Contents 0M These volumes have been published 42 with support from the Ostow Family Fund. 347 Volume II 200.2- V In Eastern Europe Vs 3 Three Religious Leaders Cope with Crisis: A Comparative Discussion of the Vilna Gaon, Rabbi Hayyim of Volozhin, and Rabbi Israel Salanter Imrnanuel Etkes 403 Reflections on the Russian Rabbinate Michael Stanislawski 429 The New Jewish Politics and the Rabbinate in Poland: New Directions in the Interwar Period Gershon Bacon 447
VI. In Western and Central Europe Old Orthodox and Neo-Orthodox Rabbinic Responses to the Challenges of Modernity in Nineteenth-century Germany Steven Lowenstein 481 Rabbinic Leadership in Modern France: Competing Conceptions, Paradigms, and Strategies in the Emancipation Era Jay R. Berkovitz 505 Constituency Definition: The Orthodox Dilemma Adam S. Ferziger 535 Authority and Leadership in Rosenzweig, Levinas, and Strauss Leova Batnitzky 569
VII. In the United States O Copyright 2004, by Looking for Leadership in All the Right (and Wrong) Places: The Jewish Theological Seminary of America The Place of the Laity in the History of American Judaism Hasia R. Diner 591 ISBN: Volume One: 0-87334-097-3 Rabbinic Leadership in Small-town America, 1880-1940 Volume Two: 0-87334-098-1 Lee Shai Weissbach 61 1 Set: 0-87334-009-X Serving the Jewish People: The Rebbetzin as Religious Leader Printing and Binding by G & H Soho Inc. Shuly Rubin Schwartz 633
. ,. ., .. . Looking for Leadership in All the Right (and Wrong) Places The Place of the Laity in the History of American Judaism
Hasia R. Diner
CC ewish religious leadership" implies, almost automatically, the rabbinate, the cadre assumed to provide direction and shape to Jthe religious component of Jewish communal life. Much, indeed nearly all, of the history of the Jewish people has transpired during the era of "rabbinic Judaism," a vast period in which duly ordained men, and lately women, have molded the religious experience of the Jewish people. Rabbis, according to conventional thinking, made Judaism possible. According to historians, rabbis far outweigh and outrank any other element in the community as those who have been and con- tinue to be considered leaders of Jewish religious life. The over- whelming tendency in both popular and scholarly discourse to equate Jewish religious leaders with the rabbinate in America, in particular, grows out of at least two different and contradictory so~rces.~ Most broadly, the talmudic tradition ensured that for almost two millennia, rabbis created and monitored the fundamental struc- tures of Judaism. Anchored as the tradition has been on the law and its interpretation, Judaism, as constructed by rabbis and monitored by rabbis, made them gatekeepers of communal life. They alone served as the halachically sanctioned arbiters of behavior and pos- sessors of the knowledge for fixing practice. They judged and marked the permissible and the taboo and the circumstances under which changes could be made. 1. The Amerrcan Rabbmnate: A Century of Contrnlnzty and Change, ed. Jacob Rader Marcus and Abraham J. Peck (Hoboken,N.J.: KTAV, 1985). Looking for Leadership in All the Right (and Wrong) Places 593
As long as adherence to and reverence for the law shaped Jewis The valorization of the clergy operated in tandem with Ameri- life, rabbis, the legal experts, wore the mantle of the religious leader- can, or perhaps more broadly Western, notions that religion ship of the Jewish people. Other functionaries performed certain involved matters of sacred cult and public worship. For an event or limited acts--circumcision, kosher slaughtering-while any compe- an act to be "religious," it had to emanate from the spiritual realm, tent man could lead services. Some of these possessed knowledge requiring some kind of prayer service directly or indirectly invoking which allowed them to decide on practice within their limited the divine, articulated by a member of the clergy. spheres, but only rabbis judged whole communities. Furthermore, Americans respected religion while they evinced Ironically, American conditions helped boost the stature of rah- much more ambivalent feelings about ethnicity (loosely understood bis as leaders. The irony grows out of the reality that in fact Ameri- as group feelings of loyalty to another nation-state, to groups of can conditions played havoc with the legal authority of rabbis. The people living outside of America's borders, or to a culture different voluntary nature of religious affiliation in a society that separated from that of mainstream America). Public events comfortably high- civil and religious life made rabbis dependent on the consent of their lighted Protestant ministers, Catholic priests, and rabbis, all invok- congregations, the dues-payers whose good will gave them their ing a common American creed and addressing a common God. authority. In a corporate sense, the congregations belonged to the American civic society rarely accorded this kind of public recogni- tsustees or boards of directors, who in turn represented the majority tion to the leaders of, for example, Irish, Italian, Polish, Chinese, or of members. These elected boards hired and