The first settler in 1821—Adolphus Sterne, who fought against Mexico and later served in the Texan Congress—David S. Kaufman—Surgeon-General Levy in the army of Sam Houston—A Jew as the first meat “packer” in America—Major Leon Dyer and his brother Isadore—Mayor Seeligsohn of Galveston (1853)—One Jew laid out Waco; Castro County is named after another—Belated communal and religious activities—The War with Mexico, in which only a small number of Jews served—David Camden de Leon and his brother Edwin, U. S. Consul-General in Egypt.
[CHAPTER] XXI.
THE RELIGIOUS REFORM MOVEMENT.
Political liberalism and religious radicalism of the German Jewish immigrant—The struggle with Orthodoxy hardly more than an animated controversy—No attempt made here by the Temple to swallow the Synagogue, as was the case in Germany—The first Reformers of Charleston, S. C.—Isaac Leeser, the conservative leader, the first to make a serious effort to adjust Judaism to American surroundings—Dr. Max Lilienthal—Isaac M. Wise, the energetic organizer of Reform Judaism—Dr. David Einhorn—Dr. Samuel Adler—Bernhard Felsenthal—Samuel Hirsch.
[CHAPTER] XXII.
CONSERVATIVE JUDAISM AND ITS STAND AGAINST REFORM.
“The poor Jews of Elm street and the rich Jews of Crosby street”—Rabbis Samuel M. Isaacs, Morris J. Raphall and Jacques J. Lyons—Sabato Morais—Kalish and Hübsch, the moderate reformers—Benjamin Szold—Dr. Marcus Jastrow’s career in three countries—Alexander Kohut—Russian Orthodoxy asserts itself in New York, and the Bet ha-Midrash ha-Godol is founded in 1852—Rabbi Abraham Joseph Ash and his various activities—Charity work which remains subordinate to religious work in the synagogue.
[CHAPTER] XXIII.
INTERVENTION IN DAMASCUS. THE STRUGGLE AGAINST SWISS DISCRIMINATION.
The Damascus Affair; the first occasion on which the Jews of the United States requested the government to intercede in behalf of persecuted Jews in another country—John Forsyth’s instructions to American representatives in Turkey, in which those requests were anticipated—A discrimination in a treaty with Switzerland to which President Fillmore objected, and which Clay and Webster disapproved—The case of a Jewish-American citizen in Neufchatel—Newspaper agitation, meetings and memorials against the Swiss treaty—President Buchanan’s emphatic declaration, and Minister Fay’s “Israelite Note” about the Jews of Alsace—Question is settled by the emancipation of the Swiss Jews.