Reformer, 12. 4 Will Herberg, Protestant, Catholic, Jew: An Essay in American Religious Sociology (Garden City, New York: Doubleday, 1955). For the reference to “religions of democracy” see p. 247; for the reference to “self-identification and social location,” see p. 14. 5 Andrew R. Heinze, Jews and the American Soul: Human Nature in the Twentieth Century (Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 2004). See “Introduction,” 1–10. 6 In his letter to Mordecai Manuel Noah, 28 May 1818, Jefferson urged Jews to pay “more careful attention to education…which [would place] its members on the equal and commanding benches of science, [and] will exhibit them as equal objects of respect and favor.” See http://hdl.loc. gov/loc.mss/mtj.mtjbib026629 (accessed 31 July 2011). Writing to Isaac Harby of Charleston, Jefferson asserted that "Nothing is wiser than that all our institutions should keep pace with the advance of time and be improved with the improvements of the human mind. I have thought it a cruel addition to the wrongs which that injured sect have suffered that their youths should be excluded from the instructions in science afforded to all others in our public seminaries…” 6 January 1826. See http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.mss/mtj.mtjbib025624 (accessed 31 July 2011). 7 Jefferson to Noah, 28 May 1818. 8 See http://articles.latimes.com/2008/jul/05/local/me-beliefs5 (accessed 31 July 2011). 9 Ida Husted Harper, The Life and Work of Susan B. Anthony (Indianapolis: Bowen-Merrill Company, 1891), 951. 10 See Abraham Geiger’s essay on religious reform titled Unser Gottesdienst, Eine Frage, die Dringend Lösung Verlangt (Breslau: Schletter Press, 1868) as quoted in David Philipson, Centenary Papers and Others (Cincinnati: Ark Publishing Company, 1919), 102.

Volume LXIII Number 1 • xi

Cyrus Adler (Courtesy American Jewish Archives)

Thomas Jefferson (Courtesy Library of Congress)

xii • American Jewish Archives Journal

A RTICLES

Resurrection and Life: Cyrus Adler and the Jefferson Bible Greg Robinson One outstanding product of the American Enlightenment is The Life and Morals of Jesus of Nazareth, Thomas Jefferson’s compilation of extracts from the New Testament. The volume, popularly known as the “Jefferson Bible,” portrays Jesus as a moral philosopher rather than in divine terms. Fearing that its rationalist analysis of scripture and its implicit attack on revealed religion would prove too controversial, Jefferson refused to publish the text during his lifetime; it did not appear in print until the 20th century when the federal government commissioned an edition. Yet by the century’s end, the “wee-little book,” as Jefferson called it,1 ranked among the Virginian’s most popular works. It appeared in numerous editions in different media and remained a subject for lectures, sermons, and academic debate. This paper explores the central but unknown “Jewish history” of the Jefferson Bible: its rediscovery by the pioneering American Jewish scholar Cyrus Adler, the connection between Jefferson’s Bible study and Adler’s own sense of Jewish universalism, and the controversies over Adler’s participation and the use of public money in the work’s publication.

An American Gospel Thomas Jefferson was noted, both during his lifetime and beyond, as a great champion of religious freedom. In his proposed epitaph, he himself marked his greatest contributions—not mentioning his presidency—as the Declaration of Independence, the University of Virginia, and the 1786 Virginia Statute of Religious Freedom. Because of his uncompromising stand in favor of religious tolerance and against state religion, Jefferson was attacked viciously by the bigots of his day. During the 1800 presidential campaign, mudslinging pro-Federalist clergy accused him of being an atheist and infidel. As a result, Jefferson refused to discuss his religious ideas in public. Yet he spent a good deal of time privately pondering the teachings of Jesus, which he referred to as “the most perfect system” of morality ever invented. In the 1790s, Jefferson read and was impressed by the works of the British radical philosopher and scientist Joseph Priestley, who argued that Christ’s message had been “corrupted” by the early church. Following some prodding by his friend, the doctor and statesman Benjamin Rush, Jefferson set out to define and refine scripture to restore it to its original purity. During his first term as president, Jefferson wrote a letter to Rush explaining his religious views, in which he declared that he was a Christian—that is, a follower of “the genuine precepts of Jesus himself.” He accompanied his letter with a “Syllabus,” as he termed it, Resurrection and Life: Cyrus Adler and the Jefferson Bible • 1

comparing favorably the moral teachings of Jesus to those of the ancient Greeks and the Jews (of whom Jesus was nonetheless a representative).2 In t he process, Jef ferson decided to compile a version of the Gospels that included only what he considered the authentic ideas and teachings of Jesus. With rationalistic confidence, Jefferson took up his King James Bible, snipped out the parts that he believed were original and authentic, and pasted them onto the pages of a blank book in historical order. The rest he rejected. Fearing that his revision of the Bible would be discovered and used against him as evidence of irreverence or infidelity, he disguised his purpose under a racially paternalist fiction—he claimed on the title page of his Handwritten title page of Jefferson’s work compendium, which he (Courtesy Mercantile Library, Cincinnati, OH) dubbed “The Philosophy of Jesus,” that the contents were a simplification of scripture designed to appeal to the “limited” understanding of American Indians and would serve as a model for Gospel translations into Indian languages.3 While Jefferson at first considered publishing the Bible studies, he evidently decided it was too dangerous politically. Instead, he laid his work aside and did not return to his biblical analysis until several years after leaving the White House. In 1812, Jefferson reconciled with his old friend and bitter political rival, John Adams, and the two took up their famous correspondence to “explain” themselves to each other. Adams informed Jefferson that one of Jefferson’s letters 2 • American Jewish Archives Journal

to Joseph Priestley, in which he had mentioned Rush’s challenge to him to define his religion, had been published in the memoirs of a British Unitarian minister, Theophilus Lindsay. While initially Jefferson was stunned and horrified by the news of the unauthorized publication of his private correspondence, he became absorbed by Adams’s request that he provide more details as to his beliefs. 4 Jefferson declared to Adams that once the Gospel was edited down so that only the true words of Jesus were left—verses, he remarked, that could be separated from the supernatuTitle page of Jefferson’s work ral elements others (Courtesy Mercantile Library, Cincinnati, OH) had added like “the diamonds from the dung hill”—“There will be found remaining the most sublime and benevolent code of morals which has ever been offered to man.”5 Inspired by the dialogue with Adams, Jefferson ordered a set of Bibles in different languages. He proceeded to paste extracts from the Greek text of the New Testament, along with Latin and French translations, alongside the English version, forming a biographical study of Jesus and a compendium of his teachings.6 Jefferson’s Gospel contains no miraculous elements: no story of the annunciation, no virgin birth, no angels appearing to the shepherds. It ends Resurrection and Life: Cyrus Adler and the Jefferson Bible • 3

abruptly with the death and entombment of Jesus, and the Resurrection is nowhere mentioned. Instead, Jefferson highlights the Sermon on the Mount and the parables as a paragon of ethical conduct. In short, as Marilyn Mellowes puts it, Jefferson’s Jesus, modeled on the humanitarian ideals of the Founding Fathers and other Enlightenment thinkers, bears a striking resemblance to Jefferson himself.7 Jefferson hoped at first to arrange for the book’s anonymous publication. However, his fear of the consequences for his reputation should his authorship be discovered proved too great. In 1816, Jefferson secretly granted permission for a friend, Francis Van der Kemp, to publish his original “syllabus” in England, and it appeared, along with a letter to Rush, in a British Unitarian journal. To Jefferson’s distress, the journal noted that the texts were the work of an eminent American revolutionary statesman. While this clue revealed his authorship to a few discerning readers, such as John Quincy Adams, Jefferson was not publicly exposed as the author. Nevertheless, the incident solidified his determination to keep the text to himself, and he ultimately abandoned all thought of publication. However, he remained attached to his work and frequently read through it before going to bed.8

Cyrus Adler Jefferson’s early biographer, Henry S. Randall, reported on Jefferson’s biblical studies in the 1850s, and a small circle of scholars knew of them. However, the compilation itself remained concealed in the custody of Jefferson’s family until the 1890s, when Dr. Cyrus Adler became interested in it.9 Adler (1863–1940), born in Arkansas during the Civil War, received his bachelor of arts degree from the University of Pennsylvania. In 1883 he joined the department of Semitics at Johns Hopkins University, where he received his doctorate at age twenty-four, in 1887. Not only was Adler the first person to receive a doctorate in Semitics from a U.S. university, but he was one of the first generation of Americans to be granted a doctorate—he received his degree just one year after his fellow student, Woodrow Wilson. So brilliant was Adler that after graduation, he was hired as an instructor by the Semitics department, and then in 1890 was named an associate professor.10 His principal goal, as he later described it, was to expand the field of Jewish studies. However, he was soon diverted from this by a larger mission. In 1892, on the recommendation of Dr. Samuel P. Langley, pioneer aviator and director of the Smithsonian Institution, Adler was hired by the establishment with the title of librarian (a position that did not mean desk staffer but chief of infrastructure and collections) and later rose to the position of assistant secretary.11 During his time at the Smithsonian, Adler later noted, he gave up doing research on Jewish studies to establish an institution open to scholars of all races and religions. This was an exaggeration—throughout these years, Adler 4 • American Jewish Archives Journal

undertook an active schedule of scholarly conferences, contributed articles on various topics, and most importantly played a major role in the foundation of a number of Jewish community institutions, including the Jewish Publication Society and the American Jewish Historical Society, of which he later served as president for two decades.12 Still, he did spend considerable time during these years working on the Smithsonian’s various projects. Moreover, as the first Jewish American to attain such a prominent place in the federal bureaucracy (his Smithsonian position was considered the equivalent of a sub-Cabinet post), Adler also assumed the demanding task of pleading the cause of Jews inside the federal government. It was a difficult period for Jews internationally. The Dreyfus Affair in France and the pogroms in Russia were only the most publicized expressions of antisemitism. Adler’s resolve to retain his Orthodoxy, even while remaining “modern,” was not without its own difficulties. In 1904, after many months of effort, he was granted a meeting with President Theodore Roosevelt to discuss the plight of the Jews internationally. However, the President’s staff set the meeting for a Saturday. After great thought, Adler decided that he could not work on the Sabbath, even at the cost of canceling his much-prized meeting and alienating the White House. He thus called the President’s secretary with his regrets. Fortunately, Roosevelt himself rapidly grasped the problem and called back personally a few minutes later to change the meeting date to a weekday.13 Adler’s link to Jefferson dates back to 1886, when the young graduate student volunteered to catalogue the Hebraic book collection of Joshua I. Cohen, a Jewish bibliophile in Baltimore. While preparing the catalogue, Adler came upon two mutilated English copies of the New Testament, which were identified as part of Thomas Jefferson’s collection. His curiosity piqued, Adler studied Randall’s biography and found references in Jefferson’s letters to his arrangement of the Gospels. When Adler discovered that the actual text was absent from the collection of Jefferson’s complete writings, whose publication the federal government had arranged in 1873, he began the search for the unpublished manuscript of what he dubbed the “Jefferson Bible.” He intensified the search after he joined the Smithsonian. Why was Adler so interested in Jefferson’s text? On first glance, the book has nothing to do with Judaic religion or philosophy (indeed, the New Testaments were omitted from Adler’s catalogue of Cohen’s Hebraic collection). Even if Jefferson did not argue for the divinity of Jesus, he nonetheless extolled Christian morality over that of Jews. In his “Syllabus,” Jefferson deplored as “degraded” the moral doctrines of the Old Testament. In a letter to Ezra Stiles Ely, Jefferson commented, “I am not a Jew, and therefore do not adopt their theology, which supposes the God of infinite justice to punish the sins of the fathers upon their children; [while] the benevolent and sublime reformer of that religion has told us only that God is good and perfect, but has not defined him.”14 Resurrection and Life: Cyrus Adler and the Jefferson Bible • 5

On the other hand, Adler was both personally and professionally interested in biblical “higher criticism” and in scholarly controversies over biblical texts.15 He was impressed by the evidence of Jefferson’s great religious devotion, even within a work of theological criticism, and by his sense that Jefferson’s emphasis on the humanitarian teachings of Jesus closely resembled those of the Jewish Enlightenment. It is unclear whether Adler was aware at the time of Jefferson’s defense in his later years of religious toleration and the rights of the Jews.16 Still, he was surely pleased by Jefferson’s assertion, as his letter to Ely indicates, of Jesus’s own Jewish identity. Finally, and perhaps most importantly, Jefferson removed from his New Testament all of the antisemitic passages found in the received version, notably those placing the blame for Jesus’s crucifixion on the Jews.

The Jefferson Resurrection The existence of the Jefferson volume was not altogether unknown at the time that Adler started his research. Indeed, in 1890, then-Librarian of Congress Ainsworth R. Spofford had described the manuscript in connection with the report of Congress’s proposed purchase (which never took place) of a set of Jefferson manuscripts from Jefferson’s great-granddaughter, Sarah N. Randolph. After Adler learned of this, he made inquiries of Randolph, but she died shortly afterward. However, in 1895, following a tip from historian J. Franklin Jameson, Adler located the volume in the collection of another Mrs. Randolph, who was also a great-granddaughter of Jefferson.17 Adler secured a grant from Congress for the National Museum to purchase the volume for four hundred dollars. He soon set about making the text public. The work was first displayed at the famous Cotton States Exposition in 1895 in Atlanta (site of Booker T. Washington’s famous “Atlanta Compromise” speech the following year). There it was featured as part of an exhibition of biblical archaeology, comprising historic manuscripts and books of the Bible, alongside cases of Hebrew coins and an imitation of a high priest’s breastplate.18 After the exhibition the volume disappeared from public view—Adler was said to keep it personally under lock and key—but clearly its contents were publicly known. Responding to the attacks of ministers such as J.R. Holt, who had termed Jefferson “a notorious infidel,”19 in 1897 Rev. Charles H. Eaton delivered a sermon at New York’s Universalist Church of the Holy Paternity. Eaton referred to Jefferson’s compilation of the word of Jesus, plus other verses, as evidence of Jefferson’s “sincere and rational view of religion.”20 In 1900, Iowa Representative John F. Lacey became interested in the book. After launching his own search for it in the Library of Congress, whose collections included Jefferson’s own library, he found the text at the Smithsonian. Lacey presented the volume, with a bit of extra drama, as a secret document. Deeply impressed by the text and its reverent spirit, he suggested publicly that it be reproduced by photolithography for general use. “Mr. Jefferson was a free 6 • American Jewish Archives Journal

thinker, but his clear and just mind appreciated the teachings of the founder of the Christian religion,”21 Lacey told journalists. “He has omitted everything of a miraculous nature, and has confined his clippings to the pure teachings of the man Jesus.… In a clear, lucid form, apart from all surroundings of the supernatural, appear the words and moral teachings of the Son of Man.”22 In January 1902, Lacey presented a bill to have Congress authorize the printing of copies of the Jefferson Bible. 23 W hen t he resolution reached the floor of the House of Representatives, there were some ba rbed comments from the Republican opposition. Rep. Charles H. Facsimile of handwritten page in The Life and Morals of Jesus of Nazareth Grosvenor of Ohio (Courtesy Mercantile Library, Cincinnati, OH) stated that he wished Jefferson’s book had never been found and facetiously suggested that the Dillingworth spelling book be added as an appendix. Rep. Sereno E. Payne of New York, Republican floor leader, suggested sardonically that the House simply print the Four Gospels.24 On 10 May, the House passed a concurrent resolution ordering that the Jefferson Bible be reproduced by photolithographic process and that nine thousand copies be made of the text, along with an introduction of not more than twenty-five pages by Adler. The copies were to be distributed free of charge: six thousand by the House and three thousand by the Senate.25

Resurrection and Life: Cyrus Adler and the Jefferson Bible • 7

The Protest Campaign The House’s action brought immediate protest from various pulpits and in the national press. Critics among the clergy decried the publication as an official endorsement of Jefferson’s attacks on Christ’s divinity and on the literal truth of scripture; they pressed for the vote to be rescinded. The General Synod of the Reformed Church passed a resolution opposing any federal aid to publication.26 The most virulent opposition was led by ministers from Philadelphia, Adler’s former and future home. A Philadelphia Baptist minister, Rev. Dr. Kerr Boyce Tupper, claimed that the work was part of an attack on established religion.27 “It would appear poor policy on the part of our government to lend hand and authority to the publication of a work such as before described. Ours is confessedly and conspicuously a Christian government, and Jefferson’s Bible, if rightly represented, is essentially an unchristian work.”28 Rev. Dr. Henry McCook of Tabernacle Presbyterian Church in Philadelphia chimed in, “The most objectionable feature of the whole affair, in my mind, lies in the irreverent use of the word ‘Bible’ and the almost blasphemous presumption of so editing the writings of the apostles as to exclude therefrom all parts which Mr. Jefferson did not approve of.”29 The most committed opponent was Rev. Charles Nevin, a Presbyterian minister from Philadelphia. Nevin wrote a widely reprinted letter to the Philadelphia Press in which he cleverly ran together Christian faith and the First Amendment: The publication proposed is said to advocate certain views, commonly called infidel views, as to the deity of Jesus of Nazareth, and the dissemination of these would be a direct, powerful and public attack upon the religion of Christians everywhere. No one could fairly object to the publication of Mr. Jefferson’s bible by private enterprise, but every citizen should object to a national assault of this character upon any religious belief.30

The controversy led the press to take sides, though their objections did not revolve around “heresy.” The Washington Post’s editors agreed with Nevin that the House action was a “mischievous precedent,” but they did so because it represented a violation of Jefferson’s own principle of separation of church and state to use public funds to publish religious material. It was not just Christians, the paper noted (perhaps also with an eye to Adler) but “every Jew, every infidel, every agnostic has a direct interest in this new departure.”31 The New York Tribune, which also argued against aid to publication, made more practical objections. “Orthodoxy has little to fear from a compilation of the gospel narrative which simply omits the supernatural elements of the history of Jesus; the point is that such a work has nothing to do with Jefferson as a public man and thus it did not form part of his political writings.”32 The Chicago Tribune pooh-poohed the entire controversy, noting that the book in 8 • American Jewish Archives Journal

question was simply a compendium of New Testament verses. “We imagine that Jefferson’s belief or unbelief is not a matter in which the public is greatly interested at the present time.”33 As the controversy spread, Adler himself became a target. First, Nevin and his colleague, Rev. Dr. Francis A. Horton, put together a committee that reported on the matter to the Presbyterian Ministers Association. Not only did Jefferson’s text, they claimed, lay aside “everything that appeared incredible” in the New Testament, such as the annunciation and the resurrection, but Jefferson stripped Jesus of his divinity and made him simply a moralist. Nevin crowned his charges by a (barely) veiled antisemitic attack on Adler: “An introduction of twenty-five pages is written by a prominent opponent of the Christian Church.”34 The committee split on the motion. Moderates argued that there was nothing derogatory about Christianity in the work. Rev. John Peacock retorted that even if the book was harmless, it was written with a “150 page introduction” [sic] by a man “whose hostility to Christianity is notorious.”35 The committee as a whole put off the issue, but the appearance of a formal protest remained. Meanwhile, the Preachers’ Meeting of the Methodist Episcopal Church itself appointed a committee, under the direction of Rev. Frank G. Porter, to report on the Jefferson Bible. In June 1902, the committee approved (with three dissenting votes) a resolution opposing official publication of the work. The Methodist committee justified this decision by an argument that fell midway between the conservative Christian groups and the newspapers: The work was of a religious nature, and “Congress should order nothing published at the expense of the government which partakes of a controversial religious character.” (Of course, the reason it was controversial was precisely the conservative opposition!) In any case, the resolution continued, government publication was unnecessary, inasmuch as private firms could do the work. As in the case of Nevin, the major objection was that “the introduction, written by Dr. Cyrus Adler, is not to be submitted to Congress.”36 The Methodist committee did not make clear what it suspected Adler of planning in his introduction, yet it is difficult to believe that the members’ suspicion of him was not also informed by antisemitism. Under pressure from the assorted clergy, on 21 May 1902 Lacey attempted to secure the unanimous consent of the House to withdraw the resolution, stating that private publishing firms had opened negotiations with the National Museum, but his motion failed, as did a new resolution introduced the following day. Representative Joel Heatwole, chair of the House printing committee, leaped to defend the resolution to publish. Not only did he claim that the book simply completed the government’s collection of Jefferson’s writings, but he praised the “reverent spirit” of the book. “The effect of it is most excellent, and is one of the most convincing proofs of the Christian religion.…No one that examines this little volume, whether he be saint or sinner, will rise from his perusal without having a loftier idea of the teachings of the savior.” Heatwole Resurrection and Life: Cyrus Adler and the Jefferson Bible • 9

added that there were repeated requests for copies throughout the country, both by clergy and by admirers of Jefferson.37

Adler and the Introduction Curiously, within a few weeks of the resolution’s passage, a publisher in St. Louis, N.D. Thompson, brought out a first edition of the Jefferson Bible for sale. This edition, which was widely (and mistakenly) believed to be official, was a pirate copy of sorts. It was based on a list that had been made of the volume’s table of contents many years previously, while it was still in the possession of Jefferson’s grandson, Thomas Jefferson Randolph.38 It included Jefferson’s “syllabus” and the letter to Rush but neither Adler’s introduction nor the biblical texts in other languages. It received a few reviews but little attention. Conversely, work on the congressionally mandated edition was not even begun for another eighteen months, because of technological difficulties in arranging the process of photolithographic reproduction. (The original congressional resolution seems to have been altered so that the public printer could appoint a specialized private firm.) The Scientific Engraving Company of New York finally received the order. Work began in February 1904.39 Adler entrusted the precious document to an assistant, who was dispatched to take it personally to New York and keep it in his possession through the reproduction process. The J. Mans engraving company of Chicago then undertook the printing of the volume, using the previously produced plates. Meanwhile, Adler undertook the writing of his introduction. Cognizant of the danger of attacks on the work (and on him as a Jew), he prepared a brief introduction that was deliberately limited to explaining the text’s history and provenance, without any analysis of its contents. He asked his friend Mendes Cohen, and also John Lacey, to advise him on the wording. After reading the draft, Lacey advised Adler (disingenuously, given Lacey’s own avowed religious purpose) to further disclaim any religious purpose by adding that the government had already printed all of the other Jefferson works in its possession and that “There has been much demand that this compilation also be published so as to make his works complete.”40 In any case, as an authorized biography of Adler later put it—albeit with hyperbole—“Doctor Adler’s Introduction proved to be a masterpiece of scholarly objectivity; it afforded no ground for controversy, and the opposition vanished completely.”41 It was true that the Jewish identity of the volume’s producer passed all but unnoticed. However, Adler was well aware of the delicacy of his mission and the pressures on him. Revealingly, he saved in his files a copy of an article from a Jewish periodical that praised the author’s discretion (even as it deplored publication):

10 • American Jewish Archives Journal

I have described the introduction written for this volume by Dr. Adler as admirable. Such it is not less for what he leaves unsaid than for what he has said. He has restricted himself to a description of the manner in which the volume was conceived and executed. No word is dropped that can wound the sensibilities of the most devout Christian. This is not the affair of government in this country and every Jew should be on the alert to safeguard against such acts of unwisdom. It would have been well if one of the Jewish members of Congress had raised his voice against the publication of this volume.42

Adler sought to remain discreet about his contribution. Several months after the government-sponsored publication of the photolithographic copies, the printers undertook a subsequent run of copies at the order of the Washington Post, to be sold to its readers. When Adler discovered that the publisher had featured his name in a visible place on the title page of the new edition, he was aghast and demanded peremptorily that it be removed before any further copies were printed. The publisher was somewhat bemused by the request, protesting that since Adler had written the introduction his name should be included, but he finally complied. “You are really too modest. However, you undoubtedly know best.”43 In his posthumously published memoirs, Adler made a joke of his vehement insistence: “On the title-page of the first edition appeared the following: The Life and Morals of Jesus of Nazareth,’ Compiled by Thomas Jefferson, with an introduction by Cyrus Adler. In later editions I had my name removed, as I felt that Jesus and Thomas Jefferson were sufficient names for one title-page.”44 To further publicize the book, Adler drafted an additional article, which appeared in the January 1905 edition of the Cosmopolitan. (Adler tried unsuccessfully to place it in McClure’s and The Century.) In it he presented a capsule version of his story in the official introduction of the bible’s discovery. However, freed from official constraint, he included some textual analysis of the Jefferson work, of the kind that he had deliberately omitted from his earlier work. In his appreciation, Adler called Jefferson a founder of “empirical New Testament criticism” and posited Jefferson’s Gospel compilation as a forerunner to the theories of later scholars about the existence of an original synoptic Gospel.45

The New Life of the Jefferson Bible The official version of the Jefferson Bible appeared in fall 1904. It soon proved the most popular book the government ever published. Citizens across the country bombarded their members of congress with thousands of requests for copies. Since each representative had only a few dozen to give away, many elected to reserve theirs for members of the clergy,46 although others donated copies to libraries and fraternities. The astounding demand for the edition— hundreds of copies were said to have been stolen before reaching their destined recipients—gave rise to a rash of humorous tales.47 A joint resolution was Resurrection and Life: Cyrus Adler and the Jefferson Bible • 11

introduced in December for production of ten thousand more copies, but it does not seem to have been enacted, though more likely for financial reasons than because of criticism of the original publication.48 Adler later claimed that by 1940 the original edition had become rare.49 In any case, such was the public reverence for Jefferson, and the popularity of his Gospel compilation, that once the large edition was produced there were no further public strictures about separation of church and state. As Henry Jackson wrote in a commentary to a popular reprint edition, “That a document whose subject is freedom should have been published by the United States Government is altogether fitting in view of its direct bearing on America’s experiment in democracy.”50 Indeed, a tradition became established for a copy of the Jefferson Bible to be distributed free to each new member of Congress, albeit under formally private sponsorship—a tradition halted in the 1960s amid constitutional concerns, then resumed in the 1990s.51 The book’s appearance likewise shifted the terms of debate on Jefferson’s religion. Significantly, in 1905, two distinguished laymen, James F. Rusling and James M. Turner, had a spirited debate in the pages of the Methodist Review over whether Jefferson could be called a Christian. Rusling claimed that Jefferson’s statement that he was a follower of Christ and his doctrines made him a Christian. Turner countered that without the recognition of the divinity of Christ there was no possible way to justify the label, yet he credited Jefferson with a Christian spirit. Similarly, Washington Post columnist William Spear placed Jefferson alongside Thomas Huxley and John Stuart Mill as unbelievers who “rejected Christianity but recognized the moral grandeur of the Bible.”52 As the years passed, the Jefferson Bible became widely accepted as a guide to scripture as well as a monument of Americans’ constitutional faith.53 During the 1920s, writers cited Jefferson as an authority in support of science against creationism, yet they also praised the Jefferson Bible as an argument against atheism.54 In the 1930s, President Franklin Roosevelt publicly cited the Jefferson Bible in a speech on the Bible and ordered a copy placed in the cornerstone of the new Jefferson memorial.55 Historian Henry Steele Commager praised it as the most eloquent expression of Jefferson’s deeply religious character.56 In the 1960s, the flamboyant minister and politician Rev. Adam Clayton Powell, Jr. claimed that his own religious beliefs were based entirely on the Jefferson Bible.57 A decade later, inmates at New York prisons brought suit to receive the book after it was censored by wardens.58 The work also touched non-Americans. An English friend sent a copy of the Jefferson Bible to Canadian Prime Minister Mackenzie King during World War II, and King warmly praised it as “according” with his “feelings and desires.”59 In the last generation, the Jefferson Bible has appeared in a dozen editions. Reprint volumes with new introductory analyses—even a commercial cassette tape version—have continued to appear over recent decades. In the 12 • American Jewish Archives Journal

process, the work has become a centerpiece of debate over the religious faith of the Founding Fathers, the role of religion in public life, and the nature of “separation of church and state”—a phrase coined and powerfully expressed by Jefferson himself. In mass-market magazines, on radio shows, and across Internet sites, interpreters have clashed over the meaning of Jefferson’s religious writings. Conservatives such as Norman Vincent Peale and Michael Novak have pointed to the Jefferson Bible as confirmation of the transcendent influence of Christ’s teachings, and commentators from Martin Marty to David Limbaugh use Jefferson to support the central importance of Christian morality in public life.60 Liberal theologians and writers such as F. Forrester Church and Brooke Allen, fearful of efforts by fundamentalist Christians to claim America as a Christian country, have responded that the Jefferson Bible is an affirmation of a civic faith that reflects passionate opposition to religious dogmatism.61 The controversy over the book’s first publication tells us how far conservatives have come since 1900 in accepting (or co-opting) Jefferson’s religious message, yet the nature of the initial attacks also suggests conservative Christians’ general lack of interest in promoting separation of church and state, even when it works to their advantage. Finally, the persistent debate demonstrates the continuing relevance of Jefferson’s ideas to believers (and unbelievers) of all creeds.