fired rabbis. They nego- German community institutions. The clergymen (and women) digni- tiated contracts and limited the scope of rabbis' actions and words. fied inaugurations of presidents, the convening of legislatures, or, in From an organizational point of view, rabbis in the United States thousands of communities, public school.graduations. Despite the had to learn bow to share religious leadership. non-establishment clause of the First Amendment, states granted the Additionally, American Jews, with some important exceptions, clergy the right to minister to the needs of military personnel and to in the main did not consider halacha binding, so that the most pow- inmates of prisons. Religious institutions enjoyed the benefits of tax- -erful weapon in the rabbinic arsenal in "traditional" settings weak- exempt status and certain protections of the law. All of this meant ened in America. American Jews weighed in on matters of halacha in that the clergy in America merited a high degree of respect, as Amer- both words and deeds as they debated amongst themselves about the icans invested them with an aura of prestige that other communal nature of synagogue life and the conduct of religious services. Mixed leaders lacked. seating or separate seating, organ or no organ, head coverings or As such, the public prestige of the rabbinate grew in part out of bare heads, sermon or no sermon; English, German, Yiddish; aliyot the American equation of the clergy with the rights of leadership. for women or just for men-these constituted just some of the reli- The early history of Jewish chaplains in the United States military gious questions about which many rabbis had strong beliefs, but provides an example. The men in the heavily Jewish 65th Regiment which ultimately were decided by lay people as they molded their during the Civil War elected Colonel Michael Allen, a Hebrew congregations. teacher, not an ordained clergyman, to be their chaplain. This put Yet America's Protestant-inspired religions needed ordained the regiment in trouble with the Young Mens' Christian Association, clergy to minister to their communities and represent congregations which had been empowered by Congress to supervise the chaplaincy. to civil society, particularly at ceremonial events. According to dom- The law not only required that all chaplains be Christian, but they inant American views, weddings and funerals needed to be solem- had to be "regularly ordained." The religious discrimination against nized by a person "of the cloth." Religious services seemed nearly non-Christians could only be protested and redressed once Allen naked without a sermon, delivered from above the congregation by stepped down and the men voted in Arnold Fischel, who had served someone referred to as "Reverend," "Minister," "Pastor," or as rabbi of New York's Congregation Shearith Israel. "Father," ordained by a recognizable denomination. This American The Board of Delegates of American Israelites rejoiced when reality preserved the status of the rabbi as religious leader. Judaism achieved equal treatment with Christianity. It paid no atten- ing for Leadership in All the Right [and Wrong) Places 595 tion, however, to the fact that the law, passed and admi e rabbi-centric thinking, in this book and in scholarship as a Christians, required Judaism to alter itself to conform to Am d history of its richness by ignoring the fluidity of notions of religion and religious leadership. After all, the nd the contributions of many. For example, it erased the reli- incumbent on a chaplain in the American mil leadership of Paula Ackerman. Ackerman was, for part of her sick and the injured, arranging for burial, and le in 1919, the wife of Rabbi William Ackerman, not require smikhah. Allen, as a Jewish man, had as mu of Congregation Beth Israel in Meridian, Mississippi. While and obligation, to perform these religious acts as did ~ischel.' shand lived, Paula Ackerman taught the pre-confirmation The narrative of the Civil War chaplaincy demonstrates the religious school and led services when "the rabbi" had to "clergyization" was imposed on American Judaism. Yet h. uring the course of his long illness. In 1950, after and other commentators have thought little about Jewish ty-six years as an occasional substitute rabbi, Paula Ackerman leadership beyond the confines of the trained, the ordained ame a widow. She also became a rabbi. The congregation, devas- titled, reflecting in scholarship conventional Ameri d by the death of William Ackerman, turned to the person they about religion and religious leadership. and asked her to stay on and be their religious Except when considering the early period o isapproval of Maurice Eisendrath, president of history, the era before 1840 when no rabbis made n Hebrew Congregations, the members of Beth North America, historians have analyzed the de considered Paula Ackerman their rabbi and their leader. For ism along rabbinic lines. Prior to 1840 historians have t two years, Ackerman conducted services, preached sermons, tuted the title hazan. for rabbi, since in most places ca ormed weddings and funerals, and oversaw conversions to Juda- functioned as the public voice, and face, of Jewish religious pra Yet by limiting their list of important Reform religious leaders Even when discussing the pre-rabbinic era in American Juda abbis, the compilers of this volume, Kerry Olitzky and Lance scholars have maintained that trained and paid clergy made for sman, lost a notable chapter in the history of the m~vement.