American Reform Judaism

The absence of scholarship that takes seriously the progressive Jewish response to atheism and skepticism is not easy to explain. Historical accounts tend to follow the view that Reform Judaism was a “response to modernity” in the sense that it was an attempt to integrate secular learning into Jewish life in general and/or to emulate the newly encountered Christian response, both in thought and practice, which was viewed as a model in this regard. Much of the scholarship on this period has focused on the political ambitions of assimilationist lay Jews and, with respect to secular learning, has tended to concentrate on biblical criticism, which certainly had a defining impact in Germany, and also in the United States and United Kingdom even if not initially. There has also been considerable interest in the theological concerns of the religious leaders and intellectual pioneers of Reform, but these concerns have tended to focus on inward-orientated debates about the status of the Law or on the weight of traditional rabbinic authority. Insofar as historians have noted engagement with atheism or skepticism, the Reformers' interest in disbelief has been conflated with a more general concern with the dangers of assimilation. That is, the significance of engagement with atheistic or skeptical philosophies has been understood to lie in this engagement's strategic utility in countering the threat to religious Jewish continuity. This article will consider the case of US Reform Judaism and its engagement with the prominent infidels and unbelievers Robert Ingersoll and Felix Adler. In doing so, it will also offer an overview of changing attitudes toward scientific naturalism and philosophical materialism within the US Reform movement more broadly, drawn from sermons and writings of such prominent nineteenth-century and early twentieth-century religious leaders as Isaac Mayer Wise, Kaufmann Kohler, Emil G. Hirsch, Joseph Krauskopf, Aaron Hahn, and J. Leonard Levy. Together, these individuals' discussions represent a rich discourse of doubt important for understanding the history of Reform Judaism. Among other things, this discourse helps explain a unique cluster of US Reform interests, including a tendency toward panentheism and a pronounced interest in modernist justifications of immortality.

10 Kaufmann Kohler war zunächst Hirschs Schüler, wandte sich später aber der Reform zu und wurde einer ihrer bedeutendsten Vertreter in Deutschland und vor allem in den USA. Kohler fand durchaus anerkennende Worte für seinen Lehrer: "It may sound paradoxical, and yet it is true, that without knowing it, Samson Raphael Hirsch liberated me from the thralldom of blind authority worship and led me imperceptibly away from the old mode of thinking, or rather of not thinking, into the realms of free reason and research.

Redemption is an umbrella construct for a variety of eschatological ideas in classical Jewish thought, incorporating: a messiah, descended from the House of David; the ingathering of the Jewish exiles in the Land of Israel; the reestablishment of the priestly cult in a rebuilt Temple in Jerusalem; an era of peace and universal knowledge of the God of Israel; retribution against the enemies of Israel; and the resurrection of the dead. Although all these ideas did not necessarily coexist simultaneously in the thought of individual Jewish philosophers throughout the ages, each notion appears in various contexts in the traditional Jewish prayerbook.
Modernity challenged each of these ideas in a variety of ways, and the responses to those challenges were expressed on the pages of Reform prayerbooks, first in Europe and then in America. While the development of Reform liturgy has been the subject of many studies, the theological underpinnings that have shaped contemporary prayerbooks have not been well analyzed. This thesis explores the treatment of three of those themes—the personal messiah, the ingathering of exiles, and the resurrection of the dead—as they appeared in Reform prayerbooks, culminating in Mishkan T’filah, the official liturgy for the American Reform Jewish community in the first part of the twenty-first century. The rationalist confidence of the nineteenth century gave way to doubt, a limited rediscovery of Jewish particularism, and a desire to welcome a plurality of theologies by the second half of the twentieth century. In Mishkan T’filah, we observe a modest recovery of some of these classical, non-rational modes of Jewish eschatology, filtered through the prism of all that came before it.