Conclusion In November 1905, Samuel Langley, Adler’s chief and patron at the Smithsonian, suffered a paralytic stroke, and he died in February 1906. That same year, President Theodore Roosevelt named Oscar Straus secretary of commerce, making him the first Jewish cabinet member. With these twin events, Adler’s tenure in Washington became less essential and more precarious. In 1908, he resigned from the Smithsonian and returned to Philadelphia to head Dropsie College, a Jewish institution of higher learning. He remained primarily involved with Jewish communal institutions for the rest of his life. In 1915, he was named president of the Jewish Theological Seminary in New York. During the 1930s, he served as president of the American Jewish Committee, where he struggled in the face of the Nazi threat to unite the competing strands of the community.62 In a very different way, Adler’s participation in bringing to public notice the Jefferson Bible also united competing strands. In this case, however, it was the strands of his own varied interests: library research, history, biblical scholarship, work at the Smithsonian—and also (albeit in muted form) political advocacy. That is, even as his discovery of Jefferson’s manuscript offered Adler a rare opportunity to pursue a scholarly mission, it was consistent with his larger goal of helping Jews internationally. Jefferson’s version of Christian doctrine, and his identification of Jesus as Jewish, offered a shield against biblical sanction for antisemitism. Meanwhile, Jefferson’s humanitarian emphasis offered a Resurrection and Life: Cyrus Adler and the Jefferson Bible • 13

means for Adler and his fellow Jews to express their own ideals without giving up their religious faith (an Orthodox one, in Adler’s case).63 In pursuit of his multivalent mission, Adler thus not only secured the volume for the government but actively joined in arranging a publicly supported distribution of copies. In the face of conservative Christian opposition to the publication, however, Adler recognized that he was especially vulnerable as a Jewish scholar and that he would have to tread carefully. He remained publicly silent throughout the various public debates over the nature and meaning of the text. With the approval of his associates, he deliberately kept a low profile in the tax-supported production of the book. He intentionally omitted any significant analysis in his congressionally mandated introduction, and even then he insisted that his name not be featured on the title page. At the same time, he sought to promote and elucidate the project by publishing a popular article in a mainstream magazine. By his careful activism, he helped create an enduring contribution to American religious and intellectual life. Greg Robinson, a native New Yorker, is associate professor of history at l’Université du Québec à Montréal, a French-language institution in Montreal, Canada. A specialist in North American ethnic studies and U.S. political history, he is the author of A Tragedy of Democracy: Japanese Confinement in North America, By Order of the President: FDR and the Internment of Japanese Americans and the forthcoming After Camp. He is also coeditor of the anthology Miné Okubo: Following Her Own Road. His historical column, “The Great Unknown and the Unknown Great,” was a well-known feature of the Japanese American newspaper Nichi Bei Times, which ran through mid-2009. Robinson continues to write a column for its successor publication, the Nichi Bei Weekly.

Notes The phrase comes from Jefferson’s 9 January 1816 letter to Charles Thomson, extracted in O.I. Roche, ed., The Jefferson Bible: with the Annotated Commentaries on Religion of Thomas Jefferson (New York: Clarkson N. Potter, Inc., 1964), 325. See also discussion in Edward Boykin, ed., The Wisdom of Thomas Jefferson (New York: Doubleday, Doran, 1941), 219. 2 Henry Wilder Foote, “Introduction,” in Thomas Jefferson, The Life and Morals of Jesus of Nazareth (Boston: Beacon Press, 1951), 13–17. 3 The story of the Jefferson Bible’s creation has been comprehensively explored by various scholars. See, for example, Dickinson W. Adams, “Foreword,” in Jefferson’s Extracts from the Gospels : “The Philosophy of Jesus” and “The Life and Morals of Jesus,” ed. Dickinson W. Adams and Ruth W. Lester (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1983); Eric Reese, An American Gospel: On Family, History, and the Kingdom of God (New York: Riverhead Books, 2009); and Eric Reese, “Jesus Without the Miracles: Thomas Jefferson’s Bible and the Gospel of Thomas,” Harper’s (December 2005): 33–41. 4 F. Forrester Church, “The Gospel According to Thomas Jefferson,” in Thomas Jefferson, The Jefferson Bible: The Life and Morals of Jesus of Nazareth (Boston: Beacon Press, 2001), 23–25. 5 Letter from Thomas Jefferson to John Adams, 13 October 1813, found in Roche, ed., The Jefferson Bible, 326. 1

14 • American Jewish Archives Journal

If Jefferson’s aforementioned 9 January 1816 letter to Charles Thomson, in which he said he would be pleased to add copies of the Latin and Greek texts as well, “If I had time,” is to be believed, presumably the addition of these pages followed after the initial presentation. See Douglas E. Lurton, “Foreword,” in Thomas Jefferson, The Life and Morals of Jesus of Nazareth (New York: Wilfred Funk, 1940), viii. 7 Marilyn Mellowes, “Thomas Jefferson and his Bible,” “Frontline,” PBS, http://www.pbs.org/ wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/religion/jesus/jefferson.html (accessed 17 September 2009). 8 See Adams’s Introduction in Jefferson’s Extracts, 38. 9 For general information on Adler, see Ira Robinson, Translating a Tradition: Studies in American Jewish History (Brighton, MA: Academic Studies Press, 2008); Gayle Meyer Coolick, “The Public Career of Cyrus Adler,” doctoral dissertation (Atlanta: Georgia State University, 1981). 10 Louis Finklestein, “Preface,” in Ira Robinson, ed. Cyrus Adler: Selected Letters, vol. 1 (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 1985), xix. 11 On Adler and Langley, see James Tobin, To Conquer the Air: The Wright Brothers and the Great Race for Flight (New York: Free Press, 2003). 12 Ira Robinson, “The Invention of American Jewish History,” American Jewish History 81 (1992): 309–320, reprinted in Translating a Tradition, 2–15. See also Jonathan D. Sarna, “Cyrus Adler and the Development of American Jewish Culture: The ‘Scholar-Doer’ as a Jewish Communal Leader,” American Jewish History 78 (1989): 382–394. 13 Finklestein, “Preface,” in Cyrus Adler, vol. 1, xviii. 14 Letter from Thomas Jefferson to Ezra Stiles Ely, 25 June 1819, in Adams and Lester, Jefferson’s Extracts, 386–387. 15 On Adler and biblical “higher criticism,” plus his interest in popular fora, see Ira Robinson, “Cyrus Adler and the American: A Moment in the Intellectual History of American Jewry,” in Translating a Tradition, 16–30. 16 In an 1820 letter to Dr. Jacob de la Motta, Jefferson wrote that he was delighted to see American Jews assuming full social rights. In a letter to Joseph Marx, he added his regret “at seeing a sect, the parent and basis of all those of Christendom, singled out for persecution and oppression.” See Jewish Virtual Library, “Jefferson and the Jews,” www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/ jsource/US-Israel/jeffjews.html (accessed 16 July 2010). See also Max J. Kohler, “Unpublished Correspondence between Thomas Jefferson and Some American Jews,” Publications of the American Jewish Historical Society 20 (1911): 11–30. 17 Cyrus Adler, “Introduction,” in Thomas Jefferson’s The Life and Morals of Jesus of Nazareth (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1904), 2. 18 “Huge Display This,” Atlanta Constitution (23 August 1895): 9. 19 J.R. Holt, “Contributions,” Christian Observer (27 November 1895): 16. 20 “Words from the Pulpit,” New York Times (29 March 1897): 3. 21 “Jefferson’s Bible Found,” Chicago Tribune (20 May 1900): 46. 22 “Jefferson’s Bible,” Los Angeles Times (9 October 1900): I4. 23 “Talks With and About Members,” Washington Post (22 January 1902): 3. 24 “Bible of Jefferson,” Baltimore Sun (31 March 1904): 13. 25 “Fifty-Seventh Congress,” Los Angeles Times (11 May 1902): 4. 26 “Against Revision of Faith,” Washington Post (28 May 1902): 10. 27 This was not the first occasion on which Jefferson’s platform of religious tolerance was denounced as a front for opponents of the church. In 1868, during debate over disestablishment of the Irish (Protestant) Church, Charles N. Newdegate, a Tory MP, asserted that as part of a popish cabal, the Catholic Founding Father Charles Carroll had influenced Jefferson, “a disciple of Voltaire,” to block Washington’s desire for an established church in America. “Protestant 6

Resurrection and Life: Cyrus Adler and the Jefferson Bible • 15

demonstration at the Crystal Palace,” London Times (18 August 1868): 7. Two years later, Beresford Hope claimed (equally absurdly) that Jefferson, as a disciple of the French revolution, had single-handedly prevented all recognition of the Christian religion or the Supreme Being in the U.S. Constitution. The American people, he explained, subsequently felt the disgrace of Jefferson’s actions but were unable to remedy them due to the influence of the Irish Catholic vote. London Times (15 June 1870): 7. 28 “Jefferson’s Bible. Rev. Tupper Says Government Should Not Publish It,” Philadelphia Inquirer (19 May 1902): 6, cited in Chris Rodda, “Borat ‘Star’ Co-Sponsors House Resolution 888,” “Talk to Action,” http://www.talk2action.org/story/2008/2/14/32153/7264 (accessed 16 September 2009). Perhaps because of Jefferson’s southern background and support of religious nonconformity, there was less criticism among Southern Baptists¸ today the most visible sect of religious conservatives. 29 “Thomas Jefferson’s Bible,” Washington Post (21 May 1902): 6. For commentary, positive and negative, from small-town journals, see Rodda, “Borat ‘Star’.” 30 “A Mistake,” Washington Post (18 May 1902): 18. 31 Ibid. 32 “A Bad Precedent,” New York Tribune (21 May 1902): 8. The New York Mail later made similar comments, stating that the government had no business publishing Jefferson’s “strange and evidently superfluous compilation.” “According to Jefferson,” Washington Post (6 July 1904): 6. 33 “Jefferson and the New Testament,” Chicago Tribune (2 August 1902): 8. 34 “Jefferson’s Bible,” New York Times (3 June 1902): 3 35 “Ministers Oppose Publication of Jefferson’s Bible,” New York Times (8 June 1902): 29. 36 “Ministers Oppose It,” Baltimore Sun (10 June 1902): 8. 37 “Thomas Jefferson’s Bible,” Washington Post (21 May 1902): 6. 38 Anonymous, “Preface,” in Thomas Jefferson, The Life and Morals of Jesus of Nazareth (St. Louis, Chicago and New York: N.D. Thompson Publishing Co., 1902), 3. 39 “Thomas Jefferson’s Bible,” New York Times (11 June 1904): BR3; “Jefferson Bible Reprint,” New York Times (17 June 1904): 7 40 Letter from John Lacey to Cyrus Adler, 4 March 1904, Cyrus Adler papers, *P-16 Correspondence—Jefferson Bible, Box 4, American Jewish Historical Society (AJHS), New York (henceforth Adler papers). Lacey added in a handwritten postscript, “I think you have handled it very deftly.” 41 Abraham Neuman, “Cyrus Adler: A Biographical Sketch,” American Jewish Year Book 42 (1941): 99. 42 “The Bible of Thomas Jefferson,” Jewish Comment 20, no. 21 (3 March 1905): 1–2. Ironically, the editor of the journal had been one of the first to express interest in publicizing the Jefferson Bible through a magazine article. Letter from L.H. Levine to Cyrus Adler, 9 September 1900, Adler papers. 43 Letters from Alfred Bersbach to Cyrus Adler, 28 February, 10 March, 17 March 1905, Adler papers. 44 Cyrus Adler, I Have Considered the Days (Philadelphia: The Jewish Publication Society of America, 1941), 58. 45 Cyrus Adler, “The Jefferson Bible,” Cosmopolitan 38, no. 2 (January 1905): 380. In the same vein, a book reviewer had previously claimed Jefferson as a forerunner of French rationalist philosopher Ernest Renan. “The Jefferson Bible,” New York Times (2 August 1902): BR13. 46 “Capitol Chat; Talks with Members,” Washington Post (13 December 1904, 19 December 1904): 5–6.

16 • American Jewish Archives Journal

Ibid; “Capitol Chat,” Washington Post (13 January 1905, 8 February 1905): 8. “Plates of Jefferson Bible,” Baltimore Sun (5 January 1905): 9. 49 Adler, I Have Considered, 59. 50 Henry E. Jackson, The Thomas Jefferson Bible (New York: Boni and Liveright, 1923), 11. Another popular reprint was the 1951 Beacon Press edition, with an exegesis by Henry Wilder Foote. 51 F. Forrester Church, “Preface,” in The Jefferson Bible (Boston: Beacon Press, 2001), viii. 52 William Spear, “Moral Value of the Bible,” Washington Post (20 March 1905): 9. 53 In 1914, the Washington Post facetiously suggested that Congress order a new edition printed in order to recall Jefferson’s political creed in favor of state’s rights over federal encroachment. “Steadily Encroaching,” Washington Post (22 May 1914): 6. 54 See, for example, “Eye Witness, ‘Best Sellers of the Ages,’” Chicago Tribune (8 December 1921): F14; Thomas F. Ford, “Adams and Jefferson Again,” Los Angeles Times (20 January 1924): 33. 55 “Roosevelt Extols Power of Bible,” New York Times (7 October 1935): 4; “New Jefferson Memorial,” New York Times (29 November 1936): XX10. 56 Henry S. Commager, “He Opened all Eyes to the Rights of Man,” New York Times (9 April 1944): SM18. 57 Louis Cassels and Arnold Sawislak, “Zestful Powell Says His Power Upsets Whites,” Chicago Defender (15 May 1964): 33. 58 Ruth C. Niemiller, “The Last Word: Prisoners in, Books Out,” New York Times (12 December 1971): BR4. 59 Mackenzie King diary, 2 March 1944, National Library of Canada, Ottawa, http://www. collectionscanada.gc.ca/databases/king/001059-130-e.html (accessed 3 January 2011). 60 Michael Novak, “Faith in Search of Votes,” New York Times (19 December 1999): WK13; David Limbaugh, Persecution: How Liberals are Waging War Against Christians (Chicago: Regnery, 2003). 61 Church, “The Gospel,” 25–26. Brooke Allen, “Our Godless Constitution,” The Nation (6 February 2005): 14–20. 62 David G. Dalin, “Cyrus Adler, non-Zionism, and the Zionist movement: A Study in Contradictions,” AJS Review 10, no. 1 (Spring 1985): 55–87. 63 Adler’s use of a giant of the Enlightenment to promote tolerance against antisemitism compares in interesting ways to a contemporaneous work of literature by a Jewish author—Léon Blum’s historical pastiche Nouvelle Conversations de Goethe avec Eckermann (Paris: Gallimard, 1937 [1901]). In those essays, published amid the uproar of the Dreyfus case and a climate of overt antisemitism in France, the future socialist prime minister of France, then a young lawyer/ littérateur, uses the Enlightenment hero Goethe as a mouthpiece for his own rather romantic ideas about Jews as a people united by a transcendent ethic of universal justice: “Whom the Gospels call a Saint, the Bible calls a just man.” 47

48

Resurrection and Life: Cyrus Adler and the Jefferson Bible • 17

The professional choir of Temple Emanu-El. First row, left to right: Max Spicker, music director; William Sparger, cantor; Will C. Macfarlane, organist (Courtesy New York Tribune [9 August 1903]: 3)

18 • American Jewish Archives Journal

William Sparger: Enigmatic Pioneer of the American Reform Cantorate Howard M. Stahl Excellent accounts of the development of the Reform cantorate in America have been provided by, among others, Hyman Grinstein, A.Z. Idelsohn, Albert Weisser, Mark Slobin, and Judah Cohen.1 There is, however, a paucity of information and scholarly research into the lives and work of the three men arguably most responsible for the professionalization of the American Reform cantorate, namely Edward Stark, Alois Kaiser, and William Sparger. Jeffrey Zucker provides us with some insights into the career of Stark, who served Congregation Emanu-El of San Francisco from 1893–1913.2 The only significant information published about the cantorate of Kaiser, who served Baltimore’s Congregation Oheb Shalom from 1866 until his death in 1908, is a posthumous tribute offered by the Central Conference of American Rabbis (CCAR).3 Sadly, to date, no comprehensive study has been made of the life and work of Sparger. Sparger served as rabbi of Congregation Beth Elohim in Brooklyn and, subsequently, as cantor of Congregation Emanu-El of the City of New York. He was a communal activist and a champion of social justice. Given his activism and ambitious personality, his move from rabbi to cantor must have impelled him, emulating Salomon Sulzer, the pioneer and progenitor of the modern day cantorate, to advocate for the authority and freedom of expression for the cantor. Sparger’s relationship with Kaiser and his work with the CCAR, including numerous interactions with his great role model, Rabbi Isaac Mayer Wise—to whom he dedicated a piece of music titled Liebeszank (Love Strife) 4 —fostered and self-validated his image as an important figure in the Reform movement. Sparger was driven by an almost relentless, if not manic and often manipulative, desire to succeed professionally. This article will examine the state of the American Reform cantorate in the late nineteenth century and attempt to shed light on the personality and career of this charismatic and enigmatic figure whose work affected the development and professionalization of the American cantorate and whose contributions to the style and substance of the Reform cantorate merit recognition and further study.

The Influence of Isaac Mayer Wise From colonial times, religious leaders had varying degrees of religious and secular education. Many of them had received some training at European yeshivot and/or rabbinical seminaries. None until Rabbi Abraham Rice, who arrived in Baltimore in 1840 and went on to serve what later became the Baltimore Hebrew Congregation, was formally ordained.5 These religious functionaries were engaged as “hazzan,” “minister,” “pastor,” or “cantor, preacher, teacher” William Sparger: Enigmatic Pioneer of the American Reform Cantorate • 19

and were often addressed as “Reverend.”6 The most famous and widely respected was Gershom Mendes Seixas, who served Congregation Shearith Israel in New York City from 1768 to 1775 and 1784 to 1816.7 When Isaac Mayer Wise, putative founder of the Reform movement in America, arrived on these shores in 1846 seeking employment in synagogue ministry, he sought counsel from Rabbi Max Lilienthal, the second ordained rabbi in New York.8 Despite Wise’s questionable rabbinic credentials, Lilienthal advised him to pursue a career in the rabbinate.9 Michael Meyer describes Wise as follows: Though not an outstanding intellectual or an original thinker, Wise was an uncommon man. Initially plagued by recurrent severe depressions, hypochondria, and the wish for death, he was able to overcome his debilitating self-doubts and assume a supreme, manic self-confidence that enabled him to face enemies and personal defeats with equanimity, always certain he would succeed.10

Wise’s pioneering spirit took him and his family up the Hudson to the burgeoning textile manufacturing city of Albany. There he found employment with Congregation Beth El, composed of German Jewish immigrants who had established the synagogue in 1838.11 They initially offered him the position not of rabbi, but of preacher and teacher. Wise insisted, however, that he be engaged and addressed as “rabbi.”12 His relationship with his congregants was at best stormy. Shortly after his arrival in Albany, he declared war on what he considered to be the crude, provincial, and obsequious religious practices of Albany’s Jewish community and its leaders. This crusade was to be expanded to every town and city he visited throughout his long career. He records his first impressions upon his arrival in America in his autobiography, Reminiscences: There was an antipathy at that time in America to rabbis and preachers in general, just as there was a prejudice against cultured people of any kind, because they were looked upon as unpractical and helpless. The peddler’s pack was too heavy for them, work too hard, and their learning profited naught. There was no room in the synagogue for preachers and rabbis. The chazan was the Reverend. He was all they wanted. The congregation desired nothing further. The chazan was reader, cantor, and blessed everybody for chai pasch, which amounted to 4 ½ cents. He was teacher, butcher, circumciser, [shofar] blower, gravedigger, secretary. He wrote the amulets with the names of all the angels and demons on them for women in confinement, read shiur for the departed sinners, and played cards or dominoes with the living, in short, he was a kol-bo, an encyclopedia; accepted bread, turnips, cabbage, potatoes as gifts, and peddled in case his salary was not sufficient. He was sui generis, half priest, half beggar, half oracle, half fool, as the occasion demanded. The congregations were satisfied, and there was no room for preacher or rabbi. Among all the chazanim whom I learned to know at that time, 20 • American Jewish Archives Journal

there was not one who had a common school education or possessed any Hebrew learning.13

Wise’s commitment to organizing, professionalizing, and spiritually cleansing religious life in America, energized by his entrepreneurial spirit, ultimately redounded in the creation of the Union of American Hebrew Congregations (UAHC, 1873), the Hebrew Union College (HUC, 1875), and the CCAR (1889).14 On the surface, one might argue that Wise’s efforts resulted in the systematic derailing or dismantling of the American cantorate, yet Wise’s real enemy was not the cantorate per se. His sworn enemy was the charlatan, the sycophant, the poseur who had what he perceived as a stranglehold on religious leadership.15 Wise was a disciple of Cantor Salomon Sulzer and Rabbi Isaac Noah Mannheimer, who founded the so-called “Vienna Rite,” an attempt to synthesize traditional Judaism with modernity, at the Wiener Stadttempel in 1826.16 Wise came to this country armed with Sulzer’s magnum opus, Schir Zion, and worked tirelessly to rescue worship from the wilderness of the banal, the trivial, and the chaos of ignorance.17 He writes in Reminiscences: No reform of the Jewish service was possible until the Jewish ear had again become accustomed to harmony and beauty. The service would have disappeared gradually altogether if it had not been reinstated in its old dignity and uplifting solemnity by song. Many who longed unconsciously for, or even opposed the introduction of the choir into the synagogue, surely recognize now how the harmonious strains affect and edify the worshiper, and exert an uplifting effect even upon the whole of life.18

American cantor and composer, Alois Kaiser (1840–1908) (Courtesy American Jewish Archives)

By the second half of the nineteenth century, there were men, many themselves disciples of Sulzer, who measured up to Wise’s criteria and functioned with dignity and devotion, at first independently, and then, side by side with their rabbinic colleagues.19 Perhaps the most famous was Cantor Alois Kaiser (1840–1908). Kaiser’s congregants revered him, and Wise and the Reform rabbinate held him in the highest esteem.20 Kaiser was an honorary member of the CCAR and, in 1892, was chosen as the editor of the first edition of the Union Hymnal. He was the founder of the Society of American Cantors in 1894, the first professional cantorial organization in this country,21 and he helped shape the modern cantorate in America based on Sulzer’s model.22

William Sparger: Enigmatic Pioneer of the American Reform Cantorate • 21

Sparger’s Early Years Wi l l ia m Spa rger is be st remembered as the cantor of Congregation Emanu-El of the City of New York from 1891–1903 and the co-compiler, with Max Spicker, of The Synagogical Service: Part 1 and 2: Service for Sabbath Eve and Sabbath Morning (the “Spicker-Sparger Service”), published by G. Schirmer in 1901.23 A lso an honorary member of the CCAR, Sparger was Kaiser’s coeditor of the 1897 edition of the Union Hymnal and collaborator on the Souvenir of the Jewish Women’s Congress held under the Auspices of the World’s Parliament of Religions which contained a scholarly introductory essay and a selection of traditional and conFrom Souvenir of the Jewish Women’s Congress temporary music.24 Sparger’s early held under the Auspices of the World’s years are only sketchily recorded, Parliament of Religions (Chicago: Mrs. Hannah G. Solomon, 1893) and the end of his life is shrouded (Courtesy Klau Library, Cincinnati, OH) in mystery. Sparger—who began life as Jakob, later Wilhelm, and, still later, anglicized to William—was born on 18 April 1860 in Tallya, Hungary, to Rabbi Koloman Sparger (b.1822) and Zsani Veisberg (b.1822).25 An article in the periodical The Menorah records that Sparger’s father served as district rabbi and enjoyed a good reputation as a teacher and scholar. William attended elementary school in Tallya and studied text with his father. At age nine, he attended Gymnasium in Miskolcz. He was an eager student who apparently had a beautiful voice and a talent for music, and he sang in the synagogue’s choir. In 1879, he enrolled in the University of Vienna and attended the Royal Conservatory of Music. In 1881, he accepted a position as “reader” (vorbeter) of the synagogue in Dortmund, Germany. Shortly thereafter, he accepted a call from the historic synagogue in Worms.26 Little is known about his formal preparation for these positions or the depth and reliability of his Judaic or secular education. According to immigration records, Wilhelm Sparger entered the United States through Castle Garden on 28 August 1882.27