~ gious leader^.^ The other two books demonstrate no greater flexibility in their Three rich and authoritative biographical dictionaries, one e merican Judaism. The volume on Conser- on Reform, Conservative, and Orthodox Judaism, under the ove a biographical entry on only one individual editorship of the historian Marc Lee Raphael, demonstrate o was not a rabbi or a professor at a seminary and thus a teacher rabbi-centeredness of the scho~arship.~In these reference wor rabbis. Mathilde Schechter, the wife of Solomon Schechter, merits non-rabbis barely appear as Jews who made and shaped Americ entry in part by virtue of her relationship to a rabbi. The Ortho- Jewish religious life. Only the volume on Reform fea o person (or better, man, since only men are ers, and it restricts its entries for non-rabbis to ded) who did not have rabbinical ordination. Yet these volumes financial contributions rather thari including any who the titles Orthodox]akdaism in America and Conservative Juda- tributed institutions, practices, or ideas to the movement. m in America, not "Orthodox Rabbis in America" or "Conserva- 2. Hasia R. Diner, A Time for Gathering: The Second M ve Rabbis in America." (Baltimore:The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1992), 157-58. These volumes reflect the reva ailing thinking in the field that 3. Mark Slobin, Chosen Voices: The Storyof the Ameircan Cantorate (Urban ates religious leadership with the rabbinate. They share with University of Illinois Press, 1989). olarship as a whole, and with general thinking in the Jewish 4. Refom Judaiswr in America: A Biographical Dictionary and Sourcebook, erspective that privileges those with formal Kerry Olitzky, Lance J. Sussman, and Malcolm H. Stern (Westport, Co as the sources of religious leadership far Greenwood, 1993); Conservative Judaism in America: A Biographi rdained Jews whose actions and thoughts have in nay and Sourcebook, ed. Pamela S. Nadell (Westport, Conn.: 1988); Orthodox Judaism in America: A Biographical Dictionary and Source I, Women Who Would Be Rabbi: A History of Women's Ordi- book, ed. Moshe D. Sherman (Westport, Conn.: Greenwood, 1996). nation, 1889-1 985 (Boston:Beacon, 1998), 120-23. Looking for Leadership in All the Right (and Wrong) Places 597 fact given birth to much of Jewish religious life in America. In a the packs on their backs in favor of planting themselves in more set- 1983 "state of the field" report, the historian Jeffrey Gurock, him- tled lives in small shops. self a notable historian of the American rabbinate, commented that The first Jews found their way to Chicago in 1833, precisely the "very little has been written about the social history--call it the lay year when the town incorporated. Similar stories could in fact be saga-of all the denomination^."^ told about St. Louis, Cincinnati, Milwaukee, Cleveland, Portland, That "lay saga" can be understood as a history of ordinary Jew- San Francisco, Los Angeles, Kansas City, and numerous other places ish women and men providing leadership to American Judaism. In where young Jewish peddlers-turned-shopkeepers numbered among the history of nearly every Jewish community and congregation, the first white settlers of these frontier outposts. women and men without any training, and certainly lacking ordina- As in most of those other places, it took a few years until the first tion, perceived a need for a visible, viable, and sustainable public outlines of organized Jewish life began to be drawn in the growing expression of Judaism. Self-appointed, and with the consent of their city on the banks of Lake Michigan. Not untypical of many of these peers, they defined problems, conceived plans of action, and con early communities, the Jews of Chicago organized a cemetery as a vinced others to work with them to translate their ideas about Juda- necessary first communal institution. In 1845 they banded together ism into some kind of concrete action, making possible a counter- to create the Jewish Burial Ground Society and by 1846 had col- narrative that allows us to see in history other sources for religious lected $46 to buy a piece of land which they designated as their leadership. These alternative leadership stories direct us to think sacred space. In the fall of 1845, on Yom Kippur, ten Jewish men about the multiple origins of American Judaism. What elements had also gathered in a room above the store owned by Levi Rosen- should figure in a narrative that would analyze the history of Jewish feld and Jacob Rosenberg, fulfilling what they defined as a deep reli- religious leadership from a non-rabbinic perspective? gious obligation, joining together with other Jews in a minyan and Perhaps the key factor in such an analysis involves the powerfu collectively praying for the atonement of their sins. role of ordinary Jewish women and men in building Jewish commu They could do this because their numbers had grown and they nities and creating religious institutions as the vehicle for the process considered one of their peers, Meyer Klein, competent to chant the of making Jewish life possible. A number of examples from various service. They also now possessed a Torah scroll, courtesy of Abra- stages in American history may serve as examples from which a ham, Julius, and Meier Kohn, who had brought it with them from fuller treatment could be developed. their home in Moenichsroth in Bavaria. The brothers had originally The first example comes from Chicago in the mid 1840s.