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 Announcer Passover Greetings BRODER BROS. 218 W. Jefferson RA. 7131 PASSOVER GREETINGS TO ALL! Marr General Hospital MEDICAL — SURGICAL MATERNITY 3066 TRUMBULL AVE. TE. 1-5115 PASSOVER GREETINGS TO ALL! Jacob F. Theut SHERIFF Macomb County MT. CLEMENS, MICH. PASSOVER GREETINGS AND BEST WISHES TO ALL OUR FRIENDS AND PATRONS • SHECTER FURNITURE CO. 8928 TWELFTH ST. TR. 2-3636 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 Sincere Season's Greetings Rosedale Park Service Station 19215 W. McNICHOLS ROAD Cor. Shaf tsbury FRED C. MOSS Car Washing, Tires, Batteries. 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PASSOVER GREETINGS AND BEST WISHES TO ALL OUR JEWISH FRIENDS AND PATRONS • • Brevities Universal Oil Seal Co., Inc. Manufacturers of Oil?)Seals for Every Purpose A Patented Packing for Rotating Shafts 45 W. KENNETT PONTIAC, MICR. 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. 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