22 • American Jewish Archives Journal

The Rabbinate of Congregation Beth Elohim From an 1884 article in the Brooklyn Eagle, we learn that shortly after his arrival in the United States, Sparger took a position as rabbi of Congregation B’nai Zion in Danville, Pennsylvania, in 1883.28 This is uncorroborated, as the records of the Jewish community of Danville were lost in Hurricane Agnes in 1972.29 In 1884, just two years after his arrival in America, Sparger somehow secured a position at the historic Congregation Beth Elohim in Brooklyn as its rabbi, succeeding Rabbi Solomon Mosche.30 It would be remarkable enough for a twenty-four year old to be offered this prestigious post; for a relatively recent Hungarian immigrant with little or no knowledge of the English language and questionable formal Judaic education to do so is nothing short of astounding. He was, however, known for his charisma and intensely determined manner, and his lifelong hunger for success and recognition propelled him in his professional efforts. In an article titled “A New Pastor,” The Brooklyn Eagle reports, “He is a pleasant, energetic, zealous young man of the most extreme school of reformed [sic] Hebrew theology.”31 On 16 April 1885, he married Rebecca Arensberg, a daughter of Lipman Arensberg, a prominent Brooklyn tobacco merchant.32 In 1886, the Brooklyn Eagle described Sparger as “a well built little gentleman of 25. He has dark hair, a pale face, a deliberate delivery and an air of determination.”33 He was actively involved in communal efforts of social conscience, preaching tolerance and universalism to his congregation.34 At the same time, his musical prowess was not neglected. The New York Herald in 1889 favorably reviewed his performance in, of all things, the Liszt Oratorio, Christus.35 The Brooklyn Eagle hailed both his preaching and his singing at services in 1890.36 Almost immediately, Sparger began to effect change at Beth Elohim. He introduced a new prayer book (the Jastrow siddur), created an expanded Friday evening service, improved the quality of the choir, and made the sermon a key element of the worship service. His youth and energy appealed to the younger congregants, and membership at Beth Elohim increased. As a result, in 1885, the synagogue outgrew its Pearl Street location and purchased the building of the Congregational Church on State.37 As rabbi, Sparger enjoyed wide appeal and public acclaim for his passionate sermons and his commitment to social justice. In 1886, the New York Times recorded Sparger’s appointment to a committee of eleven ministers charged with investigating charges against the Brooklyn District Attorney.38 Several months prior to that, the New York Times reported on Sparger’s eloquent sermon on tolerance, castigating narrow-mindedness and bigotry.39 In 1887, the New York Times praised Sparger’s leadership role to erect a monument in memory of Henry Ward Beecher, the great preacher and role model to Sparger.40

William Sparger: Enigmatic Pioneer of the American Reform Cantorate • 23

Interface with the Reform Movement Sparger was deeply involved in the nascent Reform movement in America. The Philadelphia Inquirer reported that Sparger attended the semiannual conference of the Association of Eastern Rabbis (a precursor of the CCAR) in November of 1886.41 The meeting was at Temple Ahawath Chesed in New York City (now Central Synagogue), with Rabbi Gustav Gottheil, president of the group, presiding. The primary order of business was the report of the committee on the prayer book (the Jastrow siddur). Later that day, the committee on credentials met to appoint an advisory committee to investigate the credentials of applicants for American Reform Rabbi, Gustav membership. The article reports that “there Gottheil (1827–1903) (Courtesy American Jewish Archives) were many rabbis who were persons unfit for the office, men who were grocery keepers, butchers, and a saloon keeper in one case in this city was found to be performing that function. The result was much laxity in morals. These persons also performed marriage ceremonies.”42 Apparently, the committee’s assessment of the state of religious leadership in America had not changed much since Wise’s appraisal forty years earlier. The article further comments, “Dr. Sparger said that in one instance he knew of an unfit person acting as a rabbi who married a woman to two different men in one year.”43 Grinstein discusses the difficulty in verifying rabbinic ordination and doctoral degrees of American Jewish ministers. He observes, “Often men came to this country and made wild claims which cannot be substantiated.”44 As Temkin points out, Wise, like Sparger, was an autodidact with suspect rabbinic or university training.45 While various sources report on Sparger’s and Wise’s attendance at European academic institutions, and both men insisted on using the title of rabbi, no definitive evidence of either having graduated from a university or a rabbinical seminary can be found.46 Temkin puts it more poetically: “In that era the waters of the Atlantic washed away many a defect.”47 Regarding Wise’s credentials, Temkin further observes: “Of the diplomas which would be so advantageous for a career in Central Europe, or of the aloofness that often went with the possession of such diplomas, there is no sign.”48 Wise and Sparger were both mercurial and charismatic leaders with great popular appeal. Contrast their demeanor to that of Rabbi David Einhorn, an aloof but brilliant scholar with documentable academic and rabbinic credentials.49 In January 1891, an article appeared in the Brooklyn Eagle reporting that Sparger had accepted a call from Temple Emanu-El of the City of New York to 24 • American Jewish Archives Journal

serve as its cantor. The article speculates that the offer was tendered due to the attention Sparger had gained from his public jousts with a Brooklyn minister named Dr. Meredith on the topic, “Who killed Christ?”50 The Brooklyn Eagle also reported that Beth Elohim had accepted Sparger’s letter of resignation citing his accomplishments, including: developing the young people’s society; increasing the congregation from 60 to 250 members; growing the Sunday school to three hundred students; and spearheading the move of the temple to its new building on State Street. The article characterizes his religious views as liberal, advocating for nonradical reform. The article concludes with the puzzling statement that implies that there would now be “three rabbis at Temple Emanu-El [Gottheil, Joseph Silverman, and now Sparger], all of whom will alternate in the pulpit and who enjoy equal honors in conducting services.”51 An article in the same paper published the next day announces that Sparger will become “associate minister” at Emanu-El.52

From Rabbi to Cantor Congregation Emanu-El had been seeking a replacement for its beloved cantor, Adolph Rubin, who served the temple from 1852 until his death in 1890. Rubin was revered by the congregation and highly respected by the Reform rabbinate.53 In January 1891, Sparger was elected to the position of “cantor and reader” (not rabbi) of Congregation Emanu-El for a two-year term at an annual a salary of $3,500.54 From its founding in 1845, Emanu-El had always separated the offices of rabbi and cantor—unlike many congregations, which employed a sole clergy person who often served as cantor, reader, and preacher.55 Emanu-El’s senior rabbi, Gustav Gottheil, was also a prolific poet who provided the English texts for many popular hymns, including God of Might, Rock of Ages, and Early Will I Seek Thee. In 1887, Gottheil had collaborated with Emanu-El’s organist, A.J. Davis, to produce a hymnal that achieved widespread use.56 Gottheil was well acquainted with the role of the cantor in Europe and America, particularly Sulzer’s commitment to elevating the stature of Jewish music and the cantorate. Gottheil was present at the Leipzig Synod in 1869, when Sulzer presented a resolution advocating strenuously for the proper training of cantors.57 The Spargers relocated from Brooklyn to Manhattan and Sparger began his duties at Emanu-El immediately, working with Rabbis Gottheil and Silverman, as well as organist and choir director Davis, who had been with the temple since 1876.58 Although now functioning as a cantor, Sparger continued his national connection with the rabbinate, attending the CCAR midwinter convention in Washington, DC, in 1891.59 He was a frequent contributor to journals and, according to Alfred Sendrey, Sparger is credited with producing the first bibliography of the literature on Jewish music.60

William Sparger: Enigmatic Pioneer of the American Reform Cantorate • 25

Discord and Strife Despite Gottheil’s initial approbation, Sparger’s tenure at Emanu-El was, almost from the beginning, marked by tension and friction. In March of 1892, the board heard a report of the ritual committee reporting on the funeral duties of the clergy. The new policy maintained that families could choose which “minister” they preferred to be present at the house (where most funeral services were conducted) and the other minister was to officiate at the cemetery. Here, “minister” refers to the rabbis, as the report further states that Sparger “shall attend all funerals and say the Prayers at the house.” (i.e., the house of mourning).61 On 10 March 1892 Gottheil wrote to Emanu-El’s board of trustees complaining that it was not fitting for the cantor to read the service at a house of mourning while he, the rabbi, was relegated to standing idly by. He thought it beneath his dignity for “their Minister” to remain silent while “the reader”—whom, according to Gottheil, the family usually did not know—led the service.62 Gottheil mentions in his letter that he never had this issue with the previous cantor, Adolph Rubin, and the change in procedure was deeply disturbing to him. Gottheil asks the board to reconsider.63 They declined to do so, reaffirming the new policy, despite Gottheil’s objections.64 Early on, Sparger had petitioned the board of trustees to serve on the choir committee and asked that Davis, with whom Gottheil had a close and collaborative relationship, be directly responsible to the cantor.65 In April 1892, the board reaffirmed that “the musical arrangement of the Choir in the Temple be under his charge and that the Organist to be subordinate to whatever applies to the music arrangement to the said Cantor, Rev. Wm. Sparger.”66 These decisions served to exacerbate the tension and triangulation among Sparger, Gottheil, and Davis. Sparger’s and Gottheil’s discord soon became a matter of public record. On 17 February 1893, Sparger wrote a long letter to Emanu-El’s board of trustees requesting protection against “the humiliating treatment to which I was subjected by the Rev. Dr. Gottheil.”67 Sparger accuses Gottheil of making public criticisms of him while Sparger was leading worship, such as, “This is terrible”; “I will not stand it”; and “I will leave the Temple.”68 He also continues to complain of his lack of authority over Davis, saying that the music of the services should be in the hands of “one … musician … who [knows] the requirements of a Jewish [Sparger’s emphasis] service.”69 Sparger accuses Davis of retaliating against his protests to the music committee by “playing my accompaniments during the following Sabbath services so loudly, that the sound of the organ overpowered the sound of my voice.”70 Sparger further advises the board that the above abuses “detract from the dignity of my office which I consider as sacred as anyone in the Synagogue, and changes my position of a ‘Shaliach Zibbur’ to that of a public singer, a calling which is undoubtedly a very honorable one, but which it never was nor ever will be my intention or ambition to embrace.”71 He 26 • American Jewish Archives Journal

concludes the letter stating that he “respectfully decline[s] to be a candidate for re-election at the next May meeting of the Congregation.” 72 One week later, Sparger informed the board that he had accepted the position of cantor of New York City’s Temple Beth-El “with the privilege of occupying the pulpit” (i.e., preaching), effective 1 May 1893.73 Interestingly, the minutes of Beth-El do not contain any reference to Sparger’s potential or offered employment.74 On 24 February, two days after he announced his resignation and impending move to Beth-El, Sparger wrote to Emanu-El’s board rescinding his resignation and claiming that any allegations made against him were false, and the undue stress caused him to resign prematurely.75 This questionable judgment and impulsivity proved to be a recurring theme throughout Sparger’s career. On 23 February the board appointed a special committee to examine and report on the grievances that prompted Sparger’s resignation.76 In addition to the complaints Sparger had lodged against Gottheil, the committee was charged with investigating complaints against Sparger. The committee informed Sparger that there were rumors that he had misappropriated money given him by Emanu-El’s charity committee to help a former choir member by the name of Bologne, who was in distress. They also addressed Rabbi Gottheil’s accusation that Sparger remarked after the death of Seligman Adler, a prominent temple member, that “he was glad he had died, as he was his enemy.” 77 The committee duly investigated the complaints and, over several weeks, met with Sparger, Gottheil, Silverman, and members of the choir. Bologne absolved Sparger, saying that he was destitute and Sparger did in fact give him fifty dollars. When Gottheil met with the committee, he denied that he had any charges or had any knowledge of any grievances whatsoever against Sparger. Gottheil told the committee, “I did not say that Mr. Sparger said he was glad that Mr. Adler died, but he said that he was not sorry, as he considered Mr. Adler one of his bitterest enemies.”78 Silverman added a twist to the story when he confirmed for the committee that Gottheil had, in fact, remarked to him that, “Mr. Sparger, today only said that he was glad that Adler was dead, as he was one of his bitterest enemies.”79 Silverman told the committee that this could not have been true, as Adler had told him shortly before he died that he could die in peace, “as all matters between Mr. Sparger and Bologne are satisfactorily cleared up, and he, Mr. Adler does not know of any enemies he leaves.”80 The committee asked Silverman if he considered Sparger a competent cantor. Silverman responded, “I think so, and he is considered so by everybody.”81 This was but one example of the kind of friction between Gottheil and Silverman, which extended through Gottheil’s retirement and, ultimately, through his funeral. Gottheil’s son Richard wrote to Silverman on 8 May 1903, a few weeks after his father’s passing, chastising him for ignoring the family’s request that Silverman not deliver the eulogy—a request that Silverman did not honor. Richard Gottheil tells Silverman, “Among the very few things which William Sparger: Enigmatic Pioneer of the American Reform Cantorate • 27

clouded the declining years of my father’s life was the feeling that you continually exhibited that he was in your way. You did everything in your power to brush him aside.”82 The committee questioned Sparger on his relationship with organist Davis. Sparger commented that Davis “does not respect him or treat him properly, but does things to spite him during the services; plays purposely some times so high that his, the Cantor’s voice could not be heard, which not only compelled him to strain his voice unnaturally, besides causing confusion.”83 Sparger also claimed that the choir had no respect for Davis.84 Sparger reiterated that he must be consulted on any music chosen or any change of ritual.85 On 6 March 1893, the committee informed Gottheil by letter that Sparger is “not guilty of any wrongs as rumor charged him with.”86 Furthermore, the committee advised Gottheil that “our Rev. Mr. Sparger is perfectly and positively innocent, and we are pleased that our Congregation will continue to have the Reverend Cantor with us.”87 They chastised Gottheil for unwisely interfering with their work and urged him to “pay the same respect to the named Reverend Gentlemen [Sparger and Silverman] as we insist upon their paying you.”88 Gottheil responded that he never showed discourteous treatment toward Sparger and denied the right of the committee to lecture him on that point.89 The committee concluded its report with the hope that this matter would now be completely closed and that amicable relationships among Sparger, Gottheil, and Silverman could be restored.90 On 6 March 1893, the board voted to offer Sparger a three-year contract at a salary of five thousand dollars per year (a very generous salary at the time).91 Nothing further is recorded in Emanu-El’s minutes relative to Sparger’s relationship with lay or religious leadership.

Sparger’s Remaining Years at Emanu-El In the years following, Sparger devoted himself to his cantorate at Emanu-El and brought outstanding musical talent to the congregation. Davis continued to serve as organist on a limited basis until 1898.92 Sparger engaged Frank Van der Stucken in 1892 to serve as choir director, a post he held until 1895.93 He also brought Heinrich Zoellner to serve as choir director from 1897 to 1898.94 In 1898 he hired Max Spicker, who served as choir director, and Will C. Macfarlane, who served as organist; both men held those positions until 1912.95 Each of these highly respected musicians composed and arranged music for the cantor and choir. Many of their and Sparger’s compositions became staples of the musical liturgy in Reform synagogues in America for decades. In 1901, Sparger and Spicker published the popular two-volume work The Synagogical Service, which contains their original compositions and those of their musical colleagues at Emanu-El.96 Sparger continued his active and passionate involvement in the Reform movement. Along with Alois Kaiser, Sparger served on the CCAR’s committee to 28 • American Jewish Archives Journal

develop a Union Hymnal for use as the official musical supplement to the newly issued Union Prayer Book.97 In July of 1897, the CCAR Yearbook reported that the Society of American Cantors had completed setting the texts for the hymnal, and it would be ready for delivery to congregations by August.98 Silverman, in Sparger’s name, urged the members of the CCAR to use their influence to have the hymnal introduced to their congregations.99 The CCAR Yearbook for 1898–1899 lists both Sparger and Kaiser as members and contains criteria for CCAR membership—grandfathering in those with “high sounding titles of reverend, doctor, rabbi, and the like,” with no claim to examine their “papers or academic credentials.”100 Clearly, the CCAR had capitulated to pressure from UAHC congregations to accept their religious leaders, irrespective of verifiable credentials—not surprising, since the rabbinic and academic credentials of Isaac Mayer Wise, president and founder of the CCAR, had long been under scrutiny and question.101 Gustav Gottheil retired from the pulpit of Emanu-El in 1899.102 Despite Silverman’s long association with Emanu-El, the congregation declined to offer him the position of senior rabbi.103 Emanu-El conducted a search for a successor to Gottheil, seriously considering giants of the Reform movement such as Emil G. Hirsch in 1899,104 Max Heller in 1903,105 and Stephen S. Wise in 1905.106 Finally, Judah L. Magnes was named as Silverman’s co-rabbi in 1906.107 This was short lived, as Magnes and Emanu-El parted company in 1910 as a result of Magnes’s more traditional leanings.108 Silverman persisted and finished his career at Emanu-El in 1920 as co-rabbi with Hyman G. Enelow, elected in 1912.109

The Precipitous Decline A series of events that were unrelated, but invariably affected Sparger’s sense of well-being and his ability to function effectively, occurred almost from the beginning of his cantorate at Emanu-El. In addition to his previously mentioned professional difficulties, Sparger suffered several personal crises. On 23 July 1892, Sparger’s older brother, Leopold, a traveling salesman, was found dead in his hotel room in Richmond, Virginia, from an apparent overdose of morphine at age thirty-six.110 Two years later, Leopold’s six-year-old daughter, Elizabeth Miriam, died in Great Britain.111 In May 1902, Sparger’s father, Koloman, died in Tallya at age eighty.112 Although their relationship was often stormy, Gottheil’s death in April 1903113 may have represented the loss of another father figure for Sparger, thereby accelerating a downward spiral that would bring him to ruination. The High Holidays of 1903 fell in mid-September, and Sukkot was over by October 13. We learn from a New York Times article dated 17 October 1903 that, when Yom Kippur concluded, Sparger apparently wrote to Emanu-El’s president, James Seligman, requesting a leave of absence for poor health.114 When Sukkot concluded, Sparger traveled to Philadelphia. Complaining of headaches, he left for Washington, DC, where he was hospitalized and apparWilliam Sparger: Enigmatic Pioneer of the American Reform Cantorate • 29

ently attempted to commit suicide with an overdose of pain medication. He left the hospital, returned to Philadelphia, and checked into the Walton Hotel. Shortly thereafter a maid found him lying on the floor with his throat and wrists slashed. The only thing Sparger would say was “Notify Dr. Berkowitz.”115 He was immediately taken to the Jefferson Hospital. When questioned, a depressed Sparger says, “I have done better this time…. Before I tried chloral, but drugs are unreliable…. The doctors gave me strychnine and brought me back. I don’t think they will be able to do that this time.”116 The doctors found that no arteries were cut, but the jugular had probably been bleeding for about an hour before he was discovered. He was also suffering from the effect of what the doctors thought was morphine. Sparger was referring to Rabbi Henry Berkowitz (1857–1924), of Congregation Rodeph Shalom in Philadelphia. An article appeared the next day in the Philadelphia Inquirer wherein Berkowitz identified himself as a personal friend of Sparger and expressed shock at Sparger’s behavior. Berkowitz contacted Sparger’s family in New York and informed the newspaper that Sparger’s daughter knew of no reason why her father would attempt suicide.117 The Inquirer followed up the story with a brief article dated 19 October saying that Sparger was still in serious condition and the doctors feared a change for the worse.118 On 20 October, the Inquirer subsequently reported that Sparger’s condition had greatly improved and that he would most likely recover. The article quotes an unnamed friend of Sparger’s, saying that there was “no foundation for the stories that the cantor had attempted suicide owing to his excessive use of cigarettes or on account of speculations which had caused him to lose large sums of money. He said that the motive for Mr. Sparger’s act was due to overwork, which had unbalanced his mind.”119 On 20 October, the Baltimore Sun reported that the family maintained that the overuse of tobacco, drugs to alleviate headaches and insomnia, and temporary insanity had caused the suicide attempts.120 Yet another unnamed source from New York City is quoted as saying, “The rabbi had been speculating and had lost about $2,000,” and the despair from these losses caused him to try to take his own life.121 There are no extant records at Temple Emanu-El relating to this incident. However, the board minutes of 2 November 1903 record that, “The president read the resignation of Mr. Sparger as Cantor of the Congregation. Upon motion of Mr. Marshall the resignation was accepted.”122 On 6 November 1903, an article in the Philadelphia Inquirer titled “Cantor Sparger Eludes Sleuths” reported that friends of Sparger had hired two private detectives to bring him from the Jefferson Hospital back to his home in New York City. The friends feared that he might again attempt suicide if left to return to New York unescorted. Sparger slipped out the back door and outwitted them.123 The same day, the New York Times recorded that “they [Sparger’s family] knew nothing of his actions and that the dispatch from Philadelphia 30 • American Jewish Archives Journal

telling of his having eluded the detectives was news to them.” His wife, they said, “had been made ill by her grief growing out of her husband’s actions.”124 The newspapers, journals, and historical texts, as well as the minutes of Temple Emanu-El, are silent after this date. Sparger’s date of death remains a mystery. Rebecca Sparger died on 16 March 1939.125 The 1910 federal census shows her living in Brooklyn with her daughter, Jeanette, and her younger brother, Meyer. Rebecca listed her marital status not as widowed but as “married for 25 years.”126 In the 1920 and 1930 federal censuses, she listed herself as “widowed.”127 Did Sparger disappear after his escape and have no contact with his family? Was he confined to a psychiatric facility due to mental illness? Did Rebecca believe he was still alive seven years after the escape, or did she have to wait that period of time before he could be declared legally dead? The trail ends abruptly in the absence of a death certificate or burial records. The meteoric rise of a cantorial pioneer fizzles and fades into the oblivion of speculation, mystery, and intrigue.

Conclusion More than a century after the last record of his existence, William Sparger remains an enigma. Amid the legacy of his contribution to the Reform Jewish cantorate, one is left to wonder what motivated him. What drove him to the point of desperation and attempted, if not successful, suicide? Sparger repeatedly hitched his star to other charismatic religious leaders and patterned his career after contemporary clerics such as Henry Ward Beecher and Isaac Mayer Wise. He came to this country armed only with a cursory education but, like Wise, with a world-class ability to connect with people and enchant them through his diverse talents. He knew his Signed cover page of Sparger’s Two Anthems after career in Europe was limited, as Hebrew Melodies did Wise. Unlike Sulzer, who (Courtesy Klau Library, Cincinnati, OH) remained in Austria to actively pursue his work on behalf of Reform Judaism and the cantorate, Sparger was willing to leave his family and follow Wise’s example of paving his way in William Sparger: Enigmatic Pioneer of the American Reform Cantorate • 31

America toward acceptance and, ultimately, national recognition. This he did relatively quickly, achieving wide acclaim at Beth Elohim in his dual role as rabbi and cantor. The fundamental question, then, is why would he leave the security of his role as primary religious leader at Beth Elohim to serve Temple Emanu-El, not as rabbi, but as cantor? We know that, while Adolph Rubin enjoyed the respect and affection of his congregants, his role was clearly as “reader.” It was Gustav Gottheil who was rabbi and regarded as the “minister” of the congregation. Sparger was aware of Gottheil’s role, and he was apparently willing to move from a leading role, if you will, to a supporting role. It seems that Sparger was biding his time and hedging his bets that someday he would succeed Gottheil as senior rabbi of Temple Emanu-El. His reasoning was not without merit. First, he knew that, by 1891, Gottheil was sixty-four years old. Second, he knew that Gottheil’s assistant, Joseph Silverman, who had only been at Emanu-El for three years, was relatively new to the rabbinate and lacked the reputation and public recognition that Sparger had already achieved. Third, like Wise, Sparger had chutzpah and the ability for self-promotion. He most likely believed that, given a few years, he could win over Emanu-El’s leadership and they would unquestionably name him as Gottheil’s successor. It only took a couple of years before the plot unraveled. Sparger managed to alienate Gottheil by insisting on assuming duties never before undertaken by Emanu-El’s cantors. Moreover, he sought to oust organist Davis—Gottheil’s friend and collaborator. While the laity generally liked Sparger and appreciated him professionally, it was his cantorial talent that impressed them. There are no references in Emanu-El’s records indicating that Sparger ever preached at services. He read and chanted, as Emanu-El’s cantors were accustomed to doing. He did not have the “privilege of the pulpit.” He consciously triangulated relationships among Gottheil, Silverman, and himself. Gottheil’s petulant behavior notwithstanding, Sparger was more than just a “prima donna”; he behaved in a calculating and fixated manner. It all spelled disaster. Psychologically, by 1903, Sparger was in the throes of a crisis. The Baltimore Sun’s report that “temporary insanity had caused the suicide attempts”128 was not far from the truth. Examining his moods almost from the start of his career, perhaps Sparger would have met the criteria for a diagnosis of bipolar disorder (with manic and depressive episodes). Mania is often characterized by inflated self-esteem or feelings of grandeur and euphoria. The individual may feel almost indestructible, often taking excessive risks and exhibiting precipitous behaviors. Common symptoms of manic episodes are disturbed sleep patterns, rash business decisions, lavish spending, reckless and impetuous personal decisions, and drug and/or alcohol abuse. A depressive state is often triggered as the manic high subsides and, as the consequences of the manic activities become apparent, the depressive episode can be accelerated and exacerbated.129 32 • American Jewish Archives Journal

It is not inconsistent with his driven personality and erratic behavior with its accompanying highs and lows that Sparger would turn to addictive behaviors— the abuse of tobacco, financial speculation, and drug abuse—all of which are alluded to in the newspaper articles surrounding his suicide attempts. Ironically, like his hero Wise, Sparger, until the end, was also “plagued by recurrent severe depressions, hypochondria, and the wish for death (and) was able to overcome his debilitating self-doubts and assume a supreme, manic self-confidence that enabled him to face enemies and personal defeats with equanimity, always certain he would succeed.”130 Perhaps not coincidentally, Sparger followed the same depressive and suicidal path his brother had followed a decade earlier. The pain of losing his father in 1902 may have been intensified by the death of a second, albeit conflictual, father figure the next year. Gottheil’s death in 1903 may have been the final blow to Sparger, who had disappointed not one, but two, demanding father figures. The result was a downward spiral that would bring him to abort his career, his family connection, and, ultimately, his life. William Sparger, as well as Alois Kaiser, could have and should have logically been the ones to carry out in the United States the seminal work Sulzer undertook in Europe to professionalize the cantorate. However, the Society of American Cantors was short-lived, and subsequent efforts to establish a professional organization for the Reform cantorate, including the Jewish Cantors Ministers Association and the Board of American Hazzan-Ministers, were less than effective. It was not until 1953, fifty years after Sparger’s disappearance, that the Reform movement’s American Conference of Cantors was founded.131 One wonders how it might have affected the state of the cantorate today if Sparger had lived longer and continued his work toward professionalization. Nonetheless, despite his personal struggles, his tireless efforts to elevate the stature of the cantorate have proven to be a valuable and instructive link in the chain that connects Sulzer’s pioneering efforts with the model that exists today. Howard M. Stahl is the cantor of Congregation B’nai Jeshurun in Short Hills, New Jersey. He holds a master’s degree in social work from SUNY Albany and an honorary doctorate from HUC–JIR. Stahl is a past president of the American Conference of Cantors and has served as its executive vice president.