~As in peddled in New England but found themselves in Chicago by 1843, many other American places, Jews showed up early in the history of two years before that first religious service. this prairie town. They came there in search of economic opportuni- The fact that the Kohn brothers decided to live far removed from ties, drifting into the crude settlement one by one and in small knots an organized Jewish community that could provide them with the of brothers. Mostly peddlers, recent immigrants from Central opportunity to worship with other Jews and fulfill other communal Europe, they decided to bring to an end their years of selling fro Jewish religious obligations should not be taken to imply that Juda- 6. Jeffrey S. Gurock, American Jewish Hlstory: Bibliographical Gdde (N ism mattered little to them. That they had carried a Torah in their York: Anti-Defamation League, 1983), 113. satchel demonstrates how they felt about Judaism. They understood 7. Bernhard Felsenthal and Herman Eliassof, History of Kehillath Anshe Maariu that they had set out for a place devoid of Jewish religious life and (Chicago: n.p., 1897), 12; H. L. Meites, History of the ]ews of Chicago (Chi- cago: Jewish Historical Society of Illinois, 1924), 41-45; Morris A. Gutstein, A they intended to make it possible for themselves and the other Jews Priceless Heritage: The Epic Growth of Nineteenth Centuqj Chicago Jewry whom they would encounter in their new home. (New York: Bloch, 1953), 24-29, 93, 306; Edward Herbert Mazur, Minyans In fact, when their mother Dilah and her four younger children for a Prairie City (New York: Garland, 1990), 10-11; Irving Cutler, TheJews arrived in Chicago in 1845, the full depth of the Kohn brothers1- of Chicago: From Shtetl to Suburb (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1996), particularly Abraham's-religious feelings became clear, as did his 9-1 1. willingness to act as a Jewish religious leader. A scrupulously obser- Looking for Leadership in All the Right (and Wrong) Places
vant Jew, Dilah Kohn refused to eat any meat in the Illinois ci beyond this "job description" and indeed functioned as a rabbi. In because no one in the skeletal community knew, or practice 1853, for example, he sat on a bet din with another lay person, Sam- shehitah. Abraham worried that his pious mother would sicken an uel Straus, as well as Rabbi Isador Kalish, who came in from Cleve- die if she subsisted on potatoes and bread alone. So, he and the othe land to be the necessary third for a "Constituted Rabbinate members of the family called together the rest of Chicago Jewry Collegium." The rabbinical court on which Kunreuther and Straus those who a few years earlier had helped create the cemetery. sat had been convened to perform the conversion of Caroline Ham- He persuaded them that the community needed to advertise for lin of Ohio, who had married Marcus Spiegel, a young Chicago shohet and that they could best attract a competent practitioner o ~ew.~The names of both Kunreuther and Straus appear on the con- the craft by forming themselves into a congregation. Kohn's sugges version certificate preceded by the title "Reverend." tion struck a responsive chord, and on 3 November 1847, twe In this small story of Chicago, in the activities of the Kohn fam- men convened, once again at Rosenfeld and Rosenberg's store, a ily, and even in those of Kunreuther, we can discern some issues that formed Kehilath Anshe Maariv, the congregation of western men, n inform the history of Jewish religious leadership in America. Jewish doubt referring to Chicago's rising prominence in the America religious life came into being in Chicago because of the actions and West. concerns of a group of lay people, inspired in large measure by Over the course of the next days, they cobbled together a Abraham Kohn, a peddler who became the owner of a successful approved a constitution for the fledgling congregation, and in emporium, and Dilah Kohn, a quite ordinary woman who no doubt process the Jewish Burial Ground Society merged into K.A.M., as ' possessed as little formal education as most small-town Jewish has been known for more than a century and a half. They electe women of the early nineteenth century. Circumstances needed officers and trustees and empowered Abraham Kohn to travel action, and these two stepped forward to become Jewish religious New York to recruit a shohet. He brought back with him Igna leaders. Their understanding of what Jews needed to