1 entrale Themen, die auf dem II. Vatikanischen Konzil verhandelt wurdendie Reform des Gottesdienstes, der Abschied von einem instruktionstheoretischen Offenbarungsmodell 1 , die eigene Position innerhalb der Moderne und das Verhältnis zu den anderen Religionenstanden rund 150 Jahre früher auf der Tagesordnung der jüdischen Reformbewegung. Diese Reformprozesse in Judentum und Christentum sind prinzipiell unabgeschlossen; sie verlaufen bis heute mit unterschiedlichem Tempo und oft erheblichen Konflikten. Das Judentum holte keineswegs, wie noch Max Wiener meinte, erst seit dem Ende des 18. Jahrhunderts im Zeitraffertempo die ökonomischen, kulturellen und religiösen Transformationsprozesse nach; der Eintritt in die Neuzeit erfolgte deutlich früher 2 . Im 19. Jahrhundert beschleunigte sich aber für Juden und Christen das Tempo des Wandels, und die Frage, wie die eigene Gemeinschaft sich in der Moderne situiere, ohne in der Umwelt völlig aufzugehen, wurde akut. Neoorthodoxie und Reformjudentum boten zwar unterschiedliche Lösungsversuche dieses Problems, kamen aber, bei aller gegenseitigen Polemik, darin überein, dass eine bloße Abwehr der Moderne den Zerfall der Tradition und ihrer sozialen Milieus nicht aufhalten konnte. Es kam darauf an, einen Weg jenseits von Assimilation und Traditionalismus zu finden.

GOD & Apple Pie
Religious Myths and Visions of America

Two sample chapters (by publisher's permission):
1.  Native American Myths and Visions of America (Chapter 2)
2.  Black Muslim Myths and Visions of America (Chapter 9)

Amazon:
https://www.amazon.com/God-Apple-Pie-Religious-Visions/dp/1891928155/

From the Inside Flap;

GOD & Apple Pie
Religious Myths and Visions of America

Christopher Buck

Introduction by J. Gordon Melton,
Distinguished Professor of American Religious History, Baylor University

This book is about an unusual religious topic: the United States of America ("America").
"America" is, at once, nation and notion, country and creed, republic and rhetoric. This book is about Providence and principle--the relationship of the supernatural world to the world's superpower. "America" is not in the Bible, nor in the Qur'an. Yet "America" today pulsates with religious significance. "America" is a word that has taken on mythic proportions.

Eleven religions have been selected for their distinctive perspectives on America: (1) Native American religion (Iroquois); (2) Protestant Christianity (the Puritans); (3) the Christian Right; (4) Roman Catholicism; (5) Judaism (Orthodox, Conservative, Reform, and Reconstructionist); (6) The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (the Mormons); (7) Christian Identity (White nationalists); (8) Nation of Islam (Black nationalists); (9) Islam (especially Radical Islamists and Progressive Muslims); (10) Buddhism (Tibetan and Soka Gakkai); and (11) the Baha'i Faith.

Over the course of American history, religious myths and visions of America tend to reflect an ever-changing American civil society, whether as a function of its social evolution or as a catalyst of it. The result is: Religions re-mythologize America. And: Religions re-envision America.

God & Apple Pie invites serious reflection on what it means to be an American, particularly from a religious perspective.

İÜİFD yılda iki sayı olarak yayımlanan uluslararası hakemli bir dergidir. İÜİFD'de yayımlanan yazıların bilimsel ve hukukî sorumluluğu yazarlarına aittir. Yayımlanan yazıların bütün yayın hakları İÜİFD'ye ait olup, izinsiz olarak kısmen veya tamamen basılamaz, çoğaltılamaz veya elektronik ortama taşınamaz.

