There was little communal and religious activity in the stirring times of the early development of Texas, and the first communal organizations appeared a considerable time after Jews settled in some localities. The first Jewish cemetery in Texas was established in Houston in 1844, where the first synagogue in the state was built exactly ten years later. The Jews of Galveston acquired their first burial ground in 1852: religious services were held since Yom Kippur 1856, but no congregation was organized until twelve years later. In San Antonio almost twenty years passed between the acquisition of a cemetery (1854) and the organization of the first congregation. All the other Jewish communities in the rapidly growing state date their foundation from a later period.[31]
The war with Mexico, which began in 1846, was the least popular of all the wars in which the United States has engaged, and this probably accounts for the small number of Jews who volunteered to participate in what was practically an attack on a weak neighbor. The number of Jews in the country was now more than ten times as large as in the time of the wars with England; but there are only about a dozen more names in the list of the Jewish soldiers of the Mexican war (in the above-mentioned work of Mr. Simon Wolf) than in the list of the year 1812. New York now had the largest Jewish community, and was represented by no less than fifteen in that small band of less than sixty, in which there was only one from Pennsylvania (Gabriel Dropsie, Co. E, 1st Regiment), one from New Jersey (Sergeant Alexander B. Weinberg) and five from Maryland. The others were mostly from the South, a large proportion of them having participated in the earlier struggle between Texas and Mexico.
The most prominent Jewish soldier of the Mexican war was David Camden de Leon (b. in South Carolina, 1813; d. in Santa Fé, N. M., 1872). He graduated as a physician from the University of Pennsylvania in 1836 and two years later entered the United States army as an assistant surgeon. He served with distinction in the Seminole war of 1835–42, which was the most bloody and stubborn of all wars against Indian tribes. For several years afterwards he was stationed on the Western frontier. He served throughout the Mexican war and was present at most of the battles. At Chapultepec he earned the sobriquet of “the Fighting Doctor,” and on two occasions led a charge of cavalry after the commanding officer had been killed or wounded. He twice received the thanks of Congress for his distinguished services and for his gallantry in action. He was afterwards again assigned to frontier duty, and in 1856 became surgeon, with the rank of major. Like most Southern officers in the regular army, de Leon resigned his commission at the outbreak of the Civil war and joined the Confederacy, for whose government he organized the medical department, becoming its first surgeon-general. Edwin de Leon (b. in Columbus, S. C., 1818; d. 1891), the journalist and author, who was appointed by President Pierce consul-general to Egypt, and was later a confidential agent of the Confederate States in Europe, was a brother of David C. de Leon.
Leon Dyer and Henry Seeligsohn, whose participation in the struggles of Texas was described at the beginning of this chapter, also served as officers in the war with Mexico. The names of Captain Michael Styfft, who served on the staff of General Zachary Taylor, and of Lieutenant-Colonel Israel Moses, who was promoted from the rank of assistant-surgeon, have also been preserved. Among those who were killed in action was Sergeant Abraham Adler of the New York Volunteers.
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.
The Jewish immigrants, who were penetrating into various parts of the country in that period, formed only a portion of the new arrivals. The bulk of them, as in later times, remained in the East, principally in New York City, where not less than ten new congregations were established in the second quarter of the nineteenth century. While the proportion of those unaffiliated with a synagogue was probably smaller then than it is now, the tendency to establish very small synagogues was also less, so that the existence of a dozen congregations in New York about the year 1850 may denote a larger Jewish population at that time than an equal or even a larger number would imply at the present time. It would also not be safe to insist that there were not at that time in existence several congregations whose names were not preserved on account of their insignificance or for other reasons.