The Hebrew Education Society, the Board of Hebrew Ministers, and the Jewish Hospital of Philadelphia owe their foundation to his active efforts; and he also advocated a union of all the Jewish charities of that city, which was consummated some years after his decease. The Board of Delegates of American Israelites, the first American Jewish Publication Society and the Maimonides College (of which he was the first president) were also created mostly through his influence.
After serving twenty-one years at the Mickweh Israel synagogue, Rabbi Leeser retired in 1850 and held no clerical position until 1857, when the Bet El Emet Congregation was organized by a number of his friends. He became its rabbi, continuing until his death, on February 1, 1868. The opinion that he was “the most distinguished of Hebrew spiritual guides in this country”[32] is hardly exaggerated.
The first among the prominent leaders of the Reform movement to arrive in this country was Dr. Max Lilienthal (b. in Munich, Bavaria, 1815; d. in Cincinnati, O., 1882). He played an important part in the attempt of the Russian Government to spread secular knowledge among the Jews of that country by drastic means; but when he seemed to be at the height of his career he suddenly left Russia under circumstances which have never been thoroughly explained, and came to the United States in 1845. Settling in New York he first became the rabbi of the Congregation Anshe Chesed on Norfolk street, and later of Sha’ar ha-Shomayyim, on Attorney street. These were Orthodox congregations, and there was considerable friction between the religious members and the rabbi, who was inclined towards Reform. He gave up the rabbinate in 1850 and established an educational institute, at the same time becoming one of the most active spirits in the “Verein der Lichtfreunde,” a society formed in 1849 for the discussion and spreading of the teachings of Reform. In 1855 he was elected rabbi of the Congregation Bene Israel, of Cincinnati, O., and held the position until his death. He wrote many articles and several works of prose and poetry, both in German and in English, and was an active communal worker, a teacher, and even participated in the municipal affairs of Cincinnati, serving as a member of the Board of Education, as a director of the Relief Union and of the university board. But he was eclipsed and practically reduced to the position of assistant to the man who surpassed him as a leader and organizer, and who became the recognized head of the reformed Jews of the West.
Dr. Isaac M. Wise.
This man was Isaac Mayer Wise (b. in Bohemia, 1819; d. in Cincinnati, 1900), who came to this country in the summer of 1846 and after a brief stay in New York became the rabbi of Congregation Bet El of Albany (organized 1838), the first, and then the only, congregation of that city. He had received an old-fashioned rabbinical education at home, but he soon developed here into a radical reformer and introduced in his synagogue many novel features and practices, often in the face of strong opposition. A split in the community followed, in 1850, and his followers organized a new congregation, the Anshe Emet, of which he remained rabbi for four years. In 1854 he was chosen rabbi of Congregation Bene Yeshurun in Cincinnati, and held the position for the remaining forty-six years of his life. He established there “The Israelite” (now “The American Israelite”) soon after his arrival in Cincinnati, and through this organ he advocated, with much energy, his ideas of Reform and the plans of organization which he succeeded in carrying out, after many failures and setbacks, about twenty years later, when the time for unification and organization had arrived. He also established, in 1855, a German weekly, the “Deborah,” by means of which he reached a part of the Jewish public which did not read English. He wrote much for his periodicals, and was also the author of numerous books on theological and historical subjects, and also several novels, and even two plays (in German). But his chief strength was his ability as an organizer. The Union of American Hebrew Congregations, the Hebrew Union College (opened 1875) and the Central Conference of American Rabbis (organized 1889) owe their existence to him.
David Einhorn (b. in Bavaria, 1809; d. in New York, 1879), who came to America in his mature years, had played a somewhat prominent part in the Reform movement in Germany, where he held several important rabbinical positions. His scholarly attainments were of a high order; but he was even more radical than Wise and Lilienthal, whom he strongly opposed soon after his arrival to this country in 1855. He became in that year the rabbi of Har Sinai Congregation in Baltimore, Md. (organized in 1843), and soon afterward he began to issue there a monthly magazine in German under the name of “Sinai,” in which he advocated his views of Reform. In 1861 Einhorn was compelled to leave Baltimore on account of his anti-slavery views, which he courageously expressed despite the local sympathy with the South. He went to Philadelphia, where he became rabbi of Kenesset Israel, removing to New York in 1866, where he became the rabbi of Congregation Adath Yeshurun, a position which he held until a short time before his death. In later years he became reconciled to his former opponents in the Reform camp, and was the leading spirit in the rabbinical conference which was held in Philadelphia in 1869.
