Leeser’s successor in the pulpit of Mickweh Israel in Philadelphia was also a prominent conservative, Sabato Morais (b. in Leghorn, Italy, 1823; d. in Philadelphia, 1897). After having spent five years in London as the master of a Jewish Orphans’ School, he arrived in Philadelphia in 1851, and “until his death his influence was a continually growing power for conservative Judaism.... Though his ministry covered the period of greatest activity in the adaptation of Judaism in America to changed conditions, he, as the advocate of Orthodox Judaism withstood every appeal in behalf of ritualistic innovations and departures from traditional practice,” proving thereby how much the personality of the rabbi counts in this country in deciding the religious attitude of his congregation. When Maimonides College was established in Philadelphia, in 1867, Morais was made professor of the Bible and Biblical literature; and he held the chair during the six years that the college existed. He was the founder and the first president of the faculty of the Jewish Theological Seminary, which was established in New York in 1886, which position, as well as that of Professor of Bible, he held until his death. Henry Samuel Morais (b. in Philadelphia, 1860), the writer on Jewish historical subjects and the first editor of the Philadelphia “Jewish Exponent” (established 1887), is a son of Sabato Morais.
Isidor Kalisch (b. in Krotoschin, Prussian-Poland, 1816; d. in Newark, N. J., 1886) was another scholarly rabbi of that period, who came to the United States in 1849, after having studied at several European universities. While he was more inclined toward Reform, he is chiefly known for his literary works and translations, which cover a wide range of Jewish subjects in Hebrew, German and English. He officiated as rabbi in various communities, beginning with Cleveland, O., and ending in Newark, N. J., to which city he removed from Nashville, Tenn., after he retired from the ministry in 1875. Supreme Court Justice Samuel Kalisch (b. in Cleveland, O., 1851) of Newark is his son.
Rev. Adolph Hübsch (b. in Hungary, 1830; d. in New York, 1884) was also a moderate Reformer with a good Rabbinical education. He came to New York in 1866 and became rabbi and preacher of the Congregation Ahabat Chesed, which grew considerably under him. He was one of those who yielded to the temptation of the time to tamper with the Siddur, and his edition of it, which was adopted by several other congregations for a certain time, was an addition to the curiosities of American Jewish liturgical literature.
Henry S. Jacobs (b. in Kingston, Jamaica, 1827; d. in New York, 1893), who came to Richmond, Va., as rabbi of Congregation Bet Shalom in 1854 and later held similar positions in Charleston, S. C., New Orleans and New York (Shearit Israel, 1873–74; Bene Yeshurun, 1874–93), also belongs to the group of conservative rabbis of that period, who did much to uphold traditional Judaism as a living faith without treating it as a movement or considering themselves as agitators. His conciliatory attitude enabled him to act as president of the Board of Jewish Ministers of New York from its organization until his death.
Benjamin Szold (b. in Hungary, 1829; d. at Berkely Springs, W. Va., 1902), who came to Baltimore in 1859 as rabbi of Oheb Shalom congregation and remained with it as rabbi until 1892 and as rabbi-emeritus until his death, was an opponent of radicalism who influenced his congregation to adopt a more conservative course relating to prayers. The changes in the contents of the Siddur, or traditional Prayer Book, are a characteristic of the extremely individualistic period in the Reform movement, when almost every leader of prominence tried his hand at it, and when the aim seemed to be to make the services in each temple or Reform-synagogue as unlike that of the other as possible. Most of those special “siddurim” have neither literary nor historical value, and deserve to be mentioned only as the curiosities or vagaries of an epoch of transition in American Judaism. Szold used the prevailing method for the purpose of inducing his congregation to retrace its steps; and his “Abodat Israel,” which closely followed traditional lines, soon displaced the more radical “Minhag America,” not only in his own synagogue but in a number of others. It was re-published several times, once with an English translation. His commentary on Job (Baltimore, 1886), written in Hebrew, is one of the best works of that nature produced in the United States. Miss Henrietta Szold, the translator and writer on Jewish subjects, is his daughter.
Of the same age, and to some extent imbued with the same views as Szold, was Mordecai or Marcus Jastrow (b. in Ragosen, Prussian-Poland, 1829; d. in Germantown. Pa., 1903), who had a remarkable career as rabbi in two countries before he came to America. Jastrow had a thorough rabbinical education, and also a degree of Ph.D. from the University of Halle. In 1858 he became the preacher of the modern or “German” congregation at Warsaw, Russian-Poland, and threw himself into the study of the Polish language and of the condition of the Jews of Poland. His work “Die Lage der Juden in Polen”, which appeared anonymously (Hamburg, 1859), proves him to have possessed much valuable information and clear views on the condition of the Jews of Poland; while a collection of Polish sermons which was published in Posen (1863) attest to his mastery of the language. He took the part of the Poles against their Russian oppressors, and participated in the demonstrations against the killing of five Poles in a suburb of Warsaw in February, 1861, which led to the beginning of the second Polish insurrection. Jastrow was imprisoned, together with the great Rabbi Berush Meisels, and after being held more than three months, was expelled from Russia. His widely circulated patriotic Polish sermons, his efforts to bring the Jews and Christians together in protest against the Muscovite tyranny, and his imprisonment, made him one of the most popular men in the old Polish capital at that time. He occupied the position of rabbi at Mannheim, Germany, for a short time in 1862, but his sympathy with Poland was too strong to permit him to remain there when, on the supposed pacification of that unhappy country, the order for his expulsion was revoked in November of that year. He soon returned to Warsaw, but a few months later the actual insurrection broke out, and, his passport being cancelled while he was visiting Germany, he could not return to Russia. He then (1864) accepted a position as rabbi at Worms, Hesse, where he remained until 1866, when he was chosen rabbi of the Congregation Rodeph Shalom in Philadelphia.
In the first years of his American rabbinate, Jastrow ably seconded the efforts of Leeser to preserve conservative Judaism in the East against the advance of radical Reform, and continued to oppose that tendency after Leeser’s death. Jastrow was one of the professors of Maimonides College, and later collaborated with Szold in the revision of the “Siddur Abodat Israel” and in its translation into English. Besides his activity in local Jewish affairs and in other Jewish matters of a more general nature, he contributed to many European and American Jewish periodicals and was for several years the chief editor of a new translation of the Bible into English, which was undertaken under the auspices of the Jewish Publication Society of America. He also found time to compile his great work, “A Dictionary of the Targumim, the Talmud Babli and Yerushalmi, and the Midrashic Literature” (London and New York, 1886–1903), and in his last years was editor of the department of the Talmud in the “Jewish Encyclopedia.” Two of his sons are renowned American scholars. The older, Prof. Morris Jastrow (b. in Warsaw, 1861), has occupied the chair of Semitic languages at the University of Pennsylvania since 1892, and is one of the foremost Orientalists in the country. The younger, Joseph Jastrow (b. in Warsaw, 1863), has been prof. of Psychology at the University of Wisconsin since 1888, and a recognized authority on his special subject. He was in charge of the psychological section of the World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago in 1893, and served as president of the American Psychological Association for the year 1900.
Dr. Marcus Jastrow.
Photo by Gutekunst, Phila.