William Sparger: Enigmatic Pioneer of the American Reform Cantorate • 33

Notes 1 Hyman B. Grinstein, The Rise of the Jewish Community of New York (Philadelphia: The Jewish Publication Society, 1945); A.Z. Idelsohn, Jewish Music (New York: Holt, Reinhart and Winston Inc., 1929); Albert Weisser, The Modern Renaissance of Jewish Music (New York: Bloch Publishing Company, 1954); Mark Slobin, Chosen Voices (Urbana and Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 1989); Judah M. Cohen, The Making of a Reform Jewish Cantor (Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 2009). 2 Jeffrey S. Zucker, “Edward Stark: American Cantor-Composer at the Turn of the Century,” Journal of Synagogue Music 13, no. 1 (June 1983): 14–28. 3 Year Book of the Central Conference of American Rabbis (1908): 175–178. 4 William Sparger, Liebeszank (New York: Church & Company, 1884). 5 Michael A. Meyer, Response to Modernity (Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1988), 236. 6 Grinstein, The Rise, 81–87. 7 Ibid. 8 Isaac Mayer Wise, Reminiscences, ed. David Philipson (Cincinnati: Leo Wise and Co., 1901), 20–21. 9 Meyer, Response, 239. 10 Ibid., 238. 11 Wise, Reminiscences, 29ff. 12 Ibid., 46. 13 Ibid., 45–46. 14 Meyer, Response, 261–262, 276. 15 Wise, Reminiscences, 223. 16 David Philipson, The Reform Movement in Judaism (New York: The Macmillan Company, 1931), 76. 17 Ibid., 51–52. 18 Ibid., 260. 19 Grinstein, The Rise, 95–96. 20 “Rev. A. Kaiser: A memorial Address,” Year Book of the Central Conference of American Rabbis (1908): 175. 21 “Society of American Cantors,” American Jewish Year Book (1904): 275–276. 22 Thomas Dombrowski, “The Sulzer Cantor—A Phenomenon of Its Time,” in Salomon Sulzer—Cantor, Composer, Innovator, ed. Neil Levin (Land Vorarlberg, Bregenz: Österreichisches Kulturinstitut, 1991), 79–92. 23 Max Spicker and William Sparger, The Synagogical Service, Part 1 and Part 2 (New York: G. Schirmer, 1901). 24 Alois Kaiser and William Sparger, Souvenir of the Jewish Women’s Congress held under the Auspices of the World’s Parliament of Religions (Chicago: Mrs. Hannah G. Solomon, 1893). 25 1869 Hungarian Census, JewishGen, http://tinyurl.com/SpargerHungary (accessed 18 November 2006). 26 George Alexander Kohut, “Literary Review,” Menorah 16 (1894): 157–159. 27 New York Passenger Lists, 1820–1957, Ancestry.com, http://tinyurl.com/Spargerpass (accessed 18 November 2006). 28 “A New Pastor,” Brooklyn Eagle (10 July 1884): 2. 29 Correspondence between the author and Cindy Elder, Montour County Genealogical Society, Danville, PA, 14 August 2009.

34 • American Jewish Archives Journal

Correspondence between the author and Martha Foley, archivist of Congregation Beth Elohim, Brooklyn, New York, 12 August 2009. 31 Brooklyn Eagle, op cit. 32 Italian Genealogical Group, New York City Marriage Records, http://tinyurl.com/ spargermarriage (accessed 16 November 2006). 33 “Going To Unite,” Brooklyn Eagle (3 February 1886): 4. 34 “Rebuking Narrow-mindedness,” New York Times (31 May 1886), http://tinyurl.com/67gcc87 (accessed 26 July 2007). 35 “‘Christus’ by the Oratorio Society,” New York Herald (9 November 1889): 10. 36 “At Temple Beth Elohim,” Brooklyn Eagle (18 October 1890): 3. 37 “He is Released,” Brooklyn Eagle (20 January 1891): 1. 38 “Brooklyn Republicans,” New York Times (30 October 1886), http://tinyurl.com/5w9nt8q (accessed 26 July 2007). 39 “Narrow-mindedness,” New York Times (31 May 1886), http://tinyurl.com/67gcc87 (accessed 26 July 2007). 40 “Hebrews Honoring Beecher,” New York Times (28 March 1887), http://tinyurl.com/6kdodcc (accessed 26 July 2007). 41 “The Hebrews: Conference of Rabbis and Ministers in New York,” Philadelphia Inquirer (23 November 1886): 5. 42 Ibid. 43 Ibid. 44 Grinstein, The Rise, 544. 45 Sefton D. Temkin, Creating American Reform Judaism: The Life and Times of Isaac Mayer Wise (Portland, OR: The Littman Library of Jewish Civilization, 1998), 22–25. 46 “He is Released,” Brooklyn Eagle (20 January 1891): 1; “Biographies of Rabbis and Cantors in the United States,” American Jewish Year Book (1904): 101; “Literary Reviews,” Menorah 15 (1894): 157. 47 Temkin, Creating, 23. 48 Ibid., 24. 49 Meyer, Response, 244–248. 50 “Theological Debates,” Brooklyn Eagle (21 January 1891): 4 51 “He is Released,” Brooklyn Eagle (20 January 1891): 1. 52 “Theological Debates,” Brooklyn Eagle (21 January 1891): 4. 53 Myer Stern, The Rise and Progress of Reform Judaism: Embracing a History Made from the Official Records of Temple Emanu-El of New York (New York: Myer Stern, 1895), 86. 54 Minutes of the Board of Trustees of Temple Emanu-El, January 1891 (no specific day indicated), Minute Books, Archives of Temple Emanu-El of the City of New York (hereafter “Minutes”). 55 Stern, The Rise, 16ff. 56 G. Gottheil and A.J. Davis, Music and Anthems for Jewish Worship (New York: S Kakeles, 1887). 57 Philipson, Reform Movement, 291. 58 Minutes, 17 May 1876. 59 Year Book of the Central Conference of American Rabbis (1891–1892): 11. 60 Alfred Sendrey, Bibliography of Jewish Music (New York: Columbia University Press, 1951), xxxvii–xxxviii. 30

William Sparger: Enigmatic Pioneer of the American Reform Cantorate • 35

Minutes, March 1892. Minutes, 5 April 1892. 63 Ibid. 64 Ibid. 65 Minutes, 30 March 1891. 66 Minutes, 5 April 1892. 67 Minutes, correspondence from William Sparger to board of trustees, 17 February 1893. 68 Ibid. 69 Ibid. 70 Ibid. 71 Ibid. 72 Ibid. 73 Minutes, correspondence from William Sparger to board of trustees, 22 February 1893. 74 Minutes, 15 May 1893. 75 Minutes, correspondence from William Sparger to board of trustees, 24 February 1893. 76 Minutes, special meeting of the board, 23 February 1893. 77 Report of the special grievance committee, 24 February 1893, Archives of Temple Emanu-El of the City of New York (hereafter “Grievance committee report”). 78 Grievance committee report, 28 February 1893. 79 Grievance committee report, 3 March 1893. 80 Ibid. 81 Ibid. 82 Richard Gottheil, The Life of Gustav Gottheil: Memoir of a Priest in Israel (Williamsport, PA: The Bayard Press, 1936), 263–264. 83 Grievance committee report, 6 March 1893. 84 Ibid. 85 Ibid. 86 Ibid. 87 Ibid. 88 Ibid. 89 Ibid. 90 Ibid. 91 Minutes, 6 March 1893. 92 Kay Greenwald, “The Music History of Congregation Emanu-El of New York 1845–1950,” master’s of sacred music thesis (HUC–JIR, 1992), 54. 93 Ibid., 56. 94 Ibid., 60. 95 Ibid., 63, 96–97. 96 Spicker and Sparger, Synagogical Service. 97 “The Synagogue-Center of Classical Reform Judaism,” Year Book of the Central Conference of American Rabbis (1898–1899): 36–37. 98 “Union Hymnal,” Year Book of the Central Conference of American Rabbis (1897–1898): LII. 99 Ibid. 61

62

36 • American Jewish Archives Journal

“The Synagogue-Center,” 10. Temkin, Creating, 22–25. 102 Minutes, 6 February 1899. 103 Ronald B. Sobel, “A History of New York’s Temple Emanu-El: The Second Half Century,” doctoral dissertation (New York University, 1980), 127–128. 104 Minutes, 6 February 1899. 105 Minutes, 6 April 1903. 106 Sobel, “History,” 131–141. 107 Minutes, 30 April 1906. 108 Sobel, “History,” 155–157. 109 Minutes, 4 March 1912. 110 “His Body to be Brought Home,” New York Herald-Tribune (26 July 1892): 4. 111 “Obituaries,” Jewish Chronicle, 1890–1895, http://.www.jeffreymaynard.com/JC1890to5SZ. htm (accessed 18 August 2009). 112 “Obituaries,” New York Times (25 May 1902), http://tinyurl.com/4mcfjyr (accessed 3 May 2007). 113 Gottheil, The Life, 248. 114 “Noted Jewish Reader Attempts Suicide,” New York Times (17 October 1903), http://tinyurl. com/5rqount (accessed 10 June 2006). 115 Ibid. 116 Ibid. 117 “Noted Cantor of New York Tried Suicide in Hotel,” Philadelphia Inquirer (18 October 1903): 1–2. 118 “Sparger’s Condition the Same,” Philadelphia Inquirer (19 October 1903): 1. 119 “Sparger is Improved,” Philadelphia Inquirer (20 October 1903): 15. 120 “Cantor Sparger Will Live,” Baltimore Sun (20 October 1903): 10. 121 Ibid. 122 Minutes, 2 November 1903. 123 “Cantor Sparger Eludes Sleuths,” Philadelphia Inquirer (6 November 1903): 15. 124 “Reader Sparger Disappears,” New York Times (6 November 1903), http://tinyurl.com/6c4n3g4 (accessed 10 June 2006). 125 Italian Genealogical Group, New York City Death Index, http://tinyurl.com/5u7e3av (accessed 3 May 2007). 126 1910 United States Federal Census, Ancestry.com, http://tinyurl.com/spargercensus2 (accessed 26 November 2006). 127 1920 United States Federal Census, Ancesty.com, http://tinyurl.com/spargercensus3; 1930 United States Federal Census, Ancestry.com, http://tinyurl.com/spargercensus4 (accessed 26 November 2006). 128 “Cantor Sparger Will Live,” 10. 129 Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-IV-TR)(Arlington, VA: The American Psychiatric Association, 2000), 382–386. 130 Meyer, Response, 238. 131 Slobin, Chosen Voices, 64–65, 76–77. 100 101

William Sparger: Enigmatic Pioneer of the American Reform Cantorate • 37

Painting of Isaiah Moses (1772–1857) (Courtesy Judith and Hershel Shanks)

38 • American Jewish Archives Journal

Painting of Rebecca Isaiah Phillips Moses (1792–1872) (Courtesy Judith and Hershel Shanks)

D O C U M E N TA RY A N A LY SI S

A Writ of Release from Levirate Marriage (Shtar Halitzah) in 1807 Charleston Jonathan D. Sarna and Dvora E. Weisberg

Introduction On 12 November 1807, the day following her marriage to Isaiah Moses, Rebecca Phillips of Charleston, South Carolina, received what most modern readers—and most of Rebecca’s contemporaries—would consider a strange and somewhat unsettling wedding present. It was a document written in rabbinic Hebrew and Aramaic, languages Rebecca would not have understood. In this document, Rebecca’s brother-in-law, Levy Moses, promises that in the event that Rebecca’s husband should die leaving no children, he will release her from the obligation of levirate marriage by means of a ceremony known as halitzah.1 The document, known as a shtar halitzah, a writ of release, is well-attestedto in Jewish legal writing from the late Middle Ages into modernity—though rarely in early America. The document was common enough to have a standard text that was published in a book of forms for Jewish legal documents. The question is: How did such a document come to be written in the early nineteenth century in Charleston, South Carolina, a community with no rabbis or scholars? What might this shtar halitzah tell us about the individuals whose names are mentioned in it and about Jewish religious life and sensibilities in early-nineteenth-century North America?

Levirate Marriage and Halitzah in Classical Judaism

Levirate marriage (yibbum) is a union between the widow of a man who dies without children and his brother; in most cultures that employ levirate marriage, the offspring of the union are generally considered the children of the deceased rather than of their biological father.2 The Book of Deuteronomy mandates levirate marriage in cases “[w]hen brothers dwell together and one of them dies and leaves no son”3 and states that the oldest son of the levirate union “shall be accounted to the dead brother, that his name may not be blotted out in Israel.”4 Levirate marriage also factors into the story of Judah and Tamar in Genesis 38, and some scholars think it an issue in the Book of Ruth.5 Based on Deuteronomy 25, later Jewish commentators and codifiers regard levirate marriage as a biblically based commandment.6 The Bible acknowledges that a man may not wish to marry his widowed sister-in-law or provide offspring for his brother.7 Such a man has the option of submitting to a ritual of release. This ritual, known as halitzah, involves the spurned widow removing her brother-in-law’s shoe, spitting in his direction, A Writ of Release from Levirate Marriage (Shtar Halitzah) in 1807 Charleston • 39

and proclaiming, “Thus shall be done to the man who will not build up his brother’s house.”8 Clearly imagined by the Deuteronomist as a ritual of shaming, halitzah later became socially acceptable and legally appropriate.9 Many of the early rabbis preferred halitzah to levirate marriage, and it seems to have been the preferred practice among Palestinian Jews during the rabbinic period.10 It was later the preferred practice of Ashkenazi Jews, particularly in light of the herem (ban) of Rabbi Gershom of Mayence forbidding polygamy. In 1950, shortly after the establishment of the State of Israel, the chief rabbinate declared halitzah to be the only valid response to a levirate situation.11 While not common, some traditional Jews still practice halitzah today in cases when a childless man dies leaving a widow and at least one brother. While halitzah offers men an avenue to escape levirate marriage, there is no comparable mechanism available to a widow who does not wish to marry her deceased husband’s brother. The early rabbis, while conceding that a woman could not be betrothed without her consent, insisted that levirate marriage was valid even if the woman was forced, that is, raped by her brother-in-law.12 Although the Tosefta prescribes a form of betrothal as the first step in completing a levirate marriage, the union can be formalized through intercourse without any accompanying ritual.13 The Mishnah (circa 200 C.E.) and both the Palestinian (circa 450 C.E.) and Babylonian (circa 600 C.E.) Talmuds consider situations in which women clearly resisted levirate marriage. The Mishnah imagines a woman taking a vow to derive no benefit from her brother-in-law; if the vow was made in her husband’s lifetime, the Mishnah recommends encouraging the brother-in-law to submit to halitzah.14 Clearly the woman in question made the vow hoping to avoid levirate marriage; in encouraging halitzah, the Mishnah indicates that it has no particular desire to force women into unwanted marriages. Another rule discusses a woman who approaches the court claiming that her brotherin-law has not consummated their levirate union; in such a case, the Mishnah again suggests the man be encouraged to release his former sister-in-law.15 Both Talmuds go further, describing situations in which sages tricked men into submitting to halitzah when the men preferred levirate marriage; in each case, the ruse was undertaken when the woman indicated to the sage her aversion to the marriage.16 Despite evidence of rabbinic reluctance to force women into unwanted levirate unions, early rabbinic literature offers no a priori legal solution for a woman who wants to avoid one. Moreover, the relative powerlessness of women in such situations had the potential to put levirate widows in marital limbo. The Mishnah forbids a man and his sister-in-law to enter into a levirate marriage or perform halitzah until three months after the death of the woman’s husband; this waiting period is intended to determine whether the widow is pregnant and therefore not subject to the law.17 Once this waiting period has 40 • American Jewish Archives Journal

Image of shtar halitzah document

For translation, please see page 51.

(Courtesy Judith and Hershel Shanks)

A Writ of Release from Levirate Marriage (Shtar Halitzah) in 1807 Charleston • 41

ended, the Mishnah recommends that levirate marriage or halitzah take place as soon as possible. The task of choosing a course of action is assigned to the oldest surviving brother, although a declaration of marriage or performance of halitzah by any brother resolves the woman’s status. In the event that no brother wishes to act, the court turns back to the oldest brother and informs him that the responsibility is his.18 Although the Mishnah presents a neat timetable for making the levirate widow a married woman or a halutzah (a woman who has undergone halitzah; such a woman’s status is similar to that of a divorcee), the reality may be far less cut-and-dry. A man must choose to be part of a halitzah ceremony, just as he must choose to initiate a marriage; should her brother(s)-in-law be unwilling, the levirate widow has no power to initiate halitzah or perform it on an unwilling man. Moreover, there is no remedy if the brother-in-law makes himself unavailable. Like a woman whose husband refuses or is not present to give her a bill of divorce, the levirate widow may find herself abandoned by her brother-in-law, unable to remarry or to collect her marriage settlement from her dead husband’s estate. Though classical rabbinic texts sometimes speak of “compelling” a man to agree to halitzah, nowhere do they discuss how such compulsion is to be achieved.19 Post-talmudic sources do discuss compulsion at length, revealing dissent as to when compulsion is permitted and when it is forbidden. These sources also indicate that compulsion could take the form of physical force or intimidation, shunning, or excommunication, with a preference for milder forms (e.g. shunning) over more drastic measures.20

Levirate Marriage and Halitzah in the Middle Ages

Post-talmudic literature offers no new solutions to a woman reluctant to marry her brother-in-law. In the Mishneh Torah, Moses Maimonides essentially reiterates the talmudic position on halitzah. Echoing the Babylonian and Palestinian Talmuds’ discomfort with forcing an unwilling woman into a levirate union, Maimonides states that If [the brother-in-law] does not want to enter a levirate marriage, or [the widow] does not want [the marriage], he should release her…. It is a biblically ordained positive commandment to perform halitzah if he does not want to enter into a levirate marriage … although the commandment of levirate takes precedence over the commandment of halitzah.21

While Maimonides seems to be offering women some say in the matter, this choice is not without cost. In the next chapter, he writes If the widow is eligible for levirate marriage, but she does not want to marry, she is treated like one who rebels against her husband [that is, a married woman who refuses to engage in sexual relations]. We compel the brother-in-law to release her and she goes forth without her marriage settlement. If his brother 42 • American Jewish Archives Journal

left many wives, whichever one the brother-in-law claims for levirate, if she refuses, she is a rebellious woman.22

According to this formulation, a woman who rejects her brother-in-law, even if the deceased left another wife willing to enter a levirate union, forfeits her marriage settlement, leaving her with no financial resources. The marriage settlement would revert to the estate of her deceased husband, to be divided among his brothers. This might encourage a man who knew his sister-in-law was disinclined to marry him to propose a levirate union even if he preferred halitzah, since his sister-in-law’s refusal would enrich the estate he stands to inherit.23 Maimonides allows a widow some choice among her remaining brothers-in-law if the eldest rejects her but gives her minimal leeway if she simply refuses to respond to the levirate obligation; even if a woman declares her willingness to experience perpetual widowhood with no rights to a marriage settlement or maintenance, she cannot refuse levirate marriage or halitzah, lest it impair her brother-in-law’s standing in the marriage market.24 While a woman who refused her brother-in-law might find herself penniless, a woman whose brother-in-law refused to take any action toward resolving her status was in even greater straits. Discussions of such a situation in the medieval codes acknowledge this problem. Maimonides paraphrases the Mishnah and the Babylonian Talmud in his discussion of the brothers’ obligation to resolve their sister-in-law’s status in a timely fashion. He writes that the responsibility falls first on the oldest surviving brother; if that brother is reluctant, the remaining brothers are to be queried, returning to the eldest if the others refuse. Maimonides then states, “We do not compel him to marry, but we do compel him to release her.”25 In the medieval and early modern periods, difficulties in ensuring the release of levirate widows center around the refusal of brothers-in-law to release their sisters-in-law by submitting to halitzah. There are essentially two types of rabbinic response: the imposition of financial penalties on a recalcitrant brother-in-law, and the creation of financial incentives that benefit a man when he submits to halitzah. Different communities employ these methods at different times. Community decrees (taqqanot) in medieval Ashkenaz took the approach of offering financial incentives. The adoption of the decree associated with R. Gershom of Mayence, which prohibited plural marriage, led the Jewish communities of France and later Germany to forbid levirate marriage.26 This left halitzah as the only viable response to the death of a childless man who was survived by a widow and brother(s). Although halitzah was seen as a socially acceptable—in fact, commendable—response to a biblical precept, there were men who refused to perform it, thus consigning their sisters-in-law to a perpetual liminal state, unable to marry or even to collect a marriage settlement or maintenance from their husbands’ estates. However, “according to some of A Writ of Release from Levirate Marriage (Shtar Halitzah) in 1807 Charleston • 43

the Rabbis, the Court had no power to compel a brother of the deceased to have the Halizah performed, and even those of the Rabbis who felt authorized to use force, preferred not to resort to it.”27 One result of the situation was that men used extortion against their sistersin-law, demanding money in exchange for halitzah. Louis Finkelstein writes that this type of extortion was not frowned upon as it might have been, since in Rabbinic law, a wife does not inherit her husband’s property, but has only a dower right. There would always be difficulty in determining the exact amount due the widow, and so the brother-in-law … would escape the general condemnation that he so richly deserved.28

Taqqanot from Ashkenaz indicate efforts to rein in such extortion. One taqqanah, associated with a pre-1220 synod, states that a man should not refuse to perform halitzah.29 Later taqqanot indicate that this type of remonstration was inadequate. A rabbinic synod held in Mayence in 1381 ruled that all of a married couple’s property, whether given to them by the family of the husband or of the wife, should, in the event that the husband died leaving no children, be divided equally between the widow and her husband’s brother.30 This division was mandated to remove the possibility of extortion or negotiations between the widow and her brothers-in-law and to ease the path toward halitzah. Arrangements like the one enacted in 1381 continued throughout the Middle Ages and were eventually codified in Moses Isserles’s commentary on the Shulhan Arukh of Joseph Caro. Caro’s description of the estate distribution of a childless man tallies with that of the Mishnah. If a man enters into a levirate union with his sister-in-law, he inherits the entire estate of his deceased brother. The decision to perform halitzah results in a different division. One who releases his sister-in-law is treated equally with his brothers in the matter of inheritance. If the father is alive, he inherits the whole [estate of the deceased]; if he is dead, the brothers divide it among themselves.31

Commenting on this section, Isserles writes, “all of this is the law, but there has already been a decree that one who releases [his sister-in-law through halitzah] receives half of the property.” Later, in response to Caro’s assertion that “Any widow who must be released rather than taken in levirate marriage receives her marriage settlement,” Isserles writes This is the law according to the one who says that halitzah takes precedence [over levirate marriage]; even though we do not compel him to release her, he needs to give her the marriage settlement immediately, for she is like one who has been released. All this is the law, but the communities have decreed that if the levir and the widow both desire release, they divide all of the property that [the deceased] left, even if one half does not cover the marriage settlement.32 44 • American Jewish Archives Journal

Isserles’s report makes it clear that the widow may, as a result of this decree, receive less than the amount specified in her marriage settlement. In a sense, the widow is forced to forfeit her legal rights, as set forth in the Mishnah and Talmud and agreed upon by the two families at the time of marriage, to ensure that her brother-in-law agrees to halitzah.33 This shows a move from extortion by individuals to what is essentially communally-endorsed extortion.34 In both cases, the widow is the victim, made powerless by her brother-in-law’s ability to prevent her from remarrying. The other approach to the problem was to impose financial penalties on men who did not perform halitzah in a timely manner. In his discussion of the maintenance due to widows in general, Maimonides mentions in passing that A widow who has been cast before a levir—for the first three months after her husband’s death, she is supported from [the estate of] the husband…. After three months, she is not supported from [the estate of] the husband or the brother-in-law; rather, she should demand that her brother-in-law marry her or release her. If she demands that her brother-in-law marry her or release her, and he appears in court and then flees, or becomes ill, or if he is overseas, she is supported from [the property of] the brother-in-law.35

Since a widow cannot remarry until three months after her husband’s death,36 neither levirate marriage nor halitzah may take place during this time; therefore, the brother-in-law has no obligations to his sister-in-law. After the three-month waiting period, Maimonides is willing to make the brother-inlaw responsible for supporting his sister-in-law, providing she has appealed to the court for a resolution to her status and he has delayed in implementing it. This ruling can be seen as a financial penalty imposed on a man who leaves his sister-in-law’s status unresolved; the sooner he releases her, the sooner he frees himself from monetary obligations to her. This is made explicit centuries later by Yehiel Michael Epstein, who writes We would agree with Maimonides that he is liable for her sustenance if he flees or gets sick after three months and after he has been to court, for if that was not the case, it would be in his power to abandon her (that is, to do nothing to resolve her status) forever and since the essence of this obligation [to provide food] is a fine, if we said it did not apply in our place, the penalty would be negated and she would remain chained forever.37

Overall, the evidence from the Middle Ages indicates that women whose husbands died without children were often at the mercy of their brothers-in-law. Some rabbis argued that a woman who refused to marry her brother-in-law should be treated as a rebellious woman and forfeit her marriage settlement.38 Even those who disagreed with this stance were reluctant to compel men to perform halitzah by threat of excommunication; this was true even if the brother-in-law was already married or was unsuited to his sister-in-law by reason A Writ of Release from Levirate Marriage (Shtar Halitzah) in 1807 Charleston • 45

of age. There seems to have been general acknowledgement that the most likely way for a woman to ensure that her brother-in-law performed halitzah was to offer him money. Various sources indicate that men were willing to perform halitzah for financial inducements and women (or their families of origin) were willing to pay to avoid remaining in a state of limbo, unable to marry or collect their marriage settlement. Communities essentially endorsed the use of financial incentives by enacting taqqanot that stipulated the ways a widow and her brother-in-law should divide the estate of the deceased.39