live as Jews Kunreuther, who also functioned for the next six years as K.A.M.5 caused them to act. When they saw a need, they responded accord- ba'al korei. ingly. They effectively convinced others to act with them, and they Gutstein's account of this event states that Dilah Kohn herself created a structure that ~ersistedlong after they did. sought out Kunreuther and arranged for his coming to Chicago. But But for the notable role played by Dilah Kohn and the fact that whether Abraham or Dilah-chose him, their decision to create a con- her name and that of her son have appeared in a number of books, gregation and bring a religious functionary to the relatively unsettled the history of early Chicago Jewry paralleled that of most Jewish community demonstrated the agency of ordinary Jews in leading by communities in nineteenth-century America. Individual Jews and creating religious life. Jewish families chose to relocate to places devoid of the apparatus of Notably, Kunreuther, born in 1811 in Frankfurt-am-Main, had Jewish religious life. They did not do so to escape Jewish obligations no rabbinic ordination. His father was a rabbi and provided his son or because they lacked religious sensibilities. Rather, the quest for with extensive exposure to Jewish learning. One of the histories of economic opportunities, the search for a place to make a living, sent Chicago ewry describes Kunreuther as "well-versed in rabbinic lit- them out to locations in which they found no Jewish institutions or erature."' He developed a reputation in Chicago for piety, stric communities waiting for them. Once there, they found ways to per- observance of Jewish law, and unwillingness to tamper with the form religious functions for themselves. They relied on each other to nature of the sacred service, despite later agitation by some K.A.M. make Jewish life possible and considered themselves to be "good members for the cause of reform. Jews" who took their obligations seriously. Key individuals arose Kunruether had not in fact been brought to Chicago to be a who took on leadership roles, and more formal and organized reli- rabbi. The Chicago Jews hired him to slaughter and read the service, 9. For details of Hamlin's conversion, see Your True Marcus: The Civil War Let- which he did. But, because of local circumstances, he also went ters of a Jewish Colonel, ed. Frank L. Byrne and Jane Powers Soman (Kent, 8. Gutstein, Precious Heyitage, 96. Ohio: Kent State University Press, 1985). 600 Hasia R. Diner Looking for Leadership in All the Right (and Wrong) Places 601 gious institutions developed because of what these women and men by dissent or by place of residence, in turn made possible institu- did on their own. tional diversity and choice, hallmarks of American Judaism. This particular type of Jewish religious leadership repeated itself Again, a single case will have to suffice.12 In 1869, in the District in a multiplicity of settings that on the surface may seem quite differ- of Columbia, some thirty-eight members of the Washington Hebrew ent from early-nineteenth-century frontier Chicago. It played itself Congregation, led by Bendiza Behrend, withdrew from the syna- out not only in other, but later, new communities, but it also mani- gogue in opposition to what they saw as the radical thrust of liturgi- fested itself in older, more established settings where religious insti- cal reform. These dissenters felt uncomfortable praying with an tutions proliferated due to the actions of the laity.I0 organ and in a physical space where men and women sat together. In the history of American Judaism, debates over practice, Those who left Washington Hebrew formed themselves into a new diverse European places of origin, changes in neighborhood, and congregation they named Adas Israel, whose religious practices they also personality differences divided synagogues into factions; and alone determined. those factions, almost always inspired and led by members, broke For seven years the congregation met in members' homes. It off and formed new congregations. Even a casual perusal of a employed no paid professionals. The members shaped the patterns sourcebook like Kerry Olitzky's American Synagogue reveals the of Adas Israel's religious affairs. When they finally decided, after a complex family trees of many American congregations and how so few years, to hire religious professionals, they successively hired a many owed their origins to lay leaders who galvanized others and slaughterer, a teacher, and a reader of the services. Not until 1876, led fellow members to join them in creating new religious institu- the same year that Adas Israel moved into its first dedicated space, tions. 