Religion and Society in America

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Religion and Society in America

• The Emergence of Modern American Religious Life
  Part 2
• Week 7 Lecture 2

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The Emergence of Modern American Religious Life

• Shifting Religious Configurations Judaism and
  Eastern Orthodoxy Two examples of
  Americanization
• Summary of Judaisms historical development in
  United States
• The Emergence of Reformed Judaism
• The Pittsburgh Platform

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Shifting Religious Configurations Reformed
Judaism and Eastern Christian Orthodoxy

• 1630 1654 Large population of Jews exiled from
  Spain living in Recife, Brazil
• 1654 twenty-three Jews fleeing Portuguese
  harassment in Brazil arrived in New Amsterdam
• Establish the Shearith Israel synagogue
• Sephardim Jews

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Shifting Religious Configurations Reformed
Judaism and Eastern Christian Orthodoxy

• 1677 Second Jewish community lands in Newport,
  Rhode Island
• 1763 synagogue of Newport, Rhode Island is
  dedicated (only surviving Jewish structure in
  America of 18th Century)
• 1802 First synagogue following the Ashkenazic
  rite (German, Poland, Amsterdam) is established
  in Philadelphia
• 1775 1815 immigration of German-speaking Jewish
  families (not necessarily congregations)

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Shifting Religious Configurations Reformed
Judaism and Eastern Christian Orthodoxy

• 1824 The Reformed Society of Israelites is
  organized in Charleston, SC
• 1836 First mass migration of Jews to United
  State from Bavaria
• 1838 Rebecca Gratz establishes a Hebrew Sabbath
  School in Philadelphia
• 1840 15,000 Jews in America
• 1852 First synagogue of East European Jews is
  founded in New York City

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Shifting Religious Configurations Reformed
Judaism and Eastern Christian Orthodoxy

• 1875 Isaac M. Wise (1819-1900) founds Hebrew
  Union College in Cincinnati, Ohio.
• 1881 Mass movement of East European Jews to
  America
• 1880s Notable social stratification of Jews in
  America (agrarian vs. urban)
• 20 accountants, bookkeepers, clerks 10
  salesman 5 profession 15 skilled labor

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Shifting Religious Configurations Reformed
Judaism and Eastern Christian Orthodoxy

• 1883 First graduating class of rabbis from
  Hebrew Union College. Orthodox Jews in America
  (small in number) dismayed by violation of the
  laws of kashrut by class.
• 1885 Reform rabbis meet in Pittsburgh, PA to
  adopt a statement of principles of Reformed
  Judaism in the United States
• 1886 In response to Pittsburgh Platform,
  conservative Jews found the Jewish Theological
  Seminary Association which holds classes the
  following year

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Shifting Religious Configurations Reformed
Judaism and Eastern Christian Orthodoxy

• What are some aspects or characteristics of
  Reformed Judaism in America?
• Judaism is an evolutionary faith capable of
  infinite development
• Tradition stands for institutions, loyalties,
  sentiments which give structure to communities
• Independent congregations and clerics in U.S.
  setting

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Shifting Religious Configurations Reformed
Judaism and Eastern Christian Orthodoxy

• Continual application of Halakah to maintain
  validity of Jewish law (Halakah path
  process of interpretation)
• Mitzvah biblical or rabbinic injunctions (613
  traditional total) in Torah and also large number
  in Talmud (oral laws)
• Orthodox Jews hold these are God-given laws which
  regulate life
• Conservative Jews hold Halakah as development
  but inspired
• Reformed Jews hold it as eternally binding

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Shifting Religious Configurations Reformed
Judaism and Eastern Christian Orthodoxy

• Reformed Judaisms quest for authentic Judaism
  made two ideas attractive
• Judaism had special mission to the world that
  helped explain dispersion not as punishment, but
  as calling
• Social justice proclaimed by the Hebrew prophets
  should be at the forefront of Jewish life and
  expended energies

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Shifting Religious Configurations Reformed
Judaism and Eastern Christian Orthodoxy

• Proselytism was least popular option for Reformed

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Shifting Religious Configurations Reformed
Judaism and Eastern Christian Orthodoxy

• Dietary laws no longer binding
• Prayer Books, the Union Prayer-Book in
  particular, stresses social-mindedness and
  tolerance
• Employment of organ and choir (sometimes mixed
  with Gentiles)
• Reformed Judaism in America of late-19th Century
  embodied a tenacious optimism
• Dampen ritualistic aspects of Judaism

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Shifting Religious Configurations Reformed
Judaism and Eastern Christian Orthodoxy

• 8 fundamental points declared in the Pittsburgh
  Platform in 1885
• 1. We recognize in every religion an attempt to
  grasp the Infinite, and in every mode, source, or
  book of revelation held sacred in any religious
  system the consciousness of the indwelling of God
  in man. We hold that Judaism presents the
  highest concept of the God-idea

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Shifting Religious Configurations Reformed
Judaism and Eastern Christian Orthodoxy