The Shtar Halitzah as a Means of Compelling Halitzah

The genesis, then, of the shtar halitzah, the document that Rebecca Phillips Moses received on the day following her wedding, should be viewed against the backdrop of earlier efforts to resolve the status of the levirate widow and to protect her from “remaining chained forever.” The introduction of a contract between a woman and her brother-in-law in which he promises that he will perform halitzah and, according to later versions of the document, that he will do so without financial inducements, reflects the unwillingness (or inability) of Jewish communities and communal leaders to compel men to perform halitzah.40 The shtar halitzah represents a departure from previous attempts in that it is enacted on a case-by-case basis rather than relying on a communal decree, which would govern the behavior of all members of the community.41 The shtar halitzah is also innovative in that it is a preventative measure; the contract is executed before the wedding (or, as in our case, just after it) as a kind of insurance. The origins of the document are unknown, but we have one extant shtar halitzah from the fifteenth century, written in Aragon in 1482. We also find mention of a shtar halitzah and its language in several responsa from the period.42 By the sixteenth century, use of a shtar halitzah to protect a bride is well known and widespread.43 A text for the shtar halitzah appears in Samuel ben David Moses HaLevi’s Nahalat Shivah, a compendium of legal documents with extensive comments first published in Amsterdam in 1667, indicating that the document had an established text and was used regularly.44 A shtar halitzah is a legal document, executed in the presence of two witnesses who sign the document. Like most Jewish contracts, it opens with the Hebrew date on which the contract was executed and the city in which the agreement was made. The document attests that the man named in the document (or men—a shtar halitzah may be written on behalf of several brothers) agrees that should his brother die without offspring, leaving his wife subject to halitzah, he will release her in a timely manner; in many versions of the document, including ours, the brother-in-law states that he will accept no remuneration for agreeing to halitzah. The commitment to release the woman is made absolutely, with powerful oaths and under the penalty of excommunication. The man declares that he is entering into the agreement of his own free will 46 • American Jewish Archives Journal

and without doubts. There are monetary penalties for failing to live up to the contract; the brother-in-law declares that if he does not perform halitzah, the widow is entitled to ongoing maintenance from her late husband’s estate and will “have control over [the estate’s assets].” While previous communal decrees promised the brother-in-law a significant portion of the deceased’s assets if he would agree to halitzah, a shtar halitzah denies him any access to the estate until he performs halitzah. Many responsa from the sixteenth century onward attest to use of a shtar halitzah.45 It was most common among Ashkenazi Jews; Sephardi Jews were more likely to include language about halitzah in the marriage contract itself.46 Questions arose, such as whether a delay in halitzah caused by a man’s illness rendered him in violation of the contract. Some responsa indicate that families were reluctant to agree to a daughter’s marriage with a man whose brothers were unwilling or unable to execute a shtar halitzah; this suggests that the document was seen as an effective vehicle for protecting women. In some communities, the use of a shtar halitzah was considered a condition for marriage. The language of the document was also scrutinized; without language explicitly banning financial inducements, some rabbis still enforced communal decrees requiring the widow to divide her husband’s estate with his brother.47 From the seventeenth century onward, the standard shtar halitzah included language by which the brothers-in-law agreed to halitzah without remuneration.48 Use of the shtar halitzah ended with the destruction of European Jewry in the Holocaust. As mentioned before, the chief rabbinate of the State of Israel mandated halitzah in all levirate situations, possibly believing that this was enough to guarantee that men would agree to halitzah.49

Rebecca Phillips’s Shtar Halitzah

The shtar halitzah prepared for Rebecca Phillips corresponds to the standard shtar halitzah found in the Nahalat Shivah and in other printed and handwritten documents.50 The handwritten document has a Hebrew date, the eleventh day of Marheshvan in 5568, corresponding to 12 November 1807, and is situated “in the city of Charleston in the American states (medinot Amerika) in South Carolina.” There was, at that time, no standard Hebrew term for the United States, nor, apparently, any fixed Hebrew spelling for “Carolina.”51 Still, Charleston was the largest Jewish community in the United States in the first decades of the nineteenth century, with a Jewish population estimated at six hundred to seven hundred, and according to one source, “the religious rites, customs, and festivals of the Jews” in the city were “all strictly observed.”52 However exaggerated that claim, it likely explains the concern for a traditional shtar halitzah. The subject here is Yehuda the son of Moses; no family names are given in the document, probably because the family name, Moses, was based upon this patronymic. It is probable that Yehuda was the Hebrew name of Isaiah’s brother A Writ of Release from Levirate Marriage (Shtar Halitzah) in 1807 Charleston • 47

in Charleston, whose English name was Levy. Whatever the case, Yehuda states that he is entering into the agreement under the penalty of excommunication, with no reservations and no possibility of retraction unless he obtains the consent of “the wife of my brother, Miss Rebecca the daughter of Yaakov,” meaning Rebecca, the daughter of Jacob Phillips who is the wife of Yehuda’s brother Yeshaya (Isaiah Moses). The document is to be given to Rebecca as proof of the agreement. Yehuda agrees that if his brother dies without offspring, leaving Rebecca in need of halitzah, that he will perform halitzah properly three months after his brother’s death. He will not demand money from Rebecca or any person representing her in return for the halitzah. Yehuda agrees that if he fails to perform halitzah, Rebecca is entitled to maintenance from his brother’s (her husband’s) estate and shall control the estate. The text of the shtar halitzah is followed by the word “witnesses,” reflecting the requirement for two witnesses to a legal document. The name of one witness is legible; he is Nathan the son of Daniel Katz. No Jew by that name, however, is known to have lived either in Charleston or any of the other American Jewish communities of that time, so his English name was presumably different.53 Above Nathan’s signature are several letters that also look like a signature. There is another name on the right side of the document under the last line of the text; the writing suggests it might be the name of the scribe.

Did Rebecca Phillips Need a Shtar Halitzah?

It is not easy to understand why Rebecca Phillips needed a shtar halitzah. Rebecca’s new husband, Isaiah Moses (1772–1857), was a widower. He had four young children—Phineas, Morris, Solomon, and Simeon—from a previous marriage.54 Had Isaiah died, they would have assumed the burden, under Jewish law, to carry forward their father’s name, and his widow would have been free to marry without needing the ceremony of halitzah. The only reason she would have needed halitzah to remarry would have been if Isaiah and all four of his children died before Rebecca had children of her own, but that possibility was so remote that it would have been unlikely for a shtar halitzah to have been issued. In the absence of a rabbi in Charleston, however, it may well be that the complex laws of halitzah were not well understood. Isaiah Moses, born in Bederkese near Bremerhaven in Hanover, Germany, was a determinedly traditional Jew (as well as being, for many years, a slaveholder and Southern planter.) He was a longtime trustee of Congregation Beth Elohim, a consistent opponent of religious reforms, and in later years a founder and active member of Shearith Israel in Charleston, the breakaway Orthodox synagogue formed by those opposed to Beth Elohim’s organ.55 In Germany, he knew, the shtar halitzah was commonly signed at the time of marriage. He was apparently determined to have the same 48 • American Jewish Archives Journal

document signed in Charleston. His insistence upon upholding tradition, one suspects, was more powerful than his understanding of that tradition. Had Isaiah Moses not been a widower, it is easy to understand why a shtar halitzah might have been especially important to Rebecca Phillips. She knew about the fragility of life from personal experience. Her mother, Hannah (Isaacks) Phillips, had died in 1798 when Rebecca was only six. Several of her other relatives died that same year and her grandmother and aunt just a few years later.56 Rebecca’s father, Jacob Phillips, had trouble making a living and married all four of his daughters off at a young age to far older men. “These were not marriages of love,” the family’s historian concludes, “but business arrangements.” Rebecca was married when she was but fifteen years old to a man twenty years her senior. Five years before, her older sister, Rachel, was married at the age of sixteen to a man twenty-three years her senior. Two other sisters, Frances and Esther, were given husbands, respectively, sixteen and twenty-four years older than themselves.57 Under these circumstances, the danger that a husband might suddenly die childless, leaving a young wife unable to remarry until a brother-in-law performed the unpleasant ceremony of halitzah, must have weighed heavily upon blushing brides. The shtar halitzah relieved them from the fear that, if their husbands died without issue, they might be forced into another “business arrangement”; it ensured that they would be able to go through the halitzah ceremony and get on with their lives.

The Shtar Halitzah in Early America

Nevertheless, neither the shtar halitzah nor the practice of the halitzah ceremony seems to have been common in early America. Jacob Rader Marcus makes but one mention of the practice in his extensive writings on the era.58 Halitzah is not mentioned at all in the published early records of Shearith Israel or in David de Sola Pool’s detailed history of that congregation. Indeed, the 1807 document published here is the earliest American shtar halitzah that has come to light. In an earlier case, in 1792, involving Elkaleh (Nelly) Bush and Dr. Moses Sheftall, the halitzah ceremony itself was symbolically performed, complete with the removal of a ceremonial shoe from the foot of Sheftall Sheftall, Moses’s brother, just prior to the latter’s wedding. This ceremony did not have the legal effect of the shtar halitzah, but it was accompanied by an oral promise that Sheftall would grant halitzah in the prescribed way should his brother die before Nelly bore him children.59 The one real case of halitzah known from the colonial era illustrates the neglect into which the practice had fallen. In 1793, Israel DeLieben applied to marry a childless widow named “Mrs. Hart [Hannah Levy Hart].” Her brotherin-law, living in Charleston, needed to give her halitzah for her to be permitted to A Writ of Release from Levirate Marriage (Shtar Halitzah) in 1807 Charleston • 49

remarry under Jewish law, but—like too many men in such circumstances—he refused to do so, “although,” according to the records of Savannah’s Mickve Israel congregation, “it was required of him.” The synagogue’s leaders (adjunta) ruled compassionately, albeit in violation of Jewish law, that since the brother failed to do what he should have done, “Mr. DeLi[e]ben and his intended bride [were] Intitled to the usual honors on such occasions.” The marriage apparently took place without halitzah having been performed.60 More scrupulous attention to the laws of halitzah came into American Jewish religious life with the arrival of ordained rabbis in the 1840s. Rabbi Max Lilienthal, who arrived in New York in 1845 and was appointed chief rabbi of the city’s three leading German Orthodox synagogues, was the first to focus upon it. He requested on 18 September 1846 that the “United German-Jewish Community” over which he presided have a ritual halitzah shoe made so that the ceremony could be appropriately carried out. That same year he instituted a regulation requiring the brothers of every groom under his jurisdiction to sign a shtar halitzah.61 Although the “United German-Jewish Community” soon collapsed and Lilienthal himself drifted into the Reform camp, an Englishlanguage shtar halitzah from 1851 survives, attesting to the fruits of his effort. It was signed by Edward and Henry Morison on the wedding day of their brother, Lewis M. Morison, and contains their solemn promise that “in the event of the demise of our brother Lewis … without leaving issue, to perform and assist in the performance of the ceremonies of Halitzah as prescribed by the ordinances of our wise men of happy memory and in accordance with the Mosaical code … without claim of any compensation whatsoever, and without delay.”62 Halitzah soon proved sufficiently timely to attract the attention of early Reform rabbis as well. The Philadelphia Rabbinic Conference, 3–6 November 1869, minced no words, unanimously declaring in its ninth article that “the rule to enter into Levirate Marriage, and, if occasion should arise, Chalitzah, has lost all sense, significance and binding force for us.” Reform rabbis in Germany echoed this ruling two years later at the Augsburg Synod (1871): “The rule of the Torah in regard to Halitza has lost its significance, since the circumstances which brought about levirate marriages and Halitza no longer exist and since the basic thought underlying this precept has become foreign to our religious and social consciousness. The omission of Halitza is no impediment to a widow’s remarriage.”63 Rebecca Phillips was still alive when these rulings were promulgated, but they were entirely irrelevant to her situation. In addition to the four children whom she had raised as a stepmother, she had by then given birth to twelve children of her own. By the time of her death, in 1872, she could boast of more than 120 descendants.64 Nevertheless, and fortunately for historians, she did not discard the shtar halitzah presented to her on the day after her marriage. She never needed it and 50 • American Jewish Archives Journal

likely did not understand it. Yet thanks to her and her loving descendants, we now know that there were Jews in Charleston, South Carolina, in 1807 who cared about the problem of halitzah, knew how to write a traditional shtar halitzah, and insisted upon the signing of this largely forgotten document as a form of legal protection for their wives.65 Dvora E. Weisberg is associate professor of rabbinics and director of the School of Rabbinic Studies at HUC-JIR, Los Angeles. Her recent book, Levirate Marriage and the Family in Ancient Judaism, explores the definition and purpose of marriage and family in classical rabbinic Judaism. Jonathan D. Sarna is the Joseph H. & Belle R. Braun Professor of American Jewish History at Brandeis University; the chief historian of the National Museum of American Jewish History; and co-chair of the academic advisory and editorial board of the Jacob Rader Marcus Center of the American Jewish Archives. His When General Grant Expelled the Jews will be published in 2012.

Translation of Shtar Halitzah The following is attestation to what occurred before us, the witnesses signed below: On Wednesday, the eleventh day of the month of Marheshvan in the year five thousand five hundred sixty eight since the creation of the world, according to the account by which we count here in Charleston, in the country of America, in South Carolina, how Mr. Yehuda the son of Moshe came before us and said to us: Be valid and trustworthy witnesses that I take upon myself with a stringent vow and a biblical oath with full force and the knowledge of the public, with no possibility of retraction or release without the consent of my brother’s wife Miss Rebecca daughter of Yaakov the owner of this document. Write it in effective, forceful language and sign and give it to Miss Rebecca the daughter of Yaakov, the wife of my brother, Mr. Isaiah son of Moshe, to be in her possession as proof and testimony and evidence that with good will, without coercion or any compulsion, but wholeheartedly and willingly, with a clear and calm mind, from today and onward, that if, heaven forfend, my brother Mr. Isaiah son of Moshe, the husband of the aforementioned Miss Rebecca, should die without living offspring and his wife Miss Rebecca is subject to halitzah, then when she requests of me to release her I am obligated to release her through valid halitzah for free. I will not henceforth and ever take from her or her representative even a small amount. Immediately on completion of three months after the death of my brother, her husband, the aforementioned, when she is eligible for halitzah, providing she seeks me out. As long as I have not released her through valid halitzah, as aforementioned, my sister-in-law shall be supported from the estate of the deceased and shall have control over it. All of the above, Mr. Yehuda the son of Moshe accepted with a stringent vow and a biblical oath, with annulment of previous declarations and nullification of any witnesses to previous declarations, using the language stated by our sages to annul declarations. This document of release (shtar halitzah) may not be invalidated nor may its force be lessened in any manner devised by speech or thought. It shall be judged and interpreted for the benefit of the owner of the document. She shall have the upper hand and anyone who casts aspersions on the document shall have the lower hand. The document shall have the legal standing it would have were it executed in a high court, not as a mere formality or exercise in writing. Mr. Yehuda son of Moshe enacted a symbolic transfer of this document using a valid means of transfer. And all is valid.

A Writ of Release from Levirate Marriage (Shtar Halitzah) in 1807 Charleston • 51

Notes The document has been made available to the authors by Judith Alexander Weil Shanks of Washington, DC, a descendant of Rebecca Moses, to whom it was recently bequeathed. 2 G. Robina Quale, A History of Marriage Systems (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1988), 60. In rabbinic Judaism, however, the children of a levirate marriage are considered the legal offspring of their mother’s current husband, her former brother-in-law. For a discussion of the assignment of paternity to the levir in rabbinic Judaism, see Dvora Weisberg, Levirate Marriage and the Family in Ancient Judaism (Hanover, NH: University Press of New England, 2009), 172–176. 3 Although Deuteronomy uses the word ben, which means “son,” postbiblical commentaries agree that any surviving child—or even a grandchild—renders levirate marriage unnecessary and, in fact, forbidden. 4 Deut. 25:5–6. 5 For arguments for and against reading Boaz and Ruth’s marriage as a levirate union, see Weisberg, Levirate Marriage, 31. 6 Moses Maimonides, Sefer HaMitzvot, positive commandment #216. 7 Gen. 38:9; Deut. 25:7–8. 8 Deut. 25:9. 9 Weisberg, Levirate Marriage, 42. 10 M. Bekharot 1:7; Michael Satlow, Jewish Marriage in Antiquity (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2001), 186–189; Weisberg, Levirate Marriage, 43; 214, n. 79. 11 The taqqana states that “since in our time it is clear that the majority of levirs are not intent on fulfilling a commandment [by marrying their sisters-in-law] and for the sake of peace and unity … we decree for the inhabitants of the land of Israel and those who will come and settle here from this time forward, that they completely forbid themselves the practice of levirate marriage, and are obliged to perform halitzah, and that they are obligated to maintain their sisters-in-law as the court orders until they release them through halitzah.” See Ayelet Segel, “Prenuptial Agreements in Jewish Law,” doctoral dissertation (Hebrew) (Bar Ilan University, 2010), 240–241. 12 M. Yevamot 6:1. 13 T. Yevamot 7:2. Maimonides, Mishneh Torah, Laws of Levirate and Halitzah, 2:3; Shulhan Arukh, Even Ha’ezer, 166:7. 14 M. Yevamot 13:13. 15 M. Yevamot 13:12. 16 B. Yevamot 106a; P. Yevamot 12:6 (13a). 17 M. Yevamot 4:10. 18 M. Yevamot 2:8; 4:5. 19 A man must grant halitzah willingly; if he is unwilling, the halitzah is invalid. However, if a Jewish court compels him until he says, “I am willing,” the halitzah is valid. Compulsion by non-Jews renders halitzah invalid, unless the non-Jews are explicitly compelling him to “do what the Jewish court told you to do” (b. Yevamot 106a). 20 A lengthy discussion of compulsion to grant halitzah can be found in Encyclopedia Talmudit, vol. 15 (Jerusalem: Talmudic Encyclopedia Publishing, 1979), 663–679. The use of excommunication as a form of compulsion is mentioned in Howard Tzvi Adelman, “Jewish Women and Family Life, Inside and Outside the Ghetto” in The Jews of Early Modern Venice, ed. Robert C. Davis and Benjamin Ravid (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Pres, 2001), 158–161. Adelman discusses an early seventeenth-century case in which a man was pressured with “a mild form of excommunication” to grant his sister-in-law halitzah, despite his desire to marry her. 21 Maimonides, Mishneh Torah, Laws of Levirate and Halitzah 1:2. 1

52 • American Jewish Archives Journal

Ibid., 2:10. If the brother-in-law chose to submit to halitzah, the widow would receive her marriage settlement. 24 Maimonides, Mishneh Torah, Laws of Levirate and Halitzah 2:16. 25 Ibid., 2:6. 26 Louis Finkelstein, Jewish Self-Government in the Middle Ages (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1975), 27. 27 Finkelstein, Self-Government, 57. The reluctance to use force reflects the law that a man must grant halitzah, like divorce, willingly; coercion is therefore problematic if it leaves the impression that the man is acting against his will. See Halitzah, b’ kefiah in Encyclopedia Talmudit, 15: 663–665. 28 Finkelstein, Self-Government, 57–58. 29 Finkelstein, Self-Government, 61. There is no indication whether or how the taqqanah was to be enforced. 30 Finkelstein, Self-Government, 74–75. 31 Joseph Caro, Shulhan Arukh, Even ha-Ezer, 163:2. 32 Isserles to Shulhan Arukh, Even ha-Ezer, 165:4. Even ha-Ezer 165:22 states that the widow never receives more than her marriage-settlement; if the estate is more than twice that sum, she receives the settlement and her brother-in-law receives the remainder. 33 According to rabbinic law, a widow’s marriage settlement is a lien on her husband’s estate and, like all creditors, she is entitled to be paid before his heirs divide the estate. This being the case, the brother’s rights as the deceased’s heir should be accorded less consideration than the widow’s claim. An equal division of property may upset that rule. Moreover, as noted in the previous footnote, the widow may never claim more than the amount stipulated in the marriage contract, even if the estate is more than twice that amount. The “division” of the property between the widow and her brother-in-law at best gives her precisely what she is owed and at worst forces her to accept less than that sum in return for halitzah. 34 This decree was certainly not created to penalize widows subject to the levirate obligation. It represents a compromise intended to ensure a woman’s freedom to remarry after her childless husband’s death. It is also an acknowledgement of the limits of rabbinic or communal power over a man who refuses to grant his sister-in-law halitzah. It preserved the letter of the law—halitzah was performed and the widow freed to remarry—but did so in a way that even some rabbis acknowledged was less than ideal. 35 Maimonides, Mishneh Torah, Laws of Marriage 18:15–16. 36 M. Yevamot 4:10. 37 Yehiel Michael Epstein, Arukh HaShulhan, Even ha-Ezer, 160:8. 38 This was the view of some of the geonim and of postgeonic Sephardic and Provencal rabbis, including Alfasi, Nachmanides, Maimonides, and the Rashba. In the case of a rebellious woman (moredet), most of these rabbis did not hold that the levir should be compelled to grant halitzah. See Segel, “Prenuptial Agreements,” 185–188. 39 Segel offers a thorough review of issues surrounding halitzah in the Middle Ages in her dissertation, “Prenuptial Agreements,” 186–201. 40 Ibid., 201–203. 41 Over time, the shtar halitzah became a communal practice, insofar as entire communities adopted it as a precondition of marriage. 42 Segel, “Prenuptial Agreements,” 201. 43 For a selection of responsa discussing the use of the shtar halitzah in this period, see Segel, “Prenuptial Agreements,” 201–202, n. 138. 22 23

A Writ of Release from Levirate Marriage (Shtar Halitzah) in 1807 Charleston • 53

44 A second edition of Nahalat Shivah was published in Frankfort in 1681 by the author. It was reissued in Fuerth in 1692 by his son. The number of editions published in central and eastern Europe in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries indicate the book’s wide circulation among Ashkenazi Jews. For the publication history of Nahalat Shivah, see Encyclopedia Judaica, 17, 2nd ed., ed. Michael Berenbaum and Fred Skolnick (Detroit: Macmillan Reference USA, 2007), 770. 45 Segel, “Prenuptial Agreements,” 206; 209. 46 Ibid., 206–207. 47 Ibid., 210–211. 48 Ibid., 211. 49 In fact this has not been the case; rabbinic courts are still reluctant to compel halitzah, and extortion has again become a factor in securing halitzah for some women. See Segel, “Prenuptial Agreements,” 241; Reuben Ahroni, “The Levirate and Human Rights” in Jewish Law and Current Legal Problems, ed. Nahum Rakover (Jerusalem: Library of Jewish Law, 1984), 73. 50 For a somewhat different Dutch text of the shtar halitzah, see the article on “halizah” in the Jewish Encyclopedia 6, 173. 51 For a discussion of different Hebrew names for the United States, see http://www.balashon. com/2010/04/artzot-habrit.html (accessed 3 August 2010). 52 Philip Cohen to Hannah Adams (January 1811) in Hannah Adams, The History of the Jews from the Destruction of Jerusalem to the Present Time (London 1840, orig. ed., 1812), 465. On this work, see Gary D. Schmidt, A Passionate Usefulness: The Life and Literary Labors of Hannah Adams (Charlottesville, VA: University of Virginia Press, 2004), 235, 237–253; and Dan Judson, “The Mercies of a Benign Judge: A Letter from Gershom Seixas to Hannah Adams, 1810,” American Jewish Archives Journal 56 (2004): 179–189. 53 For a list of all known Jews who lived in Charleston to 1861, see James William Hagy, This Happy Land: The Jews of Colonial and Antebellum Charleston (Tuscaloosa, AL: University of Alabama Press, 1993), 277–413; see also Joseph R. Rosenbloom, A Biographical Dictionary of Early American Jews: Colonial Times Through 1800 (Lexington, KY: University of Kentucky Press, 1960). 54 Theodore Rosengarten and Dale Rosengarten, A Portion of the People (Columbia, SC: University of South Carolina Press, 2002), 102, claim that these four were born in England. Judith E. Endelman, “The Ancestors of Adeline Moses Loeb,” in An American Experience: Adeline Moses Loeb (1876–1953) and Her Early American Jewish Ancestors (New York: The Sons of the Revolution in the State of New York, 2009), 202, 225n.4, argues that they were more likely all American born, but see p.219. All four were early Jewish residents of Cincinnati. 55 See the many references to Moses in Hagy, This Happy Land, and Endelman, “The Ancestors,” esp. 199–213. 56 See “Biographical Notes on Rebecca Phillips Moses,” http://www.serve.com/rim/biograph. htm (accessed 3 August 2010). 57 Endelman, “The Ancestors,” 193. 58 Jacob R. Marcus, United States Jewry, 1776–1985 (Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1989), 258. 59 Edwin Wolf II and Maxwell Whiteman, The History of the Jews of Philadelphia from Colonial Times to the Age of Jackson (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 1956), 127; Saul J. Rubin, Third to None: The Saga of Savannah Jewry (Savannah, GA: Mickve Israel, 1983), 53.

54 • American Jewish Archives Journal

60 Leonard H. Devine, “The Religious and Social Life of the Sephardic Jews in the United States, 1654–1840,” master’s thesis (HUC-JIR, 1948), 99–100; Rubin, Third to None, 53; and Hagy, This Happy Land, 177, recount different parts of this story with significant disagreements concerning details. DeLieben, p. 18 described as a man knowledgeable in Jewish law, was also a member of the bet din (Jewish religious court) in an unusual 1788 divorce case in Charleston; see James W. Hagy, “Her ‘Scandalous Behavior’: A Jewish Divorce in Charleston, South Carolina, 1788,” American Jewish Archives 41 (Fall/Winter 1989): 185–198. 61 Hyman B. Grinstein, The Rise of the Jewish Community of New York 1654–1860 (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 1945), 292–293, 513. 62 Publications of the American Jewish Historical Society 27 (1920): 174. 63 Sefton D. Temkin, The New World of Reform: Containing the Proceedings of the Conference of Reform Rabbis Held in Philadelphia in November 1869 (London: Leo Baeck College, 1971), 70–71; Gunther Plaut, The Rise of Reform Judaism (New York: World Union for Progressive Judaism, 1963), 219–220. 64 Endelman, “The Ancestors,” 220–224. 65 We are grateful to Michael Broyde, Menachem Butler, Stephen Passamaneck, Kevin Proffitt and photographer Stephen Halperson of Tisara Photography in Alexandria, VA for their kind assistance with this article.