11 did they hire a rabbi. For example, from the Baltimore Hebrew Congregation, Adas Israel actually endured its own internal schism in 1874, founded-like nearly all the others-by lay people, we can trace a two years before the advent of the rabbi and the building. A group number of branches which became Har Sinai, a Reform offshoot; of Adas Israel members broke away, creating another small congre- Shearith Israel, a very traditional congregation; and Chizuk Amuno, gation, Neveh Israel, thereby depleting Adas's numbers and threat- a moderately traditional one which eventually joined with United ening its already shaky treasury. The board of Adas, without the Synagogue. Every one of these congregations can be traced back to help of a rabbi, since they had none, found a way to resolve the dis- non-rabbinic leaders as founders. These breakaways demonstrated pute with the secessionists. With the schism healed, the runaway how keenly American Jews valued religious institutions, the sense of group returned to the congregation. empowerment felt by the laity to fashion them, and the ability of If the small, traditionalist congregation had been so well led, non-rabbinic leaders to shape religious practice. why did it decide in 1876 to hire a rabbi and build a building? The In institution-rich communities, ideological issues as well as geo- two events no doubt shared common roots. To have a building graphic dispersion into new neighborhoods played a key role in meant to join, or indeed challenge, Washington Hebrew's monopoly thrusting individuals into leadership positions by making possible as a visible element in the city's religious landscape. Adas Israel's the branch or breakaway congregations. Those new leaders, created partisans believed that they could not compete with the "mother 10. See Bernard Reisman, "Alaskan Jews Discover the Last Frontier," in Jewries at congregation" from members' living rooms or from makeshift sanc- the Frontier: Accommodation, Identity, Conflict, ed. Sander L. Gilman and tuaries tucked away behind grocery store shelves. Likewise, to func- Milton Shain (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1999), 129-54; on the high tion in the nation's capital as a religious institution worthy of rate of synagogue creation and affiliation of Jews who move away from dense mention in the city's press, it needed to be "led" by a rabbi, not by Jewish communities, see Sidney Goldstein and Alice Goldstein, Jews on the shopkeepers and artisans. The building and the rabbi did not repre- Move: Implications for Jewish Identity (Albany: State University of New York sent a need for internal religious leadership, but rather responded to Press, 1996). 11. Kerry M. Olitzky, The American Synagogue: A Historical Dictionary and 12. Stanley Rabinowitz, The Assembly: A Century in the Life of the Adas Israel Sourcebook (Westport, Conn.: Greenwood, 1996), 156-59. Hebrew Congregation of Washington, D.C. (Hohoken, N.J.: I
Gazette announcing that she would preach that night at the Opera In articles like "How to Interest a Congregation" she pointed to the House, The word spread. Over a thousand people, non-Jews pre- need for a public and enthusiastic Judaism, not just a Judaism of the dominating, thronged to the designated place, curious to see the home. Frank looked to canonical sources to convince Jews that com- spectacle of the "Maiden in the Temple." Her sermon must have munal prayer should play a crucial role in their collective lives, not- been stirring. She packed the hall again the next morning, Yom Kip- ing, "If the dancing of Miriam was acceptable to the Lord, then pur day. She delivered the message of a leader calling for community. singing, a direct gift from His hand, will surely be so. ... Give us She told her "congregation" that as Jews and as Americans, they congregational singing which comes direct from the heart ... and our were obliged to form a congregation and maintain public Jewish synagogues will no longer mourn in their lone~iness."~~ religious life. They should not allow divisions over "ceremonials" to Like more conventional leaders of the time, namely rabbis, keep them apart and impede the "formation of a permanent congre- Frank segued easily in her articles from calling on Jews to create gation." She spoke to them with passion and with the cadences of a Jewish life and institutions to defending the Jews against outside leader exhorting followers to live up to their obligations: attack. She connected the high levels of prejudice against Jews with the apathy of many Jews toward religious practice. In a similar vein, Think of it, ye Israelites, the chosen of the earth, so divided she pointed out the responsibilities of American Jews toward their as to how you will worship ... that you forget to worship at co-religionists in disrress, particularly in Russia, and encouraged all! You who have received divine protection through centu- Sabbath-school teachers to realize, despite low pay and low status, ries of danger and oppression, you [who] the prophets say the crucial role they played in fostering Jewish religious life. are to survive for the grandest destiny of man ... because you Simultaneous with her Jewish journalism, Frank also embarked do not agree as [to] how you will do this or that, how you on a lecture tour, going up and down the Pacific Coast and around will say, "Thank you Almighty," therefore you do not say it the West and eventually elsewhere in the United States, calling on at all. Jews to fulfill their religious obligations. In her lectures she described how in town after town, upon hearing her words, Jews felt inspired She went on