DETROIT JEWISH CHRONICLE and the Legal Chronicle
SHADOW OF A CENTURY
SEASON'S GREETINGS
American Jewry One Hundred Years After
By DR. ABBA HILLEL SILVER
STATION
Editor's Note—Cincinnati celebrated the 100th anniversary of its
congregation, keystone of Reform Judaism in America. Dr.
Abba Hillel Silver reviews the changes in the social, political
and religious history of the Jewish people in the period from
1842 to 1942. This article is an adaptation of the address
which he delivered in Cincinnati for the centennial ceremonies.
WJLB
HYMAN ALTMAN
In 1842 there were less than
2,000 Jews in Cincinnati, less
than 50,000 in the United States.
The last 100 years have multiplied
these figures tenfold, a hundred-
fold. Great Jewish communities,
the greatest in our history, have
sprung up. Thousands of temples,
synagogues, schools and social
agencies now dot our land. In
1842, their number was very small
and the houses of worship were,
with few exceptions, improvised
meeting places in halls, stores or
private dwelling places. Not one
of the great Reform leaders who
were to establish Reform Judaism
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Between Taylor and Hazelwood
in the United States had yea ar-
rived in this country. Only one
Reform congregation was in exist-
ence.
Surely much has changed since
those days, and yet much has re-
mained unchanged — the loyalty
which prompted Jews to band
themselves together in their new
homes and quickly to build houses
of worship where they might wor-
ship God and where their children
might be taught the word of God,
the generosity w:th which they
provided for the needy and the
distressed in their midst, the quick
adjustments which they made and
the eagerness with which they
responded to the challenge and the
opportunity of American citizen-
ship. These are the constant fac-
tors in Jewish experience through-
out the ages. Unchanged, too, are
the spiritual problems which soon
same to agitate the men of a
hundred years ago.
The great battle to reform Ju-
daism broke in its full force in
the Jewish communities of West-
ern Europe during the very dec-
ade in which this first congrega-
tion was founded. In 1842 the Ver-
ein der Reformfreunde was or-
ganized in Frankfort. That same
year the first Reform congregation
was established in London. It was
in the fifth decade, too, that the
three historic Rabbinical confer-
ences in Germany were held. The
great figures of the movement now
appear on the scene and enter
the lists—Geigers, Holdheim, Ein-
horn, Philippson, Hirsch, Stein
and Adler. All the issues over
which the religious household of
Israel was to be divided during
the ensuing years were then rais-
ed. Within a few years they were
also raised by immigrant reformer
in this country—the authority of
tradition, the value of ceremo-
nies, the revision of the prayer
book, the use of Hebrew, the
role of Israel in the world, Jew-
ish nationalism and the restora-
tion to Palestine. Those same
issues are still on the agenda
today. On the agenda, too, un-
fortunately still remains the prob-
lem of Jewish national homeless-
ness and anti-Semitism which
those hopeful men of a hundred
years ago believed to be on the
way of imminent solution.
The reformers of Germany con-
fidently announced that Germany
was their Fatherland—a rather
one-sided announcement. They and
their people needed no other
homeland, they declared. They
were riding the high tide of nine-
teenth-century liberalism, but they
failed to note the dangerous
shoals of nineteenth-century na-
tionalism, the trends toward the
centralizing state and the impli-
cations for the Jewish minority
of the fast-deploying class strug-
gles and economic warfare. Espe-
cially dangerous was this over-
sight in a land like Germany,
which was only just then recover-
ing, after two centuries, from the
March 27, ; 9 42
physical and spiritual devasta-
tions of the wars of religion
among a people notoriously and
periodically swayed by waves
of hysterical religiosity, hyster-
ical metaphysics and hysterial
politics, whose foremost re-
ligious leader in the sixteenth
century could indulge in an
anti-Semitism so filthy, vile
and scatological as to be matched
only by the anti-Semitism of the
foremost political leader of Ger-
many in the twentith century.
These reformers were thinking
of progress as most men of their
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See SILVER—Page 10
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(Continued from Page 5)
that their women wear something
away from the drab and uniform
to which they will be accustomed
in the armed services. Miss Par-
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in the past—and has done very
well.
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AND PATRONS
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Congratulations to Joan Ed-
wards, who is doing magnificently
on the "Lucky Strike Hit Parade,"
adding to the popularity of such
numbers as "Rose O'Day" and
"Deep in the Heart of Texas."
Joan is the niece of Gus Edwards,
who has made so many stars in
his time, including George Jesse!,
Eddie Cantor and Walter Win-
chell. Miss Edwards is good look-
ing, sings well and acts well—
ideal combination.
Many Jewish young girls in
New York are joining the police
force, which offers civil-service
status and an exciting career.
All of them are college graduates.
Typical are Revs Zisselman,
Hunter College graduate, who is
a special patrolwoman, and Pearl
Schargel, who was president of
her class at New York's City Col-
lege.
Watch for the growth of Diana
Steiner, a 10-year-old violinist of
Portland, Ore., who has impressed
the critics with her work as solo-
ist at the Young People's concerts
of the Philharmonic of New York.
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