A Writ of Release from Levirate Marriage (Shtar Halitzah) in 1807 Charleston • 55

AJA J OURNAL

ONLINE DATA BASE

AJA JOURNAL ONLINE The Jacob Rader Marcus Center of the American Jewish Archives is pleased to present the entire run (114 issues and counting) of its award-winning publication in a freely accessible searchable database. While the external features of the AJAJ may have changed since its founding in 1948, the fundamentals that have secured its longevity remain—to present the rich details of the American Jewish past in a way that is comprehensible and comprehensive, enjoyable and edifying at the same time. May the legacy and vision of the journal’s first editor, Dr. Marcus, continue to be revealed in its pages for another sixty years—at least! The AJA is grateful to Temple Emanu-El of New York City and the Dolores and Walter Neustadt Fund for making the publication of our journal possible.

www.americanjewisharchives.org/journal

56 • American Jewish Archives Journal

BOOK REVIEWS Hasia Diner, Shira Kohn, and Rachel Kranson, eds., A Jewish Feminine Mystique: Jewish Women in Postwar America (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 2010), 272 pp. My rather biased prediction is that scholarship on the postwar American suburb is on the brink of a revolution. In 1987, Kenneth T. Jackson asserted that the suburbs were worthy of historical investigation. His Crabgrass Frontier initiated the historiographic turn toward a topic that had heretofore solely been the domain of sociologists. Historians came to believe that the suburbs explained much of what went awry in the postwar period—that is, how an era of such prosperity produced such high levels of violence, intolerance, inequality, and reactionary politics. In this amazingly coherent yet topically broad study of Jewish women in the postwar era, Hasia Diner, Shira Kohn, and Rachel Kranson offer a very different picture of the suburbs and the postwar era more generally. They are part of the historiographic revolution to understand the suburbs as far more multidimensional than their predecessors have. Many of the essays in A Jewish Feminine Mystique capture the liberalism and progressive activism that characterized postwar, mainly suburban, mainly middle-class Jewish women. Unflinchingly, the authors point to the gap that often existed between idealistic rhetoric and ideals, but they also show that while some postwar suburbanites voted for Richard Nixon, others organized rallies for George McGovern; and while some postwar suburbanites were shackled to kitchens and baby carriages, others brought their babies to civil rights demonstrations and cooked for consciousness-raising meetings. This is not triumphant history; rather, it is corrective. In their valuable introduction, the editors stake out a central claim: “Jewish women of the postwar years did not retreat obediently into their trim suburban homes” (3). Essays about socialist and communist activists, bawdy comedians and a film actress, the National Council of Jewish Women, and Jennie Grossinger (owner of the eponymous Catskill resort) all prove the validity of this claim. Most strikingly, the anthology reveals the long legs of Jewish urban radicalism that stretched well into the Cold War era. Other essays also show how removed many Jewish women were from the luxuries and opportunities of the “trim suburban home.” A handful of the authors draw attention to the theme of downward social mobility, a theme that has suffered from neglect in American Jewish history. Rebecca Kobrin, for example, argues that female medical professionals from Europe who entered the United States as refugees after World War II experienced painful status demotion. American-born Jewish women social workers saw little reason to support refugee women’s efforts to pursue education or certification to practice in the Book Reviews • 57

United States and refused to accommodate professional women who wanted to cross domestic norms to pursue careers. In a similar vein, Audrey Nasar’s study of Egyptian Jewish women who came to the United States between 1956 and 1967 documents these women’s sense of status loss. Generally, Jewish mobility is discussed as a signal of Jewish upward mobility, yet these two essays (alongside the comments of some of the radical Jewish feminists whom Joyce Antler mentions in her piece) suggest a very different model. Thus, readers learn that neither Jews’ postwar migration to suburbs nor their broader migratory patterns can be read as consonant with prevailing historiographic narratives that correlate Jewish migration and Jewish success. Although the editors of the collection are relatively silent about methodology, the prevalence of biography and oral history is notable. Nancy Sinkoff’s portrait of Lucy Dawidowicz’s journey toward neoconservatism or Rachel Kranson’s fascinating study of Jennie Grossinger rely on person-centered narratives to gesture toward broader themes in postwar political and cultural history. And three of the authors rest their analyses on oral histories, the most methodologically innovative of which creates a longitudinal literary ethnography of readers’ responses to Herman Wouk’s Marjorie Morningstar. The editors might have included a brief discussion in their introduction about which modes of historical inquiry lend themselves to feminist or gendered questions. Were the rest of the essays mediocre (which they are not—they are excellent), Daniel Horowitz’s provocative final essay alone would make this collection worth paying attention to. Horowitz, who wrote the most important historical biography of Betty Friedan to date, unabashedly argues that Jewish American women uniquely experienced and rendered the feminist mystique because they were never entirely mystified by it. (Friedan is a case in point.) He takes historians to task for creating a false break between feminists who happen to be Jewish and Jewish feminists. Similarly, he is skeptical of the oft-made claim that secular feminists only found their Jewishness in the post-1970s world of the white ethnic revival. Much as David Hollinger has recently called for a “dispersionist” turn in American Jewish history such that Jewish demographic concentration in various fields is more seriously analyzed, Horowitz charges historians to explore the “disproportionate participation of Jewish women in social movements in the 1960s” (247). Scholars such as Dina Pinsky (in her 2010 sociological study Jewish Feminists) and Joyce Antler, among others, have started this task. A Jewish Feminist Mystique proves that the rewards of such an approach are many. Lila Corwin Berman is associate professor of history at Temple University, where she holds the Murray Friedman Chair of American Jewish History and directs the Feinstein Center for American Jewish History.

58 • American Jewish Archives Journal

Daniel Greene, The Jewish Origins of Cultural Pluralism: The Menorah Association and American Diversity (Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 2011), 278 pp. On 25 October 1906, sixteen students met in Harvard’s Grays Hall to form “some kind of Jewish cultural society”—so The Menorah Movement (1914), the foundational document of the Intercollegiate Menorah Association (IMA), recorded. The motivation for establishing the IMA in 1913 was compelling: the desire to valorize the Jewish humanities, promulgate Jewish ideals, and explore the comportment of Jews with America. By 1919, there were some eighty chapters participating in the IMA. A movement to be reckoned with, the IMA propelled an understanding of cultural pluralism that the group and its publication, the Menorah Journal, articulated and popularized. Daniel Greene’s magisterial The Jewish Origins of Cultural Pluralism: The Menorah Association and American Diversity speaks directly to the broad as well as nuanced themes generated by this idea. As he puts it, the book examines “the specific social and cultural milieu from which pluralism emerged,” and by “restoring specificity to the history of cultural pluralism [the book] returns Jewishness to a narrative in which it too often has become invisible” (2). The book also rescues for attention many of the figures of the IMA, some of them now lost from sight. No less significantly, The Jewish Origins of Cultural Pluralism studies a disputed history of thought that argues that “ethnic identity is ‘unmeltable’” (13). Influenced by the Verein für Cultur und Wissenschaft der Juden (Society for the Culture and Science of the Jews) and reacting, for example, to Heinrich Graetz’s presentation of Jewish history, the Journal and the IMA developed a historiography focusing on a usable Jewish past for modernity and a concept of the humanities that made way for Jewish studies as an integral part of Western civilization. Hebraism, owing much to these origins, addressed what we can call the totality of Jewish historical and cultural life. Its scholars would be emancipated from the seminary’s offerings and its public, from “dry-as-dust” monographs. Hebraism—enabled by the rise of Semitic studies; modernized by what Horace Kallen saw as cultural pluralism and by a Hebraic culture and metaphysic (experience-in-process); influenced by Reform Judaism’s commitments to modernity; and enlarged by Mordecai Kaplan’s Reconstructionism—became a shorthand for Judaism as an evolving civilization, with theology but one part of it. Kallen was at this thematic core of the decades-long discussion (the IMA ended in 1957; the Journal, save for a valedictory issue, ceased publication in 1961) and helped the term and concept of cultural pluralism find places in our cultural lexicon. Pluralism demanded a discussion of the boundaries between group and State and between assimilation and acculturation, and later, of the American Jew’s role in a multicultural society. By taking on such labors, the Book Reviews • 59

IMA helped define the shape of an American identity. For example, were the concepts of the “melting pot” and the “orchestra” merely poetic, restrictive metaphors, or did they speak to a racial or cultural essentialism? Pluralism necessitated practical questions: What was a Jew? How could the Jewish community maintain itself, and how could multiple Jewish identities be described and lived? Moreover, could Jewish comportment with American life, as roiling and abrasive as it might be, provide a model for yet other groups? Intriguingly, at a time when Jewish acculturation was seen as a model for other groups, African-Americans were asserting their neglected role in American culture. However, Kallen’s pieces in the Journal, and the Journal itself, faltered. They ignored this group’s (and others’ as well) salient contributions to American life. As Greene explains the situation, Kallen’s seeming shortcoming “mattered more to critics than to Kallen, in large part because Kallen remained preoccupied with promoting Jewish culture as he conceived of pluralism” (181). And, Kallen believed that there was a different sociological dynamic to African-American life. Nevertheless, pluralism for Kallen had significant strengths: “In a society that valued cultural difference, promoting Jewish culture would not marginalize Jews but would create opportunities for them to exist within a diverse ethnic landscape” (185). Moreover, true to his notion of experience, Jewish culture, to remain significant, had to be in process itself. Greene’s book also attends to the fiction and experimental prose that allowed the IMA to reflect its own self-consciousness—the quandaries of assimilation and the integrity of American-Jewish culture. Greene had earlier written about Elliot Cohen’s modern stylistic achievements (he was managing editor of the Journal during the mid-twenties; later, the editor of Commentary) and on the Jewish coming-of-age stories that appeared in the publication, but now we can comprehend Cohen’s successes in a larger context and get a fuller understanding of the Journal’s commitment to literature about the then-modern American Jew. The Jewish Origins of Cultural Pluralism illuminates our understanding of American-Jewish culture and what we call the American experience. It is a grand study of the IMA’s enduring achievements. Lewis Fried is a professor of English at Kent State University and is working on a book about the Menorah Journal. He was “United States Literature” editor for the 2007 edition of the Encyclopaedia Judaica.

60 • American Jewish Archives Journal

Lori Harrison-Kahan, The White Negress: Literature, Minstrelsy, and the Black-Jewish Imaginary (New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 2010), 248 pp. As the story goes, when Sophie Tucker first began to perform onstage in the early 1900s, managers deemed her too big and ugly to attract a big crowd, so they put her in blackface. Her physical deviance from the norms of white femininity and sexuality became tied to her career as a “coon-shouter” and a singer of blues-influenced music. What was this tangle of cultural representations of Jewishness, blackness, gender, and sexuality? By foregrounding women, The White Negress differentiates itself from—and simultaneously provides a critique of—the growing literature on black-Jewish relations in twentiethcentury America. Harrison-Kahan argues that “Jewish women’s appropriations of blackness issue challenges to the Jew-as-white-person model by complicating white identity” (6). Her careful readings do not, however, claim a wholesale adoption of a model of sisterly alliance, as she is careful to note that these appropriations also helped to construct the whiteness of Jewish women even while they complicated it. The White Negress explores both literary and staged performances of racial and cultural identity. The volume traces the art and lives of four twentieth-century American women: Jewish vaudeville performer and singer Sophie Tucker, Jewish middlebrow novelist Edna Ferber, the “sentimental” Jewish novelist Fannie Hurst, and canonical black writer Zora Neale Hurston. Harrison-Kahan demonstrates how each wrestled with whiteness, blackness, and the relationship between the two. Tucker performed in blackface during the beginning of her career, but she also formed a lifelong friendship with black performer Mollie Elkins, which, according to Harrison-Kahan, had the effect of “both reifying and unsettling racial categories” (36). Ferber and Hurst, both best known for their popular interwar novels and serialized fiction, neither denied nor publicly emphasized their Jewishness. Both also politically espoused racial liberalism while exploring themes of light-skinned blacks “passing.” The novels Showboat (Ferber) with its musical adaptation and Imitation of Life (Hurst) with its film adaptation captured immense popular attention. Harrison-Kahan demonstrates how each of these forms simultaneously participated in and resisted the construction of black/white difference. Hurston likewise commodified black culture for consumption and was criticized for exploiting blackness for her own gain. Harrison-Kahan analyzes Hurston’s complex relationships with Hurst, Jewish philanthropist Annie Nathan Meyer, and anthropologist Franz Boas to illuminate Hurston’s novel Moses, Man of the Mountain. She claims that Hurston uses themes of Jewishness, minstrelsy, and the malleability of cultural identity to create a “multilayered critique of racial appropriations and interminority identifications” (145). Harrison-Kahan’s employment of the term “Black-Jewish imaginary” at first seems to flirt with imprecision. It variously describes how Jews or Book Reviews • 61

blacks imagined themselves and their relationship to their own Jewishness or blackness; how Jews or blacks imagined each other’s communities and cultures; how others in American culture imagined black-Jewish interactions or similarities; and how Jews and blacks constructed a sense of reciprocal or shared culture through symbiosis, sharing, borrowing, or outright theft. The lack of precise differentiation stems not from some shortcoming of HarrisonKahan’s scholarship, but rather her attunement to a cultural context in which those different parts of the “Black-Jewish imaginary” are inextricably linked. If her terminology seems slippery or her interpretations seem to give with one hand and take with the other, it is because of the complexity of the American racial landscape. For instance, should we understand Jewish performance in blackface as shoring up whiteness, or identifying with the otherness of blackness? Harrison-Kahan shows that the literary sources suggest it must be both. Could interracial personal relationships properly be called friendships? Yes and no, as her analysis of Hurst and Hurston demonstrates. Moreover, despite her insistence on incorporating the contradictory impulses in American literature and culture, Harrison-Kahan does not fall victim to a fragmented narrative of her own. Rather, she elegantly presents the literary desires and ambivalence of Tucker, Ferber, Hurst, and Hurston. The White Negress focuses on women and the construction of womanhood without falling into the facile assumption that “women” and “gender” are synonyms. Masculinity, although not her focus, neither disappears from view nor appears as a static or granted entity, as evidenced by her title’s simultaneous evocation of Sarah Bernhardt’s 1907 memoir and linguistic play on Norman Mailer’s “The White Negro,” an essay steeped in racialized visions of masculinity. Ultimately, by sustaining attention to women and fidelity to the complex and even contradictory texts, The White Negress constitutes both a convincing critique of scholarship on minstrelsy and a fascinating literary study in its own right. Sarah Imhoff is a visiting assistant professor in religious studies and the Borns Jewish Studies Program at Indiana University-Bloomington, where she teaches American Judaism and rabbinics. She is currently working on a manuscript about the construction of American Jewish gender in the early twentieth century.

Ken Koltun-Fromm, Material Culture and Jewish Thought in America (Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 2010), xi + 342 pp. For the Jewish immigrant landing on the shores of America in the years surrounding the turn of the twentieth century, the wealth of material objects assaulting the eye defined what was to be gained, but also what was lost, left behind in the attempt to start anew. From the Statue of Liberty to goods in storefront windows, the design of buildings, the shapes and textures of fruits and vegetables, and even to the cluttered sounds of words—all were the stuff 62 • American Jewish Archives Journal

of currency to be negotiated. Such material items of exchange were more than symbolic objects of permanence and loss, although they were surely that. Such objects were the tangible stuff of America, a material culture that could be held and seen and thus weighted to this world. The material culture of Jews in America, from the immigrant beginnings of the twentieth century to the present, is the topic of Ken Koltun-Fromm’s book, Material Culture and Jewish Thought in America. Koltun-Fromm suggests that material culture for American Jews defines both self and place, and through it we see the rise of the urban cityscape, the social and economic ascension of a Jewish middle class, and the making and markings of American life and thought for Jews. Since immigration, Jewish identity in America locates and fashions itself through objects of expression and meaning, such as dress, domestic furnishings, religious icons, books, photographs, films—all tangible items through which American Jews, according to Koltun-Fromm, “fashioned …an identity steeped in the magnetic and alluring quality of things” (2). He hopes to show the “cultural patterns that inform Jewish thinking about things, and the visual and literary paradigms that ground Jewish identity in objects,” a “wedding,” as he puts it, “between cultural studies and Jewish thought” (3). He succeeds in delineating the ways in which material objects, such as journals, books, and furnishings, locate American Jews in terms of place and history and, ultimately, define identity. However, there is some slippery terrain in his project when he attempts to distinguish between symbolic identity and material identity and being. Koltun-Fromm’s definition of his guiding term, “material Jewish identity,” is inevitably circular: “Jewish thought is a cultural practice, and that practice generates compelling accounts of an identity steeped in material culture. This is what I mean by material Jewish identity in America” (2–3). Thought defines cultural practice and so, too, do cultural practices define the ways in which one thinks about and lives in the world. And, to be sure, Jewish identity is a product of material culture as much as material culture in America has been and continues to be produced by Jews. As a guiding principle, this definition seems to work, even if one immediately wants to ask if the allure of material objects isn’t true of other immigrant groups as well. What is distinctive of Jews in the making of material culture? In some ways, Koltun-Fromm handles this question by not handling it. It is enough to examine the rich and evolving history of Jews in America, Koltun-Fromm seems to imply, without bringing in other groups for whom one might make similar claims. Implicit in his argument, too, is that the unique diasporic history of the Jews and, as a “people of the book,” the text-based heritage from which they emerge deepen our appreciation for the ways in which Jews have, over the course of history, embraced and fashioned the artifacts of material culture in America.

Book Reviews • 63

Later in the book, Koltun-Fromm will complicate his definition of material culture by attempting to distinguish between the material and symbolic identity of things, and here is where I think the analysis unnecessarily, but not irretrievably, falters. After a clear introduction setting out the ways in which his study will demonstrate the “subtle features of identity formation in America” and chapters that categorize the production of Jewish material identity and culture through “self, past, place, presence, narrative, and gaze” (10), KoltunFromm moves into an engaging analysis of Mordecai Kaplan, autobiographical writing, and the journal as tangible object of refashioning the self. These are accompanied by images of pages from Kaplan’s journals. This framing chapter is followed by a study of “the material past” in chapter two, an analysis of that period in American history spanning the end of World War I through the aftermath of World War II. In doing so, Koltun-Fromm examines the ways in which Freud’s “theories of the self and society permeated cultural discourse” and came to inform the ideas of three influential Jewish thinkers—Edward Bernays, Joshua Liebman, and Erich Fromm—whose thinking reflects the performance of a material past and the “kind of self” created by such performances, selves “scarred by inheritance” (53, 107). The next chapter addresses “material place,” suggesting the ways in which urban, “physical space … informs Jewish identity, and Jewish thinking about it shapes the very nature of that place,” as seen in the work of Joseph Soloveitchik (108). Next, “material presence” is addressed through a reading of Abraham Joshua Heschel and the experience of “holiness in and through things.” Here, the claim is how things “do not just enrich our lives: they constitute essential features of personal identity” (179). These chapters speak clearly to Koltun-Fromm’s carefully documented and richly researched work. However, in the following chapter on “material narrative”—an analysis of selected literary texts by Anzia Yezierska, Philip Roth, Cynthia Ozick, and Bernard Malamud—the insisted-upon distinction between the symbolic and the real becomes thorny. Koltun-Fromm argues, and rightly so, that these writers create narratives in which material objects—garments, physical places, the accoutrements of life—expose the “inescapable allure and presence of material objects for personal identity” but also “the limits of belonging and acceptance in America” (181–182). Here he argues against what he sees as a “temptation to read [materiality] as a symbol or representation for something else” (184). Koltun-Fromm wants to “resist this kind of symbolic reading, and not merely because it covers over the tactile qualities” but also because it “fails as a meaningful signifier … its meaning … forever inscrutable” (191). On the contrary, a reading that brings together the symbolic and the literal—that, in fact, insists upon the necessary and complex interplay between material and symbolic identity—illustrates most strongly the complicated ways in which material culture is an expression of identity, place, and class and of the ways in 64 • American Jewish Archives Journal

which Jews in America attempt to negotiate Jewish history and inheritance. In an otherwise lively chapter on Jewish novelists, Koltun-Fromm unnecessarily argues that “leaping to signification and symbolic meaning too often trivializes the power of the material thing itself” (223). But it need not. “Things” may not, as Koltun-Fromm suggests, “require linguistic meanings to be constitutive of personal identity,” but if you articulate the process, you do so linguistically (223). This chapter is followed by an excellent final chapter, preceding the conclusion, on “the material gaze,” which convincingly shows how the fascination with consumer products, as created and viewed by Jews, parallels the preoccupations of twentieth-century America and shows how the “stuff” of life bridges “American” and “Jewish” as well the past and present of American Jews. Victoria Aarons is O.R. and Eva Mitchell Distinguished Professor of Literature and English department chair at Trinity University. She is the author of A Measure of Memory and What Happened to Abraham?: Reinventing the Covenant in American Jewish Fiction, as well as numerous articles and book chapters on American Jewish and Holocaust literatures.

John L. Loeb, Jr., Kathy L. Plotkin, Margaret Loeb Kempner, and Judith E. Endelman, with an Introduction by Eli N. Evans, An American Experience: Adeline Moses Loeb (1876–1953) and Her Early American Jewish Ancestors (New York: Sons of the Revolution in the State of New York, 2009), xxx + 350pp. The work reviewed here is a miscellany of materials written and compiled by no fewer than five authors, as well as a sixth participant who designed the volume’s genealogical charts and maps. Among other items, it includes a memoir, an extensive genealogical section that comprises the largest part of the volume, and reflections by Ambassador John L. Loeb, Jr., under whose aegis the book was prepared. It is an affectionate tribute to both the family of Adeline Moses Loeb and her ancestors as well as to the American nation. And while genealogists will find useful material here, the volume also stands as a model because of the organization and lavish layout of the genealogical content. Historians will also find information here that will prove of value, not so much as historical analysis but, instead, for its potential as primary-source material. This is most apparent in the biographical account of Carl M. Loeb by Kathy L. Plotkin and in the memoir describing Adeline Moses Loeb prepared by her daughter, Margaret Loeb Kempner. The Loebs, grandparents of Ambassador Loeb, were of German Jewish origin (Carl) and colonial American ancestry (Adeline). The accounts here of their lives describe their ascent in the South, Midwest, and New York—from Carl’s immigrant status and Adeline’s financially Book Reviews • 65

ruined family to membership in the German Jewish “Our Crowd” crowd in New York City. Taken together, the two essays provide extensive information not only about the patriarch’s business trajectory but also, of greater novelty, about the family’s internal life, gender roles, the relationship between husband and wife, child-rearing, class consciousness, lifestyle, religious outlook, and philanthropic activities. While similar patterns might well be found in other German Jewish families during the first half of the twentieth century, the opportunities that these accounts provide for comparisons and contrasts with other families that belonged to the “Uptown” German Jewish elite are what make this section of the book of particular value to students of American Jewish history. Kempner’s account of her mother is important in this context because she was both a participant in and an observer of the family. Ambassador Loeb has also contributed an essay of reflections and reminiscences to the volume, and it, too, will likely serve as a primary source for future historians and other writers. In his memoir, Loeb illuminates why he is fascinated by the history and genealogies of early America’s Jewish settlers and their descendants, explaining that what he had “set out to do … was to make known more universally the very important part that Jewish people played in early America.” This explanation appeared in a discussion of the exhibitions devoted to seventeenth- and eighteenth-century American Jewry that he sponsored between 1979 and 2005, but it is applicable as well to the book in its entirety, because of the extensive genealogical discussion of Adeline’s ancestors, which by far comprises the largest part of the volume. The genealogical lists and accompanying biographies by Judith E. Endelman document Ms. Loeb’s ancestry for seven generations in America, beginning with Sampson Mears (ca. 1670–ca. 1711) and his wife, Joy (dates unknown), and culminating with her parents, Alfred Huger Moses (1840–1918) and Jeanette Nathan Moses (1849–1919). Endelman’s lucidly written biographies of the individuals she has selected for in-depth treatment propel the family’s story over the generations, though one may contest her assertion that “each generation is uncannily representative of the American Jewish experience of its respective period.” Not all eighteenth-century Jews in America, for example, were successful merchants who traded across the expanse of the Atlantic world; many were artisans and small shopkeepers who may have aspired to become international traders but never made it. For the most part, the biographies rely upon well-known secondary sources written by historians and genealogists. This, however, is emphatically not the case with Adeline’s nineteenth-century predecessors, whose biographies are based to a large extent upon original sources and therefore comprise new scholarly material. Indeed, the later biographies are of great value for adding to our knowledge of nineteenth-century Jews, ranging from matters such as career paths to family patterns, especially in the South. Although we have known a great deal about the lives and histories of 66 • American Jewish Archives Journal

early American Jewry for quite some time, we have far less comparable data and information for nineteenth-century Jews in the United States, making Endelman’s work about them a genuine contribution to the corpus of material that we have for American Jewish history. But it is the presentation of the extensive genealogical material that makes this volume a triumphant model for how to do genealogy. Works of genealogy— which can be of great value to historians and ought not be dismissed as interesting only to the families that compile them—are usually no more than turgid lists of hundreds, yea thousands, of individuals that read like phone directories, and, equally often, supremely difficult to follow when there is more than one son or daughter born to a set of parents in a given generation. In this volume, in contrast, a small number of individuals have been selected, as already indicated, for in-depth biographical discussion, and they are also accompanied by easily read lists of their children as well as by color-coded genealogical tables. Photographs of individuals, cityscapes, and buildings, relevant portraits, and even artifacts that belonged to family members enliven the presentation. The multicolored maps of cities associated with various members of the family line, and detailing the locations of pertinent buildings, are worthy of special mention. Finally, a large, multicolored insert in a pocket on the volume’s back cover presents a full-scale genealogical table of Adeline’s family, past and present. Cumulatively, the visual effects are dazzling, and, of greater importance, render it feasible to follow the genealogical flow with ease and instant comprehension. One notes, too, that in addition to serving as a tribute to Adeline Moses Loeb and to the larger context of earlier American Jewry, this work implicitly celebrates America’s capacity over the course of its history to welcome and to incorporate people of varied heritages, backgrounds, and religions. This is evident from Eli Evans’s introduction to the volume, in which he recounts how Ambassador Loeb directly, and elegantly, challenged antisemitism—with a positive outcome later ensuing—among the social and political elite of Montgomery, Alabama, where Ms. Loeb was born and where her uncle served as mayor in the late nineteenth century. It is evident in an appendix in which Ambassador Loeb writes about patriotism and dedication to country. And it is evident throughout this work, in the sense that the entire success story of this one family over the course of three centuries bears witness to the nation’s commitment to equality and pluralism. N.B.: The reviewer contributed an endorsement of the book, which has been published, among others, at its beginning. Eli Faber is professor emeritus of history, John Jay College of Criminal Justice (City University of New York).

Book Reviews • 67

Jonathan D. Sarna and Adam Mendelsohn, Jews and the Civil War: A Reader (New York: New York University Press, 2010), 435 pp. Jonathan Sarna of Brandeis University and Adam Mendelsohn of the College of Charleston have collaborated to produce an exceptionally useful anthology of scholarship addressing the Jewish experience in the American Civil War. They bring together nineteen essays written over the past fifty years (including some by luminaries such as Bertram Korn and Jacob Rader Marcus and other pieces that have undeservedly “languished in obscurity” [ix]) that explore various important aspects of the topic in one well-organized and accessible volume. The editors begin the work with a preface that provides a summary of the book’s content and structure and a brief description of the directions in which Civil War scholarship has gone over the past half century. Jews and the Civil War then proceeds with a historiographic overview that investigates Jewish Civil War scholarship before Bertram Korn’s seminal mid-twentieth-century work, followed by an essay surveying the Jewish experience in the war. The remainder of the book is divided into seven sections, each of which examines a facet of the topic; these include investigations of Jews and slavery, the Jewish relationship to abolition, the role of rabbis in the war, the experience of Jewish soldiers, the lives of Jews on the home front, antisemitism during the war years, and the Jewish experience immediately after the war. In each case, two or more essays are provided to facilitate understanding “by presenting multiple scholarly voices, rather than just one expert” (x). In addition, each section opens with a genuinely helpful editorial overview that sets the following works in their historical and/ or historiographic context and provides a brief summary of the contributions of the essays. When pertinent, these introductions also highlight questions and topics requiring further research (48, 198, 265–266, 386). At the conclusion of this anthology, Sarna and Mendelsohn provide a bibliographical essay surveying important or useful works not included in this collection. This essay follows the same format as the rest of the book, beginning with a discussion of general works and proceeding to survey books and articles addressing the same seven facets of the Jewish experience outlined above. As before, the authors indicate avenues suitable for future research (416–417). In Jews and the Civil War, Sarna and Mendelsohn have produced a useful anthology of scholarship on the Jewish experience during this most tumultuous period of American history. Their introductions to each section provide important historical details and historiographic context, allowing one to gain the most from the individual essays. Well-organized and thorough, this volume doubtless belongs next to Bertram Korn’s American Jewry and the Civil War on the shelf of any student of the Jewish experience in America.