Dr. Samuel Adler (b. in Worms, Germany, 1809; d. in New York, 1891) was a preacher and assistant rabbi in his native city until 1842, when he became rabbi of Alzey, Rhine Hesse, and remained there about fifteen years. He also participated in the rabbinical conferences in Germany, in which the Reform movement was to some extent systematized; and he was considered one of its representatives there when he was called, in 1857, to become rabbi of Congregation Emanuel of New York. This was the first avowedly Reform congregation in the city, and has since become the wealthiest Jewish congregation in the country. It was organized in 1845. Its first place of worship was a private house on the corner of Clinton and Grand streets, and its first rabbi-preacher, L. Merzbacher (d. 1856) began his duties at a salary of $200 per annum. Dr. Adler was brought as his successor, and held the position until he was retired as rabbi emeritus in 1874, being succeeded by Dr. Gustav Gottheil (b. in Pinne, Prussian-Poland, 1827; d. in New York, 1903). Adler was in his time practically the only Reform rabbi in New York, and neither his disposition, which was that of a scholarly retired man, nor the local circumstances, which were influenced by the fact that the Poles and Russians had a large majority even in the supposedly German period, were favorable to the spread of Reform. He was the possessor of a large library of rabbinica, which was after his death presented by his family to the Hebrew Union College. Dr. Felix Adler (b. in Alzey, 1851), the founder of the Society for Ethical Culture, is his second son.
The last of the American pioneer Reform rabbis whose activities date back to the time before the outbreak of the Civil War was Bernhard Felsenthal (b. in Germany, 1822; d. in Chicago, 1908). While originally intended for a secular career, he was a thorough Talmudical scholar, and for a decade before he came to this country (in 1854) he was a teacher in a Jewish congregational school. After three years spent in Madison, Ind., as rabbi and teacher, he removed to Chicago, where he became an employee of a Jewish banking firm. In 1858 the Jüdische Reformverein of Chicago was formed, with Felsenthal as its secretary and guiding spirit. In the following year he published a pamphlet in favor of Reform which attracted much attention; and two years later, after the Reformverein developed into Sinai Congregation, he became its first rabbi. In 1864 he took charge of Zion Congregation, the second Reform congregation of Chicago, and held the position until he was retired as rabbi emeritus, in 1887. While he was theoretically an extreme radical in religious matters, his extensive knowledge of rabbinical literature and his love for Jewish learning, added to his generous disposition and real affection for Jewish scholars of the old type, helped to make his relations with the Orthodox Jews more pleasant than in the case of other representative rabbis of his class. He was probably the only Reform rabbi in this country who was really beloved among the masses of the immigrants from the Slavic countries, and he thus exemplified a possibility of a better understanding between the different wings of American Judaism, which was then, and partly still is, by many considered difficult of accomplishment.
Samuel Hirsch (b. in Rhenish Prussia, 1815; d. in Chicago, 1889) belonged to this group, although he did not arrive in America until 1866, after having served as chief rabbi of Luxembourg for nearly a quarter of a century. He succeeded David Einhorn in Philadelphia, where he remained for twenty-two years. After retiring from the ministry he removed to Chicago, where he spent his last days with his son, Dr. Emil G. Hirsch (b. in Luxembourg, 1852), the eminent preacher and professor of rabbinical literature at the University of Chicago. Samuel Hirsch belonged to the extreme wing of radical reformers, and was one of the first to advocate the holding of special services in the Temple on Sunday. His chief work was written in Germany, “Die Religionsphilosophie der Juden” (Leipsic, 1842), of which only one part appeared. It is an effort to explain Judaism from the Hegelian point of view, but as it was written long before he arrived in this country, it has no interest for American Jewish history except, perhaps, as an instance of the influence of the German method of abstract theorizing on the uncompromising radical pioneers of the American Reform movement.