• 2. We recognize in the Bible the record of the
  consecration of the Jewish people to its mission
  as the priest of the one God, and value it as the
  most potent instrument of religious and moral
  instruction. We hold that the modern discoveries
  of scientific research in the domain of nature
  and history are not antagonistic to the doctrines
  of Judaism, or the Bible reflecting the primitive
  ideas of its own age

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Shifting Religious Configurations Reformed
Judaism and Eastern Christian Orthodoxy

• 3. We recognize in the Mosaic legislation a
  system of training the Jewish people for its
  mission during its national life in Palestine,
  and today we accept as binding only its moral
  laws

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Shifting Religious Configurations Reformed
Judaism and Eastern Christian Orthodoxy

• 4. We hold that all such Mosaic and rabbinical
  laws as regulate diet, priestly purity, and
  dress, originated in ages, and under the
  influence of ideas, entirely foreign to our
  present mental and spiritual state. They fail to
  impress the modern Jew with a spirit of priestly
  holiness their observance in our days is apt
  rather to obstruct than to further modern
  spiritual elevation.

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Shifting Religious Configurations Reformed
Judaism and Eastern Christian Orthodoxy

• 5. We recognize, in the modern era of universal
  culture of heart and intellectand Israels
  great Messianic hope for the establishment of the
  kingdom of truth, justice, and peace among all
  men. We consider ourselves no longer a nation,
  but a religious community, and therefore expect
  neither a return to Palestine, nor a sacrificial
  worship under the sons of Aaron, nor the
  restoration of any of the laws concerning the
  Jewish state.

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Shifting Religious Configurations Reformed
Judaism and Eastern Christian Orthodoxy

• 6. Christianity and Islam being daughter
  religions of Judaism, we appreciate their
  providential mission to aid in the spreading of
  monotheistic and moral truth. We acknowledge
  that the spirit of broad humanity of our age is
  our ally in the fulfillment of our mission

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Shifting Religious Configurations Reformed
Judaism and Eastern Christian Orthodoxy

• 7. We reassert the doctrine of Judaism that the
  soul is immortal, grounding this belief on the
  divine nature of the human spirit, which forever
  finds bliss in righteousness and misery in
  wickedness. We reject as ideas not rooted in
  Judaism the beliefs both in bodily resurrection
  and in Gehenna and Eden as abodes for everlasting
  punishment.

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Shifting Religious Configurations Reformed
Judaism and Eastern Christian Orthodoxy

• 8. we deem it our duty to participate in the
  great task of modern times, to solve, on the
  basis of justice and righteousness, the problems
  presented by the contrast and evils of the
  present organization of society.

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Shifting Religious Configurations Reformed
Judaism and Eastern Christian Orthodoxy

• Immigrant Jewish population, reformed Jews,
  largely from Germany during antebellum period and
  Gilded Age
• While Jews from Europe settle in both the North
  and South, their concentration of settlement is
  in city centers such as New York, Chicago,
  Atlanta, etc.

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Shifting Religious Configurations Reformed
Judaism and Eastern Christian Orthodoxy

• 1860 U.S. Census reports 77 Jewish synagogues
  in the nation with concentrations in Baltimore,
  New York City, Philadelphia, Cincinnati,
  Charleston, Savannah, and New Orleans
• 1870 U.S. Census reports 189 congregations, 152
  synagogues
• 1890 U.S. Census reports 533 congregations, 301
  synagogues

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Shifting Religious Configurations Reformed
Judaism and Eastern Orthodoxy

• 1875 1878 survey of Union of America Hebrew
  Congregations reports 230,000 Jews in the United
  States
• 1880 50,155,783 population of U.S.

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Shifting Religious Configurations Reformed
Judaism and Eastern Christian Orthodoxy
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Shifting Religious Configurations Reformed
Judaism and Eastern Christian Orthodoxy
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Shifting Religious Configurations Reformed
Judaism and Eastern Christian Orthodoxy
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Shifting Religious Configurations Reformed
Judaism and Eastern Orthodoxy

• Origins of Eastern Orthodoxy in North America are
  found in Alaska
• 1790s Missionary monks come to that region of
  North American Continent and convert native
  population
• Seminary in Sitka established in 1848
• 1867 Diocese was formed when Alaska became a
  territory of U.S.

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Shifting Religious Configurations Reformed
Judaism and Eastern Orthodoxy

• Seat of diocese transferred to San Francisco in
  1872
• Russian and Greek communities constitute Eastern
  Orthodoxy Prior to 1900
• Early 20th Century immigration to U.S. by Slavic
  peoples from Eastern Europe who settle in the
  mining and steel towns of Pennsylvania and Great
  Lakes region

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Shifting Religious Configurations Reformed
Judaism and Eastern Orthodoxy

• Non-Slavic immigrants, principally Greeks and
  Syrians, professing Eastern Orthodoxy were
  largely entrepreneurial and settle throughout the
  country in small communities
• Approximately 100,000 members in Eastern Orthodox
  Church in America by 1900

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Shifting Religious Configurations Reformed
Judaism and Eastern Christian Orthodoxy