68 • American Jewish Archives Journal

Matthew Semler graduated from Oral Roberts University in 2006 with a bachelor’s in history. He received his master’s in biblical archaeology from Wheaton College in 2007. He is currently a doctoral student in modern Jewish history at the Cincinnati campus of the Hebrew Union College—Jewish Institute of Religion.

M.M. Silver, Our Exodus: Leon Uris and the Americanization of Israel’s Founding Story (Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 2010), 288 pp. Jewish studies is a field that has long given pride of place to the discipline of history. M.M. Silver’s Our Exodus, a historical contextualization of the work of popular Jewish American novelist Leon Uris, marks a powerful marriage of history and literature that points the way to the possibilities of truly interdisciplinary work in the field. Although Our Exodus has its limitations, it also fills a gap in the field of both literary and historical studies of Jewish culture by focusing on “the way Israel’s founding story was packaged and popularized for the world at large” during the years after 1948 (1). Rather than probing at the verisimilitude (or lack thereof) of Uris’s narrative of Israel’s founding myth, as many other scholars have done, Silver provides a lucid and elegantly written account of the story’s power in the global popular imagination. Silver argues that many scholarly works about Israel cannot resist “framing analyses of its history upon mechanical oppositions between ‘truths’ and ‘myths’ about the Jewish state and founding” (11). Our Exodus does a masterful job of avoiding this sort of binary thinking, focusing instead “upon why particular characterizations and plot twists involving the socialist kibbutz, Holocaust survivor ma’apalim, Palmach commanders, or Palestinian fighters emerged. . . [and] whose identity needs were served by these characterizations” (11). Silver looks at the complex identifications and instrumentalizations at the heart of Uris’s work alongside his ingenious marriage of Israeli and American history and symbolism. Our Exodus’s unique approach to a long-neglected figure provides a welcome contribution to the literature on postwar Jewish culture. Silver begins by “contextualizing Exodus,” locating the novel in a time period when American Jews had a somewhat vexed relationship with Israel—in part because America itself was unsure of how to view the newly-minted Middle Eastern country and in part because many Jewish Americans feared that support for Israel would manifest the sort of dual loyalties frowned upon in the ColdWar-haunted United States. In this chapter, Silver also provides a fascinating overview of the mostly unsuccessful attempts at disseminating Zionist messages in America prior to Uris—from a commercially and critically ignored novel by Zelda Popkin to Ben Hecht’s one-act play narrating Israel’s independence struggle, A Flag Is Born.

Book Reviews • 69

After this brief contexualization of the novel, Silver moves to trace Uris’s work as a self-conscious intervention in world Jewish history. Here, he points out that the novelist was one of the first authors to effectively suture together the narratives of the Holocaust and the foundation of Israel—contributing to a rhetorical stance that continues in Israeli public relations to this day. In this lengthy section of Our Exodus, Silver also provides background on Uris’s earlier literary works and their sometimes-tenuous connection to Jewish identity, as well as a detailed account of Uris’s own background and complex identification with Jewishness throughout his life. In the third section of the book, Silver narrates the many ways in which Exodus contributed to “the Americanization of Israel.” He makes a powerful case for reading Exodus as a particularly American Jewish document, catalyzed by the unique ambiguity of Jewish ethnic and religious identity in the United States. To support this argument, he looks closely at the interfaith relationship at the heart of Exodus and the way it marks American Jewish anxieties about diasporic intermarriage, as well as the many ways in which the film version of Exodus Americanized Uris’s tale in order to meld the foundation of Israel with American viewers’ own national imagination and narratives of revolution and independence. In his final chapter, Silver looks at the contemporary response to Exodus, a novel that once captured American hearts and participated in the sympathetic dissemination of Israel’s story around the world. From an overview of the novel’s influence and popularity, he moves to look at the many ways in which the novelist’s work has subsequently been challenged and problematized by readers uncomfortable with his depiction of the Arab populace and the narrative of Palestine. In this portion of Our Exodus, Silver is critical of Uris’s wholesale mythologizing of Israel’s history, but he nonetheless fails to probe at some of the central assumptions that undergird the writer’s work and his pejorative descriptions of the Arab populace in Palestine. In many ways, Our Exodus celebrates the triumphalist narrative of Israel’s foundation (as well as this narrative’s point of origin in the horrors of the Holocaust), even as it nods to some of the debates between Zionist and post-Zionist historiographers. At times, the reader wishes for a more stringent analysis of Uris’s work. Although Silver’s close engagement as a historian with Uris’s fiction provides a welcome addition to the literature on the novelist, there are moments when his methodology illuminates some of the pitfalls of this sort of interdisciplinary project. Silver’s impressive archival work allows him to trace Uris’s history from birth as both an individual and a writer. This archival work can sometimes overshadow Silver’s analysis, pushing him to engage in a problematically simplistic form of psychobiographical criticism that conflates Uris’s motivations with those of his characters, relying less on the author’s work and more on speculation about his psyche and tortured Oedipal relationships. Silver’s position as a historian looking 70 • American Jewish Archives Journal

at a piece of literature comes through in other ways throughout Our Exodus, as well. While he manifests a keen awareness that Exodus indexes an important moment in both Jewish and American history, he neglects to acknowledge that the novel also exists within the trajectory of Jewish and American literary history and should be analyzed and evaluated more closely at the level of language and form. Silver rarely interacts with Uris’s writing, focusing instead on the general narrative of the text and its place in the larger history of Israel’s founding story. This focus proves interesting and provocative, but it fails to uncover the many ways in which language, like narrative, contains and disseminates ideology. His preoccupation with Uris’s work as a repository of history also neglects to note the many ways in which literary history is often tied up with national history, a particularly potent concern for Jewish scholars since at least the time of the Wissenschaft des Judentums and one that would take on even more prominence after Israel’s independence. In his chapter on “Exodus and Jewish History,” Silver suggests that Uris’s work is distinct from that of other Jewish American authors because he was unconcerned with the immigrant sagas and familial angst that preoccupied many Jewish American writers of his time. However, as Werner Sollors and other critics have made clear, many of the preoccupations at the heart of immigrant fiction—most prominently the clash between descent relations and chosen affiliation—find their way into American writing that is not explicitly engaged with narrating immigrant existence. It would have been useful to see Silvers place Uris in conversation with other Jewish American writers, despite his disavowal of this link. Despite these lacunae, Our Exodus provides an insightful account of Uris’s role in the formation of global Jewish consciousness— a story that has largely been forgotten. Silver poses provocative questions about the links between history and narrative, popular culture and public relations, and America and Israel in the years after 1948. In its grappling with the complex legacy of Uris and his immensely popular Exodus, this work makes a much-needed contribution to the fields of postwar American and Jewish cultural studies. Jennifer Glaser is an assistant professor of English and comparative literature and an affiliate faculty member in Judaic studies at the University of Cincinnati. She is currently at work on a manuscript titled Exceptional Differences: Race and the Postwar Jewish American Literary Imagination.

Book Reviews • 71

Henry Srebrnik, Dreams of Nationhood: American Jewish Communists and the Soviet Birobidzhan Project, 1924–1951 (Boston: Academic Studies Press, 2010), 312 pp. Henry Srebrnik’s book is a richly detailed study of a fascinating, often neglected chapter in the history of the Jewish communist movement in the United States. This meticulously researched book thoroughly chronicles the world of the Jewish communist and pro-Soviet subculture from its beginnings in the United States in the 1920s until its demise in the early 1950s. Srebrnik draws from an array of primary and archival sources to provide the reader with a sense of the lived experience of the adherents and participants of the Jewish communist movement. His in-depth account conveys a sense of the utopian ideals that drove many Jews, communist and non-communist, as well as many non-Jewish supporters, to look to the Soviet Union and its Siberian province of Birobidzhan as a territorial solution to the Jewish national problem. His main accomplishment, perhaps, is the extent to which he shows just how active and persistent this movement was in its support for the creation of a Jewish national home in Birobidzhan. Srebrnik’s scholarship sheds new light on our understanding of the Jewish communist movement in North America and the larger network of supporters of the Soviet Union in the years before the Cold War. Before launching into his exhaustive study of the central Jewish American institutions and organizations created to support Jewish settlement in Birobidzhan, Srebrnik provides a brief but illuminating overview of the Jewish communist subculture that existed on the American left from the early 1920s to the 1950s and beyond. Although this is not the primary subject of his book, Srebrnik’s insightful examination of the movement is an important contribution to scholarship on the field of Jewish communists. His comprehensive account of their cultural life and political institutions helps to flesh out what the Jewish communist movement looked like and why people were attracted to it without resorting to trite ideological affirmations or condemnations of the movement. Once he introduces the readers to the contours of this Jewish communist culture, Srebrnik turns his attention to the campaign in support of Birobidzhan. He focuses in particular on two of the main Jewish organizations created to support Jewish colonization in the Soviet Union: the ICOR (Association for Jewish Colonization in the Soviet Union), founded in 1924, and Ambijan (the American Committee for the Settlement of Jews in Birobidjan), founded in 1934. The ICOR was closely associated with the Communist Party and over the years constituted a major part of the Jewish communist subculture mentioned above. Beginning in 1928 when the Soviet Union first proposed Birobidzhan as a center for Jewish agricultural settlement, and in 1934 when it officially became a Jewish autonomous region, the ICOR turned all of its efforts to the campaign to settle Jews in Birobidzhan. One of the strengths of Srebrnik’s 72 • American Jewish Archives Journal

book is the detail in which he reproduces key elements of this campaign; he uses many archival sources to take the reader on a journey through the myriad meetings, public speeches, journal articles, pamphlets, and the like that the ICOR organized and produced. He introduces the reader to the plethora of ICOR activists, writers, and speakers — some communist, some not — and recounts many of their speeches and articles in support of Birobidzhan. Perhaps even more central to the revelations of Dreams of Nationhood is the author’s focus on Ambijan and the extent to which the Birobidzhan campaign extended beyond the relatively narrow communist niche of which ICOR was a part. Created in the mid-1930s and enduring until 1950, Ambijan promoted the idea of Birobidzhan in wide segments of the American Jewish community and had tremendous support from a number of American non-Jewish politicians. As he did in his chapters on ICOR, Srebrnik uses a trove of archival sources to help recreate the many speeches, concerts, publications, and campaigns that Ambijan undertook in support of Birobidzhan specifically and, more broadly, Jewish life in the Soviet Union. He shows how it was especially active and successful in the years immediately following World War II in its efforts to settle Jewish war refugees in Birobidzhan. Maintaining a thoroughly objective and scholarly tone throughout the book, Srebrnik’s concluding chapter, “From Hope to Hoax,” chronicles the process of the dissolution of the pro-Birobidzhan movement among its many former supporters in the late 1940s and early 1950s. Srebrnik traces the disillusionment and despair that many felt as they realized their dreams of nationhood for Jews in Birobidzhan had not materialized. Toward the end of the book, the author observes, “given how important the pro-Birobidzhan movement had been in American Jewish life, it is surprising to realize how quickly it was forgotten” (241). With this painstakingly researched and scrupulously documented book, Henry Srebrnik has helped his readers to remember and, in a sense, to relive the essential features of the pro-Birobidzhan movement in American Jewish life. Matthew Hoffman is an associate professor of Judaic Studies and History at Franklin & Marshall College, where he teaches courses on Jewish history and culture. Hoffman’s book, From Rebel to Rabbi: Reclaiming Jesus and the Making of Modern Jewish Culture, was published by Stanford University Press in 2007. He is currently working on a study of Yiddish-speaking communists in America in the years before World War II.

Book Reviews • 73

Michael Weingrad, American Hebrew Literature: Writing Jewish National Identity in the United States (Syracuse: Syracuse University Press, 2011), 275 pp. Described as a “counterhistory,” Michael Weingrad’s new book recovers for contemporary readers an insight into the oeuvre, the anxieties, and the lives of a handful of Hebrew writers active on American soil for much of the twentieth century—mainly until the 1950s, but some of them down to the last decades of the century, and even today. They are rarely acknowledged protagonists in the narrative of American Jewish culture. Sometimes referred to as “Hebraists,” given that the invention of modern Hebrew was as much an ideological posture as it was a medium for creative self-expression, no more than a few dozen exponents and practitioners were active in the United States. Weingrad selects from among them a cadre of those whom he considers significant to the intellectual historian: Hillel Bavli, Israel Efros, Shimon Ginzburg, Shimon Halkin, Ephraim Lisitzky, Gabriel Preil, Harry Sackler, Benjamin Silkiner, and Reuven Wallenrod. Others appear throughout the book as part of the contextualization of his wider portrait. Their prose and poetry straddled three literatures: modern Hebrew letters (a global phenomenon, conceived mainly as an East-European-incubated literature that was transplanted to the Land—later State—of Israel); Jewish migrant literature (again, a global bookshelf—a multilingual one, in fact, including works in Yiddish, English, Spanish, French, and a variety of other tongues); and American literature (whose definition has been broadened recently to include works written in America but in languages other than English). Indeed, quite a few of them wrote in Yiddish and English, as well as in Hebrew, and thus a case for a strictly “Hebraist,” monolinguistic definition is not part of Weingrad’s declared aims in relating their stories. Weingrad is sensitive to the fact that the American Hebraists were always a minor voice within each of these overlapping artistic and discursive territories. Theirs are not household names, though within the Jewish cultural milieu, a few of them were better known in their own day. Weingrad’s purpose is not to restore lost luster to forgotten “masters,” but rather to recover the substance and explore the meanings—aesthetic, social, psychological—conveyed by their writings. His close textual readings and artful English renderings of passages from numerous works perform an essential literary and scholarly service for the English reader and, indeed, fully justify the attention he lavishes on his select group of writers. One of Weingrad’s intriguing interpretive emphases is the aesthetic conservatism that, for the most part, this group characterized. Although, as he points out, some of them were not entirely unsusceptible to the temper and the blandishments of modernism, for the most part they played the role of keepers of a romantic tradition. It was from that perspective, he argues, that one must 74 • American Jewish Archives Journal

engage with their portrayals of such disparate themes as American Indians, the life of the New York metropolis, and the counter-urban depictions of the American countryside. Similarly, the literary forms that they mostly drew upon came from a palette of late-nineteenth-century sensibilities. Weingrad takes one detour along this literary tour to include a less-wellexecuted chapter dealing with the literary afterlife of Mordecai Noah, as a symbolic figure of Jewish writing spanning the late nineteenth to late twentieth century. Here Weingrad is forced to depart from American-based writers (dealing, for example, with the Anglo-Jewish writer Israel Zangwill and Israeli novelist Nava Semel) and from Hebrew literary sources (Ben Katchor’s graphic novel, The Jew of New York, 1998) and even from Jewish literary production (Alfred Henry Lewis's 1902 novel Peggy O’Neal, for instance). The chapter, though keeping a toehold on some of the book’s major themes, is not well integrated into the overall discussion and probably would have worked better as a separately published essay. Weingrad is on much more solid ground when capturing the essential ambivalence and poignant human moments in the lives of his main protagonists. His portrayals of Silkiner and Halkin, in particular, are memorable. His foray into latter-day Hebrew poets in America—American-born writers who appear to belie the overall assessment that American Hebrew literature was a one-generational phase—is also an important contribution. For example, we meet the likes of Chana (Anne) Kleiman, a daughter of Jewish immigrants from Russia, raised in St. Joseph, Missouri; Chana (Annabelle) Farmelant, a post-World-War-II poet; and the remarkable instance of Robert Whitehill from Lubbock, Texas, a Hebrew autodidact with no genealogical connection to the earlier age of American Hebraism. Weingrad’s book is a very welcome addition to scholarship on the permutations of Jewish culture in modernity, to the cultural history of the United States, and, not least, to the development of a self-critical school of thought in American Jewish studies: a subtle but nonetheless edgy assessment of what may be missing in American Jewry’s sense of itself as the heir to a larger Jewish heritage. Eli Lederhendler is the Stephen S. Wise Professor of American Jewish History and Institutions at the Avraham Harman Institute of Contemporary Jewry at the Hebrew University, Jerusalem.

Book Reviews • 75

Beth S. Wenger, History Lessons: The Creation of American Jewish Heritage (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2010), 282 pp., Illus. In 1975, the Jewish Publication Society marked America’s bicentennial by publishing a Revolutionary-War-era biography by Shirley Milgrim titled Haym Salomon: Liberty’s Son. Milgrim’s book reaches a climax in the fall of 1780. The Continental army under the command of General George Washington is in dire straits: The soldiers have not been paid in more than five months, and food rations are dangerously low. “The situation is desperate. The army is threatening mutiny,” Washington writes to Robert Morris, whose role as chief financier of the American Revolution would shortly be formalized when Congress would vote to confer upon him the title of superintendent of finance. “Please see Mr. Salomon!”1 According to Milgrim, when Morris finally sends for Salomon, it is Yom Kippur. Salomon is praying at Philadelphia’s Mikveh Israel congregation when Morris’s messenger finds him. Initially irritated about being disturbed on the most solemn day on the Jewish calendar, Salomon’s demeanor changes quickly when he reads the note. Salomon strides to the front of the bimah and entreats the congregants to join him in contributing to the rebels’ cause. “We’re known for aiding the suffering both inside and outside our own circle. But now we must show that above all we are true patriots.” In less than fifteen minutes, Salomon manages to raise twenty thousand dollars. As Morris’s aide departed the synagogue, Salomon calls to him: “Tell me young man, did you ever see such evidence of patriotism before?” “No sir, and I know I never shall again.”2 Milgrim’s story was apocryphal but hardly novel. As Beth Wenger explains in her engaging new book, History Lessons: The Creation of American Jewish Heritage, the myth surrounding Salomon was progressively inflated and widely circulated since the 1840s by a relentless assortment of relatives and ethnic boosters. For them, as for Milgrim, Salomon, a loyal Jew and a selfless supporter of the Revolution, became the exemplar of American Jewish patriotism and the embodiment of American Jewish synthesis. Wenger devotes an entire chapter to the “sculpting” of the Salomon myth, demonstrating how “successive generations of Jews used history to create and recreate a shared ethnic heritage.” Wenger, associate professor of history and director of the Jewish studies program at the University of Pennsylvania, made her academic reputation with an insightful portrait of Jewish life in Depression-era New York. Many of the strengths of that judicious work—its breadth of scholarship, tightly constructed argument, and attention to a previously overlooked subject—are once again on display in History Lessons. This new book is a must-read for Jewish history scholars and teachers, and it promises to be thought provoking for Jewish communal leaders and image-makers.

76 • American Jewish Archives Journal

Wenger’s subject here is heritage construction, specifically the stories that American Jews told themselves and their children, which “fused the Jewish past with the American future and shaped paradigms of Jewish religious and ethnic culture in the United States” (3). Proceeding from the proposition, articulated by Jerold Auerbach, that “the synthesis of Judaism and Americanism is a historical fiction,” Wenger adroitly demonstrates how American Jews “reinterpreted their own culture and history to fit the circumstances of American Jewish life.” In successive chapters, Wenger analyzes the narratives Jews fashioned when they celebrated national holidays, commemorated their wartime service, instructed their children, and narrated the lives of their heroes. Undergirding virtually all of their stories was the conviction that the American Jewish experience represented a radical departure in Diaspora Jewish history. American exceptionalism, Wenger asserts, is “perhaps the most fundamental axiom of American Jewish life” (10). The chapter on Haym Salomon is arguably the most interesting, in large part because the efforts to memorialize him did not go unchallenged, even within the Jewish community. For example, efforts to erect a monument to Salomon in New York’s Madison Square Park pitted eastern European Jewish immigrants against more established Jews of central European extraction. The latter were concerned that the Jewish community might be publicly embarrassed if the claims about Salomon’s life were to be disproved. Moreover, they questioned the wisdom of raising up a moneylender, however patriotic, as an American Jewish hero. To the then-recent immigrants, however, the Polish-born Salomon served as an inspiration and, in the xenophobic atmosphere of the 1920s, a powerful rejoinder to those who questioned their American authenticity. If the other chapters lack the same dramatic tension, Wenger compensates by showering her readers with abundant and varied sources. Her argument is considerably strengthened by her fluency in the cultural output of a wide range of Jewish subcommunities. She is equally at ease citing examples from the Yidishes Tageblatt and the Forverts as she is from rabbinical sermons and the files of the Jewish Welfare Board. Wenger’s integration of sources from the Jewish left, in particular, enriches her narrative considerably. This reader was also especially gratified to see the wealth of materials that Wenger culled from educational sources, including my unpublished dissertation on Jewish textbooks.3 Indeed, Wenger’s book should be understood as a work of educational history in the widest sense, as articulated by Bernard Bailyn, who invited academics and lay people to conceptualize education “not only as formal pedagogy but as the entire process by which a culture transmits itself across the generations.”4 Of course, there is a darker side to the fabrication of heritage. If heritage, as David Lowenthal reminds us, “addresses common needs and embodies common traits the world over,” these “needs are defined and the traits cherished by chauvinist jealousy.” All too often, as Lowenthal cautions, heritage is marshaled Book Reviews • 77

as a weapon to delegitimize the other. “We confront one another armored in identities whose likenesses we ignore or disown and whose differences we distort or invent to emphasize our own superior worth.”5 Wenger only begins to explore this less solicitous use of heritage in her epilogue, where she considers the contest between mainstream Jewish organizations and an embattled Jewish left to make meaning out of the American Jewish tercentenary. One hopes that others will follow Wenger’s trailblazing path and expand our appreciation for how American Jews engaged in a continual project of self-fashioning, defining and redefining the contours of American Jewish identity. In the meantime, there is much to learn and ponder in this inspired volume. Jonathan B. Krasner is associate professor of the American Jewish Experience at Hebrew Union College–Jewish Institute of Religion in New York. His new book, The Benderly Boys and American Jewish Education, was published by Brandeis University Press in May 2011.

Notes 1 Shirley Milgrim, Haym Salomon: Liberty’s Son (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 1975), 65–66. 2 Ibid., 73–74. 3 Jonathan Krasner, “Representations of Self and Other in American Jewish History and Social Studies Schoolbooks: An Exploration of the Changing Shape of American Jewish Identity,” doctoral dissertation (Brandeis University, 2002). 4 Bernard Bailyn, Education in the Forming of American Society: Needs and Opportunities for Study (Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 1960), 14. 5 David Lowenthal, “Identity, Heritage, and History,” in Commemorations: The Politics of National Identity, ed. John R. Gillis (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1994), 41.

78 • American Jewish Archives Journal

Fellowship program 2011 — 2012 F E L LOWS The Jacob Rader Marcus Center of the American Jewish Archives welcomes the following 2011–2012 Fellows to the Barrows-Loebelson Family Reading Room located on the historic Cincinnati campus of the Hebrew Union College– Jewish Institute of Religion: Sheri Allen

University of Cincinnati The Loewenstein-Wiener Fellowship American Alefbeit: A Collection of Poetry

April C. Armstrong

Princeton University The Loewenstein-Wiener Fellowship Twentieth Century American Jewish-Southern Baptist Interfaith Dialogue

Genevieve Carpio

University of Southern California The Rabbi Theodore S. Levy Tribute Fellowship Unexpected Allies: The Jewish Left, Civil Rights, and the Mexican American Legal Landscape of Southern California

Sarah A. Cramsey

University of California, Berkeley The Rabbi Theodore S. Levy Tribute Fellowship Uncertain Citizenship: Czech, Poles, ‘Jews’ and the Politics of Exclusion, 1938–1948

Francesca Frazer

University of Manchester The Bernard and Audre Rapoport Fellowship Samuel Sandmel: Post-Holocaust Communal Leader, New Testament Scholar, and Pioneer in Jewish-Christian Relations

Silvia P. Glick

Boston University The Loewenstein-Wiener Fellowship The Correspondence and Writings of Fanny Goldstein

Fellowships • 79

Michael Hoberman

Fitchburg State University The Joseph and Eva R. Dave Fellowship Jews in the Americas, 1621–1826

Ava F. Kahn

Rabbi Joachim Prinz Memorial Fellowship American Jewish Doctors in WWI and the Families/Communities They Left Behind

Dan J. Puckett

Troy University The Starkoff Fellowship A Biographical Study of Rabbi Milton Grafman

Ida Selavan Schwarcz

The Starkoff Fellowship The Early Zionist Movement in Western Pennsylvania

Ronit Y. Stahl

University of Michigan The Loewenstein-Wiener Fellowship American Military Chaplains and the Creation of Modern American Religion

Amy Weiss

New York University The Loewenstein-Wiener Fellowship Cooperation and Controversy between American Jewish and Christian Zionists, 1939–1977

Lee Shai Weissbach

University of Louisville The Loewenstein-Wiener Fellowship Mapping the American Jewish Experience

Jennifer Young

New York University Marguerite R. Jacobs Memorial Fellowship American Jewish Communists, Anti-Fascism, and the Shaping of Ethnic Culture in the International Workers Order, 1930–1968 E

80 • American Jewish Archives Journal

COU NCIL S

The Educational Advisory Council Professor Sara Lee, Co-Chair HUC-JIR, Los Angeles, CA Dr. Jane West Walsh, Co-Chair Spark Partnership for Service, Baltimore, MD Mr. Gregg Alpert HUC-JIR, Los Angeles, CA Ms. Lisa Frankel The Marcus Center, Cincinnati, OH

Rabbi Samuel K. Joseph HUC-JIR, Cincinnati, OH Dr. Jan Katzew Union for Reform Judaism, New York, NY Dr. Jonathan Krasner HUC-JIR, New York, NY Ms. Nachama Skolnick Moskowitz Jewish Education Center of Cleveland, Cleveland, OH

Dr. Janet Moss Rowan University, Glasboro, NJ Dr. Jonathan Sarna Brandeis University, Waltham, MA Dr. Gary P. Zola The Marcus Center, Cincinnati, OH

The B’nai Ya’akov Council Rabbi Jeffrey Stiffman, Chair Temple Shaare Israel, St. Louis, MO Rabbi Ronald B. Sobel, Honorary Chair Congregation Emanu-El, New York, NY Rabbi Martin P. Beifield Congregation Beth Ahabah, Richmond, VA Rabbi Peter S. Berg The Temple, Atlanta, GA Rabbi Steven M. Bob Congregation Etz Chaim, Lombard, IL Rabbi Norman M. Cohen Congregation Bet Shalom, Minnetonka, MN Rabbi Paul Cohen Temple Jeremiah, Northfield, IL Rabbi Scott M. Corngold Temple Emanu-El of Lynbrook, Lynbrook, NY Rabbi Harry K. Danziger Temple Israel, Memphis, TN Rabbi Jerome P. David Temple Emanuel, Cherry Hill, NJ Rabbi Lucy H.F. Dinner Temple Beth Or, Raleigh, NC Rabbi Rebecca L. Dubowe Temple Adat Elohim, Thousand Oaks, CA Rabbi Amy B. Ehrlich Congregation Emanu-El, New York, NY Rabbi Steven W. Engel Congregation of Liberal Judaism, Orlando, FL