Aydınlanma ve Fransız Devrimi’nin yaydığı düşünceler Avrupa’daki
Yahudilerin yaşamında büyük değişiklikler meydana getirmiş, onlara vatandaşlık gibi
önemli haklar kazandırmış ve bu durum Yahudileri ilk kez vatandaşı oldukları ulusun bir
parçası olarak görmeye itmiştir. 18. Yüzyılda Almanya’da doğan, kısa sürede Avrupa
ülkelerine yayılan ve Amerika’da büyük bir gelişme kaydeden Reform Yahudiliği,
geleneksel dini yapıyı değiştirmek suretiyle modern Avrupa’ya uyumlu bir Yahudilik
anlayışı oluşturmaya çalışmıştır. Hareket ilk etapta, ulusal kimliği vurgulayan dini
uygulama ve söylemlere yönelik reformların üzerinde hassasiyetle durmuş ve Yahudiliği
ulusal kimlikten yoksun sadece bir dini inanç olarak tanımlamıştır. Dua dili olarak
İbranicenin kullanımının reddedilmesi, Mesih, Kutsal Topraklara dönüş, sürgün ve
seçilmiş millet söylemlerinin tekrar yorumlanması ve Şabat’ın cumartesiden pazara
alınması gibi reformlar bu bağlamda düşünülmelidir. Buna göre, reformcu Yahudilerin
yaptıkları dil reformu kendi kimliklerini geride bırakarak, Alman ulusunun kimliğini ve
kültürünü kabul ettiklerinin bir göstergesiydi. Alman ulusunu benimsemiş Yahudiler için,
gelecekte bir “Yahudi Devleti” kurulmasını ümit etmek, Yahudi ırkının diğer ırklardan
üstün olduğunu kabul etmek artık olanaksızdı. Bu sebeple geleneksel söylemler ve
bunların üzerine kurulmuş olan dini ritüeller reformcu Yahudilerce anlamını yitirmiş
oldu. Reform hareketinin ideolojisini ortaya koyan Pittsburgh Platformu net bir şekilde
geleneksel Yahudi inancının temelini oluşturan Kutsal topraklara dönme ve Mesih
inancını reddetmiş, Yahudilerin ırksal, ulusal kimliğini dışlayarak “Yahudilik”ten
kastedilenin sadece dini inanç olduğunu belirtmiştir.
Ancak 1885 Pittsburgh Platformu’ndan 1937 Columbus Platformu’na kadar geçen
süre zarfında Avrupa ve özellikle de Rusya’da yaşanan olumsuz olaylar buradaki
Yahudilerin Amerika’ya göç etmesine neden olmuştur. Bu aşamadan sonra Amerika,
Yahudilerin ulusal kimliklerini açıkça ifade edebildikleri bir ortam haline gelmiş,Avrupa’da ulusal değerlere saldırı, Amerika’da Yahudileri ulusal değerlerine sahip
çıkmaya itmiştir. Yeni gelen “doğulu” Yahudilerin etkisiyle, reformun reddettiği ulusal
değerler yeniden önem kazanmaya başlarken, reform hareketi ideolojik anlamda güven
kaybetmeye başlamıştır. Bu durumda Reform hareketi Siyonist fikirlere karşı gelmek
yerine geleneksel çizgiye yaklaşmayı tercih ederek, ulusal değerleri ve kutsal topraklara
dönüş fikrini savunan 1937 Columbus Platformunu ortaya çıkartmıştır. Çalışma
reformcu Yahudilerin yayın organları, platform bildirileri ve şahsi çalışmaları yoluyla
Reform Yahudiliğinin gelişimini ve elli yıl gibi kısa bir süre içerisinde toplanan iki
platformun birbiriyle çelişen kararlarını ele almıştır. Ardından dönemsel ve siyasi
gelişmelerin reform Yahudiliğinin değişimine etkisini sebep-sonuç ilişkisi bağlamında
analiz etmiştir.

The Changing Status of Women in Modernity The age of modernity was a time of great optimism and hope for progress, for people in general and for Jews in particular. As Western societies began to reexamine and expand the freedom and rights exercised by minority groups, Jews and members of other minority religions were great beneficiaries. Throughout the Western world women also benefited significantly from an expanded understanding of their rights in public and private spheres. By the early part of the twentieth century, women began to take on public leadership roles and have more of a visible impact on society. This move towards greater equality in the public sphere laid the foundation for what later became liberal Judaism's model of a just society in which men and women are equal. As women gained the right to vote in public elections, many Jews argued that women could no longer be denied the same right within Jewish organizations. The interplay between women's increased equality at large and that within the Jewish community is also apparent in regard to study, whereby just as with modernity women could for the first time study in secular universities, within the Jewish community they could finally access and study previously inaccessible sacred Jewish texts. Jewish women's increased involvement and knowledge led to new understandings of gender and religion which in turn dramatically affected two main areas of liberal Jewish life: (1) religious law and practice, and (2) leadership in the synagogue and communal organizational life. The significant change in the role of Jewish women following the Enlightenment makes modernity a dividing line between two types of intellectual and religious views of Jewish women. The first sees women as primarily responsible for the private sphere characterized by the home and family-centred domain, while the second accords women a full (or nearly full) religious agency in the public domain. This dividing line is especially pronounced in the context of liberal (non-Orthodox) Jewish life. Reform Judaism in particular embraced the expanding role of women by granting women full membership in synagogues as well as voting rights, and by gradually permitting women to perform many public ritual acts previously restricted to men. Reform leaders not only argued that women should be Continuum – Judaism and the Challenges of Modern Life