Rabbi Randall M. Falk Congregation Ohabai Sholom, Nashville, TN Rabbi Dena A. Feingold Temple Beth Hillel, Kenosha, WI Rabbi Daniel J. Fellman Temple Concord, Syracuse, NY Rabbi Anthony Fratello Temple Shaarei Shalom, Boynton Beach, FL Rabbi Ronne Friedman Temple Israel, Boston, MA Rabbi Edwin C. Goldberg Temple Judea, Coral Gables, FL Rabbi Mark N. Goldman Temple Beth Yam, St. Augustine, FL Rabbi Samuel Gordon Congregation Sukkat Shalom, Wilmette, IL Rabbi Micah D. Greenstein Temple Israel, Memphis, TN Rabbi Rosette Barron Haim The Temple Tifereth Israel, Beachwood, OH Rabbi Stephen Hart Temple Chai, Long Grove, IL Rabbi Lisa Hochberg-Miller Temple Beth Torah, Ventura, CA Rabbi Abie Ingber Xavier University, Cincinnati, OH Rabbi Bruce E. Kahn Director, Equal Rights Center, Silver Spring, MD Rabbi Mark Kaiserman Temple Emanu-El of West Essex, Livingston, NJ

Rabbi Lewis H. Kamrass Isaac M. Wise Temple, Cincinnati, OH Rabbi Kenneth A. Kanter Director, Rabbinical School, HUC-JIR, Cincinnati, OH Rabbi William I. Kuhn Congregation Rodeph Shalom, Philadelphia, PA Rabbi Andrea C. Lerner Madison, WI Rabbi John Linder Temple Solel, Paradise Valley, AZ Rabbi Steven Lowenstein Am Sholom, Glencoe, IL Rabbi Bruce Lustig Washington Hebrew Congregation, Washington, DC Rabbi Bernard H. Mehlman Temple Israel, Boston, MA Rabbi Stanley R. Miles Temple Shalom, Louisville, KY Rabbi Evan Moffic Chicago Sinai Congregation, Chicago, IL Rabbi Jay H. Moses Director, Wexner Heritage Program, New York, NY Rabbi Michael L. Moskowitz Temple Shir Shalom, West Bloomfield, MI Rabbi Howard Needleman Temple Beth David, Commack, NY Rabbi Geri Newburge Temple Emanuel, Cherry Hill, NJ Rabbi Stephen S. Pearce Congregation Emanu-El, San Francisco, CA

Councils • 81

Rabbi Mark Peilen Temple B’nai Israel, Columbus, MS Rabbi Amy Perlin Temple B’nai Shalom, Fairfax Station, VA Rabbi Aaron M. Petuchowski Temple Sholom of Chicago, Chicago, IL Rabbi David M. Posner Congregation Emanu-El, New York, NY Rabbi Sally Priesand Monmouth Reform Temple, Tinton Falls, NJ Rabbi Joseph Rapport Congregation Adath Israel Brith Sholom, Louisville, KY Rabbi Sarah H. Reines Central Synagogue, New York, NY Rabbi Kenneth D. Roseman Temple Shalom, Dallas, TX Rabbi Joseph R. Rosenbloom Temple Emanuel, St. Louis, MO Rabbi Donald B. Rossoff Temple B’nai Or, Morristown, NJ

Rabbi Peter J. Rubinstein Central Synagogue, New York, NY Rabbi David Fox Sandmel KAM Isaiah Israel, Chicago, IL Rabbi Herman E. Schaalman Emanuel Congregation, Chicago, IL Rabbi Jeffrey M. Segall Temple Emanu-El, Utica, NY Rabbi Mark S. Shapiro Congregation B’nai Jehoshua Beth Elohim, Glenview, IL Rabbi Scott Shpeen Congregation Beth Emeth, Albany, NY Rabbi James L. Simon Miami, FL Rabbi Jonathan Singer Temple Beth Am, Seattle, WA Rabbi Jeffrey J. Sirkman Larchmont Temple, Larchmont, NY Rabbi Donald M. Splansky Temple Beth Am, Framingham, MA Cantor Howard M. Stahl B’nai Jeshurun, Short Hills, NJ

Rabbi Jonathan A. Stein Temple Shaaray Tefila, New York, NY Rabbi Richard Steinberg Congregation Shir Ha-Ma’alot, Irvine, CA Rabbi Lance J. Sussman Reform Congregation Keneseth Israel, Elkins Park, PA Rabbi Susan Talve Central Reform Congregation, St. Louis, MO Rabbi Gerry H. Walter Temple Sholom, Cincinnati, OH Rabbi Max W. Weiss Oak Park Temple, Oak Park, IL Rabbi Jeffrey S. Wildstein Temple Beth David, Westwood, MA Rabbi Hanna G. Yerushalmi Arnold, MD Rabbi Daniel G. Zemel Temple Micah, Washington, DC

The Ezra Consortium Mr. Michael M. Lorge, Chair Skokie, IL Mrs. Nancy and Mr. Joseph Brant Cincinnati, OH Ms. Roberta and Mr. Maxwell Burstein Cambridge, MA Dr. Mary Davidson Cohen Leawood, KS Ms. Beth and Mr. Rand Curtiss Shaker Heights, OH Mr. Bernard Dave Cincinnati, OH Mr. Jerome Dave Asheville, NC Ms. Susan and Mr. Marvin Dickman Highland Park, IL Mrs. Virgina Felson Cincinnati, OH Ms. Lori Fenner Mason, OH Ms. Shelly Gerson Cincinnati, OH Mr. Scott Golinkin Chicago, IL

Ms. Judith and Mr. Clive Kamins Chicago, IL Ms. Dee and Mr. Arnold Kaplan Allentown, PA Dr. Clementine Kaufman Baltimore, MD Ms. Nancy and Mr. Jerry Klein Cincinnati, OH Ms. Ruth Klein Tampa, FL Mrs. Roberta and Mr. Marshall Krolick Northbrook, IL Ms. Debbie Krupp Northbrook, IL Mr. Leo Krupp Northbrook, IL Ms. Nancy Goldstein Levine Cincinnati, OH Mr. Millard Mack Cincinnati, OH Ms. Anne Molloy Pittsburgh, PA

82 • American Jewish Archives Journal

Professor Janet Moss Cherry Hill, NJ Mrs. Edwin Ornish Dallas, TX Mr. Gary Perlin Fairfax Station, VA Ms. Joan Porat Chicago, IL Ms. Alice and Mr. Elliott Rosenberg Buffalo Grove, IL Ms. Betsy Shapiro Cincinnati, OH Mr. Lawrence Sherman Chicago, IL Ms. Jean Soman Pinecrest, FL Dr. David Tucker Westport, CT

INDE X

The American Jewish Archives Journal Volume LXIII, no. 1 (2011) A Aarons, Victoria (reviewer), 65

American Jewish Committee, 13

Adams, Dickinson W., 14n3, 15n8, 15n14

American Jewish Historical Society, 5

Adams, Hannah, 54n52 Adams, John Quincy, 4

American Jewish Year Book, 16n41, 34n21, 35n46

Adams, John, 2

Anthony, Susan B., x

Adelman, Howard Tzvi, 52n20

Arensberg, Lipman, 23

Adler, Cyrus, viii–ix, 1–17

Arensberg, Meyer, 31

Adler, Seligman, 27

Arensberg, Rebecca. See Sparger, Rebecca (née Arensberg)

Ahawath Chesed (New York City), 24. See also Central Synagogue (New York City) Ahroni, Reuben, 54n49

American Jewish History, 15n12

Association of Eastern Rabbis, 24 Atlanta Constitution, 15n18 Augsburg Synod, 50

AJS Review, 17n62 Alfasi, Isaac ben Jacob HaKohen, 53n38

B

Allen, Brooke, 13, 17n61

Bailyn, Bernard, 78n4

American Conference of Cantors, 33

Baltimore Hebrew Congregation, 19

An American Experience: Adeline Moses Loeb (1876–1953) and Her Early American Jewish Ancestors (J. L. Loeb, Jr., K. L. Plotkin, M. L. Kempner, & J. E. Endelman), reviewed, 65–67

Baltimore Sun, 15n24, 16n36, 17n48, 30, 32, 37n120

American Hebrew Literature: Writing Jewish National Identity in the United States (Michael Weingrad), reviewed, 74–75

Berman, Lila Corwin (reviewer), 58

American Jewish Archives, 55n60

B’nai Zion (Danville, PA), 23

Beecher, Henry Ward, 23, 31 Berkowitz, Henry, 30 Bersbach, Alfred, 16n43 Beth Elohim (Brooklyn), ix, 19, 23, 25, 32

Index • 83

Beth Elohim (Charleston), 48

Christian Observer, 15n19

Beth-El (Albany, NY), 20

Christus (Franz Liszt), 23

Beth-El (New York City), 27

Church, F. Forrester, 13, 14n4, 17n51, 17n61

Blum, Léon, 17n63 Board of American Hazzan-Ministers, 33

Cohen Judah M., 19, 34n1 Cohen, Joshua I., 5

Boykin, Edward, 14n1

Cohen, Mendes, 10

Brooklyn Eagle, 23–25, 34n28, 35n31, 35n33, 35n36–37, 35n46, 35n50–52

Cohon, Philip, 54n52

Broyde, Michael, 55n65 Bush, Elkaleh (Nelly), 49 Butler, Menachem, 55n65

C Caro, Joseph, 44, 53n31 Carroll, Charles, 15n27 Cassels, Louis, 17n57 CCAR Yearbook. See Central Conference of American Rabbis (CCAR) Yearbook CCAR. See Central Conference of American Rabbis (CCAR) Central Conference of American Rabbis (CCAR) Yearbook, 29, 34n3, 34n20, 35n59, 36n97–98 Central Conference of American Rabbis (CCAR), 19, 21–22, 24–25, 28–29 Central Synagogue (New York City), 24. See also Ahawath Chesed (New York City) The Century, 11 Chicago Defender, 17n57 Chicago Tribune, 8, 15n21, 16n33, 17n54

Commager, Henry Steele, 12, 17n56 Coolick, Gayle Meyer, 15n9 Cosmopolitan, 11, 16n45 Cotton States Exposition, 6

D Dalin, David G., 17n62 Daniel Greene, The Jewish Origins of Cultural Pluralism: The Menorah Association and American Diversity, reviewed, 59–60 Davis, A. J., 25–26, 28, 32, 35n56 Declaration of Independence, 1 DeLieben, Israel, 49–50, 55n60 Devine, Leonard H., 55n60 Diner, Hasia (with Shira Kohn & Rachel Kranson), A Jewish Feminine Mystique: Jewish Women in Postwar America, reviewed, 57–58 Dombrowski, Thomas, 34n22 Dreams of Nationhood: American Jewish Communists and the Soviet Birobidzhan Project, 1924–1951 (Henry Felix Srebrnik), reviewed, 72–73 Dreyfus Affair, 5, 17n63 Dropsie College, 13

84 • American Jewish Archives Journal

E

G

Early Will I Seek Thee, 25

Geiger, Abraham, xin10

Eaton, Charles H., 6

Gershom of Mayence, 40, 43

Einhorn, David, 24

Glaser, Jennifer (reviewer), 71

Elder, Cindy, 34n29

God of Might, Rock of Ages, 25

Ely, Ezra Stiles, 5–6, 15n14

Gottheil, Gustav, 24–29, 32–33, 35n56, 37n113

Emanu-El (New York City), ix–x, 19, 22, 24–32

Gottheil, Richard, 27, 36n82

Emanu-El (San Francisco), ix, 19

Greenwald, Kay, 36n92

Encyclopedia Judaica, 54n44

Grinstein, Hyman B., 19, 24, 34n1, 34n6, 34n19, 35n44, 55n61

Encyclopedia Talmudit, 52n20, 53n27 Endelman, Judith E., 54n54, 54n57, 55n64; (with John L. Loeb, Jr., Kathy L. Plotkin, & Margaret Loeb Kempner), An American Experience: Adeline Moses Loeb (1876–1953) and Her Early American Jewish Ancestors, reviewed, 65–67

Grosvenor, Charles H., 7

H Hagy, James William, 54n53, 54n55, 55n60 Halperson, Stephen, 55n65

Enelow, Hyman G., 29

Harby, Isaac, xin6

Enlightenment, viii–ix

Harper, Ida Husted, xin9

Epstein, Yehiel Michael, 45, 53n37

Harper’s, 14n3

Evans, Eli N., 65

Hart, Hannah Levy, 49

F Faber, Eli (reviewer), 67 Filler, Louis, xin2 Finkelstein, Louis, 15n10, 15n13, 44, 53n26–30 Foley, Martha, 35n30

Heatwole, Joel, 9 Hebrew Union College (HUC), 21 Heinze, Andrew R., viii, xin5 Heller, Max, 29 Herberg, Will, vii, xin4 Hirsch, Emil G., 29

Ford, Thomas F., 17n54

History Lessons: The Creation of American Jewish Heritage (Beth S. Wenger), reviewed, 76–78

Fried, Lewis (reviewer), 60

Hoffman, Matthew (reviewer), 73

Foote, Henry Wilder, 14n2, 17n50

Holt, J. R., 6, 15n19

Index • 85

Hope, Beresford, 16n27 Horton, Francis A., 9 HUC. See Hebrew Union College Huxley, Thomas, 12

I Idelsohn, A. Z., 19, 34n1 Imhoff, Sarah (reviewer), 62 Isaacks, Hannah. See Phillips, Hannah (née Isaacks) Isserles, Moses, 44–45, 53n32

J J. Mans Engraving Company (Chicago), 10 Jackson, Henry E., 12, 17n50 Jameson, J. Franklin, 6 Jastrow siddur, 23–24 Jefferson Bible. See The Life and Morals of Jesus of Nazareth Jefferson, Thomas, viii–ix, xin6, 1–17; The Life and Morals of Jesus of Nazareth, viii–ix, 1–17 Jewish Cantors Ministers Association, 33 Jewish Chronicle, 37n111 Jewish Comment, 16n42 Jewish Encyclopedia, 54n50 The Jewish Origins of Cultural Pluralism: The Menorah Association and American Diversity (Daniel Greene), reviewed, 59–60 Jewish Publication Society, 5

86 • American Jewish Archives Journal

Jewish Theological Seminary of America, ix, 13 Jews and the Civil War: A Reader (Jonathan D. Sarna & Adam Mendelsohn), reviewed, 68–69 Johns Hopkins University, 4 Journal of Synagogue Music, 34n2 Judson, Dan, 54n52

K Kaiser, Alois, x, 19, 21–22, 28–29, 33, 34n24 Katz, Daniel, 48 Katz, Nathan, 48 Kempner, Margaret Loeb (with John L. Loeb, Jr., Kathy L. Plotkin, & Judith E. Endelman), An American Experience: Adeline Moses Loeb (1876–1953) and Her Early American Jewish Ancestors, reviewed, 65–67 Ken Koltun-Fromm, Material Culture and Jewish Thought in America, reviewed, 62–65 King, Mackenzie, 12, 17n59 Kohler, Max J., 15n16 Kohn, Shira (with Hasia Diner & Rachel Kranson), A Jewish Feminine Mystique: Jewish Women in Postwar America, reviewed, 57–58 Kohut, George Alexander, 34n26 Kranson, Rachel (with Hasia Diner & Shira Kohn), A Jewish Feminine Mystique: Jewish Women in Postwar America, reviewed, 57–58 Krasner, Jonathan B. (reviewer), 78, 78n3

L Lacey, John F., 6–7, 9–10, 16n40 Langley, Samuel P., 4, 13, 15n11 Lederhendler, Eli (reviewer), 75 Leipzig Synod, 25 Lester, Ruth W., 14n3, 15n14 Levine, L. H., 16n42 Liebeszank, 19 The Life and Morals of Jesus of Nazareth (Thomas Jefferson), a.k.a. “the Jefferson Bible”, viii–ix, 1–17 Lilienthal, Max, 20, 50 Limbaugh, David, 13, 17n60 Lindsay, Theophilus, 3 Liszt, Franz, 23

Maimonides, (Moses), 42, 45, 52n6, 52n13, 52n21, 53n24, 53n35, 53n38 Mannheimer, Isaac Noah, 21 Mans, J., 10 Marcus, Jacob Rader, 49, 54n58 Marty, Martin, 13 Marx, Joseph, 15n16 Material Culture and Jewish Thought in America (Ken Koltun-Fromm), reviewed, 62–65 McClure’s, 11 McCook, Henry, 8 Mellowes, Marilyn, 4, 15n7 Mendelsohn, Adam (with Jonathan D. Sarna), Jews and the Civil War: A Reader, reviewed, 68–69

Loeb, John L., Jr. (with Kathy L. Plotkin, Margaret Loeb Kempner, & Judith E. Endelman), An American Experience: Adeline Moses Loeb (1876–1953) and Her Early American Jewish Ancestors, reviewed, 65–67

The Menorah, 22, 35n46

London Times, 16n27

Milgrim, Shirley, 78n1

Lori Harrison-Kahan, The White Negress: Literature, Minstrelsy, and the Black-Jewish Imaginary, reviewed, 61–62

Mill, John Stuart, 12

Los Angeles Times, 15n22, 15n25, 17n54

Morison, Henry, 50

Lowenthal, David, 78n5

Morison, Lewis M., 50

Lurton, Douglas E., 15n6

Mosche, Solomon, 23

M Macfarlane, Will C., 28 Magnes, Judah L., 29

Methodist Review, 12 Meyer, Michael A., 20, 34n5, 34n9, 34n14, 35n49, 37n130 Mickve Israel (Savannah), 50

Mishneh Torah (Maimonides), 42 Morison, Edward, 50

Moses Maimonides. See Maimonides Moses, Isaiah (Yeshaya), x, 39, 48–49 Moses, Levy, x, 39, 48

Index • 87

Moses, Morris, 48

O

Moses, Phineas, 48

Oheb Shalom (Baltimore), 19

Moses, Rebecca Isaiah Phillips (née Phillips), x, 39, 46–47, 49–50, 52n1, 54n55

Our Exodus: Leon Uris and the Americanization of Israel’s Founding Story (M. M. Silver), reviewed, 69–71

Moses, Simeon, 48 Moses, Solomon, 48

P

Moses, Yehuda Levy, 48

Passamaneck, Stephen, 55n65

Motta, Jacob de la, 15n16

Payne, Sereno E., 7 Peacock, John, 9

N

Peale, Norman Vincent, 13

Nachmanides, 53n38

Philadelphia Inquirer, 16n28, 24, 30, 35n41, 37n117–119, 37n123

Nahalat Shivah (Samuel b. David Moses HaLevi), 46–47

Philadelphia Press, 8

The Nation, 17n61

Philadelphia Rabbinic Conference, 50

Neuman, Abraham, 16n41

Philipson, David, xin10, 34n16, 35n57

Nevin, Charles, 8–9

Phillips, Esther, 49

The New England Quarterly, xin2

Phillips, Frances, 49

New York Herald, 23, 35n35

Phillips, Hannah (née Isaacks), 49

New York Herald-Tribune, 37n110

Phillips, Jacob, 48–49

New York Mail, 16n32

Phillips, Rachel, 49

New York Times, 15n20, 16n34–35, 16n39, 16n45, 17n55–56, 17n58, 17n60, 23, 29–30, 35n34, 35n38– 40, 37n112, 37n114, 37n124

Phillips, Rebecca. See Moses, Rebecca Isaiah Phillips Pinnolis, Judith S., ix

New York Tribune, 8, 16n32

Plaut, Gunther, 55n63

Newdegate, Charles N., 15n27

Plotkin, Kathy L. (with John L. Loeb, Jr., Margaret Loeb Kempner, & Judith E. Endelman), An American Experience: Adeline Moses Loeb (1876–1953) and Her Early American Jewish Ancestors, reviewed, 65–67

Niemiller, Ruth C., 17n58 Noah, Mordecai Manuel, xin6 Novak, Michael, 13, 17n60

Pool, David de Sola, 49 Porter, Frank G., 9

88 • American Jewish Archives Journal

Powell, Adam Clayton, Jr., 12

Rosengarten, Theodore, 54n54

Preachers’ Meeting of the Methodist Episcopal Church, 9

Rosewald, Julie, ix

Presbyterian Ministers Association, 9

Royal Conservatory of Music (Austria), 22

Priestley, Joseph, 1, 3

Rubin, Adolph, 25–26, 32

Proffitt, Kevin, 55n65

Rubin, Saul J., 54n59, 55n60

Publications of the American Jewish Historical Society, 15n16, 55n62

Rush, Benjamin, 1, 3–4, 10

Q Quale, G. Robina, 52n2

Rusling, James F., 12

S Samuel ben David Moses HaLevi, 46

Randolph, Sarah N., 6

Sarna, Jonathan D., x, 15n12, 39, 51; (with Adam Mendelsohn), Jews and the Civil War: A Reader, reviewed, 68–69

Randolph, Thomas Jefferson, 10

Satlow, Michael, 52n10

Rashba, 53n38

Sawislak, Arnold, 17n57

Reese, Eric, 14n3

Schir Zion (Salomon Sulzer), 21

Reformed Church, General Synod, 8

Schirmer, G., 22

Reminiscences (Isaac Mayer Wise), 20–21

Schlesinger, Arthur M., Sr., vii, x, xin1, xin3

Renan, Ernest, 16n45

Schmidt, Gary D., 54n52

Rice, Abraham, 19

Scientific Engraving Company (New York), 10

R Randall, Henry S., 4–5

Robinson, Greg, viii–ix, 1, 14 Robinson, Ira, 15n9–10, 15n12, 15n15

Segel, Ayelet, 52n11, 53n38–39, 53n42–43, 54n45–49

Roche, O. I., 14n1, 14n5

Seixas, Gershom Mendes, 20

Rodda, Chris, 16n28–29

Seligman, James, 29

Rodeph Shalom (Philadelphia), 30

Semler, Matthew (reviewer), 69

Roosevelt, Franklin, 12

Sendrey, Alfred, 25, 35n60

Roosevelt, Theodore, 5, 13

Shanks, Judith Alexander Weil, 52n1

Rosenbloom, Joseph R., 54n53

Shearith Israel (Charleston), 48–49

Rosengarten, Dale, 54n54

Shearith Israel (New York City), 20 Index • 89

Sheftall, Moses, 49 Shulhan Arukh (Joseph Caro), 44 Silver, M. M., Our Exodus: Leon Uris and the Americanization of Israel’s Founding Story, reviewed, 69–71 Silverman, Joseph, 25, 27–29, 32 Slobin, Mark, 19, 34n1, 37n131 Smithsonian Institution, ix, 4–5, 13 Sobel, Ronald B., 37n103, 37n106, 37n108 Society of American Cantors, 21, 29, 33 Souvenir of the Jewish Women’s Congress held under the Auspices of the World’s Parliament of Religions (William Sparger & Alois Kaiser), 22 Sparger, Elizabeth Miriam, 29 Sparger, Jeanette, 31 Sparger, Koloman, 22, 29 Sparger, Leopold, 29 Sparger, Rebecca (née Arensberg), 23, 31

Srebrnik, Henry Felix, Dreams of Nationhood: American Jewish Communists and the Soviet Birobidzhan Project, 1924–1951, reviewed, 72–73 Stahl, Howard M., ix–x, 19, 33 Stanton, Elizabeth Cady, x–xi Stark, Edward, 19 Stern, Myer, 35n53, 35n55 Straus, Oscar, 13 Sulzer, Salomon, 19, 21, 25, 31, 33 The Synagogical Service: Part 1 and 2: Service for Sabbath Eve and Sabbath Morning (Max Spicker & William Sparger), 22

T Tabernacle Presbyterian Church (Philadelphia), 8, 28 Temkin, Sefton D., 24, 35n45, 35n47, 37n101, 55n63 Thompson, N. D., 10

Sparger, William, ix–x, 19–37; a.k.a. Jakob, 22; a.k.a. Wilhelm, 22; The Synagogical Service (with Max Spicker), 22

Thomson, Charles, 14n1, 15n6

Spear, William, 12, 17n52

Turner, James M., 12

Spicker, Max, x, 22, 28, 34n23, 36n96; The Synagogical Service (with William Sparger), 22

U

Spicker-Sparger Service. See The Synagogical Service Spofford, Ainsworth R., 6

Tobin, James, 15n11 Tupper, Kerr Boyce, 8

UAHC. See Union of American Hebrew Congregations (UAHC) Union Hymnal, 21–22, 29 Union of American Hebrew Congregations (UAHC), 21, 29 Union Prayer Book, 29

90 • American Jewish Archives Journal

Universalist Church of the Holy Paternity (New York), 6

Wilson, Woodrow, 4

University of Pennsylvania, 4

Wise, Isaac Mayer, 19–21, 24, 29, 31–33, 34n8, 34n11, 34n15

University of Vienna, 22

Wise, Stephen S., 29

University of Virginia, 1

Wolf, Edwin, II, 54n59

V

Z

Van der Kemp, Francis, 4

Zoellner, Heinrich, 28

Van der Stucken, Frank, 28

Zucker, Jeffrey S., 19, 34n2

Veisberg, Zsani, 22 Virginia Statute of Religious Freedom, 1

W Washington Post, 8, 11–12, 15n23, 15n26, 16n29–30, 16n32, 16n37, 16n46, 17n47, 17n52–53 Washington, Booker T., 6 Washington, George, 15n27 Weingrad, Michael, American Hebrew Literature: Writing Jewish National Identity in the United States, reviewed, 74–75 Weisberg, Dvora E., x, 39, 51, 52n2, 52n5, 52n9–10 Weisser, Albert, 19, 34n1 Wenger, Beth S., History Lessons: The Creation of American Jewish Heritage, reviewed, 76–78 The White Negress: Literature, Minstrelsy, and the Black-Jewish Imaginary (Lori Harrison-Kahan), reviewed, 61–62 Whiteman, Maxwell, 54n59

Illustrations Adler, Cyrus, xii Gottheil, Gustav, 24 Jefferson Bible, title page, 2; facsimile of page, 7 Jefferson, Thomas, xii Kaiser, Alois, 21 The Life and Morals of Jesus of Nazareth, title page, 2; facsimile of page, 7 Macfarlane, Will C., 18 Moses, Isaiah, 38 Moses, Rebecca Isaiah Phillips, 38 Moses, Yehuda Levy, shtar halitzah, 41 Souvenir of the Jewish Women’s Congress held under the Auspices of the World’s Parliament of Religions, title page, 22 Sparger, William, 18 Spicker, Max, 18 Temple Emanu-El choir, 18 Two Anthems after Hebrew Melodies (William Sparger), cover page, 31

Wiener Stadttempel, 21

Index • 91

92 • American Jewish Archives Journal

The Jacob Rader Marcus Center of the American Jewish Archives Located on the Cincinnati Campus of the

Hebrew Union College–Jewish Institute of Religion Cincinnati • New York • Los Angeles • Jerusalem

3101 Clifton Avenue • Cincinnati, Ohio 45220-2488 (513) 221-1875 www.AmericanJewishArchives.org