to tell them that "this is the time for action-right now, to create congregations where none had existed. While some of this and our solemn Yom Kippur is right now of our existence." involved, no doubt, a degree of self-promotion, Frank's sentiments Frank then offered a specific plan of action. revealed the contours of an inspired religious leadership, attempting to unite Jews previously divided by discord and dissension. In the name of all we Hebrews hold dear to be patient with She also spoke at synagogue dedications, B'nai B'rith lodges, and each other. Drop all personal feelings in the matter, and meet religious school assemblies, and delivered sermons during Rosh each other half way over your differences; give each other a Hashanah and Yom Kippur, and in fact at ordinary Shabbat services. hearty handshake for the sake of the cause, and 1 prophesy Reports in the press of Frank's speeches confirm her own assessment the Heaven[s] will crown your efforts with peace and pros- of her oratorical abilities. The Cincinnati Times Star described how perity. From tonight resolve to do something.1s she "had held congregations spellbound during her lectures on reli- gious subjects in the Pacific Coast States. Her presence was admira- The speech thrust Frank into an unusual leadership role. She, an ble and she spoke with a fervor that seemed inherited from the outsider, did not remain in Spokane to organize the congregation tropic climate of old Palestine." The Californian described the recep- and see whether the squabblers could in fact make their peace with tion of her address at Congregation Beth Jacob, "the handsome little each other. That would be the responsibility of local Jews. synagogue," which "was crowded to the door with a very attentive As a result of her experiences in Spokane, she directed much of and highly delighted audience."17 her subsequent journalism toward building up Judaism in America. 16. Ibid. 15. The text of Frank's Spokane speech is given by Litman, ibid., 9-11. 17. Ibid., 34. Looking for Leadership in All the Right (and Wrong) Places 607
At one point in 1893, while on a lecture tour in Chicago, she phenomenon. David Shneyer came to Washington, D.C., in 1969.19 was approached by a group of Jews in the process of forming a con- A musician, inspired in large part by Shlomo Carlebach, he had gregation. They approached Frank and asked her if she would be already spent a few years in the havurah movement, a spontaneous their rabbi. Frank declined. That they even broached the subject grassroots movement of young Jews on college campuses to create demonstrates how American Jews in their lived religious lives did their own modes of religious expression. He had been a founder of not limit their idea of leadership to ordained rabbis. Charisma and the New Brunswick Havurah while a student at Rutgers University. commitment rather than certification seem to have mattered. He had brought the message of the anti-war movement to syna- Frank's remarkable, albeit brief, career as a Jewish religious gogues throughout the Raritan Valley through the Vietnam Youth leader, as well as those of Kohn and Kunreuther, may be understood Memorial, a Jewish peace organization, while still an undergradu- in the context of when and where they found themselves. They lived ate. He had been among the group of students who stormed the at times and in places when American Jewry had few institutions 1969 General Assembly of the United Jewish Appeal, demanding and when many Jews lived in small communities, far removed from that the funders of the community pay much greater attention to more formal Jewish resources. They could do what they did because Jewish education, the Jewish poor, the plight of Soviet Jewry, the the Jews whom they led lived basically as pioneers. The leaders and civil rights movement, and the horrors of the war in Vietnam. the led had to "make do." Shneyer came to Washington initially to help lead an alternative But later, in the very different age of the late 1960s, a similar pat- kind of youth program at Congregation B'nai Israel, a Conservative tern of spontaneous non-ordained Jewish religious leaders helped congregation. The synagogue hoped that Shneyer, through his sing- mold a new era in American Judaism. Many of this cadre of Jewish ing and guitar-playing, would excite the children in the congrega- religious leaders had been produced inadvertently by the counter- tion. While employed by the synagogue, Shneyer helped found culture of the 1960s. Young Jews, deeply moved by the civil rights Fabrangen, conceived by him and his colleagues as "a Free Jewish movement, the anti-war movement, and the other struggles for liber- Cultural Center," which had emerged out of the ashes of an earlier ation of the 1960s began to turn their attention to the Jewish com- group, Jews for Urban Justice. Fabrangen initially received funding munity. They looked at the apparatus of Jewish religious life-the from the local U.J.A., and Shneyer earned a small salary as program synagogues, seminaries, and denominations-and found them want- director. After a few years of religious services, draft counseling, ing by the standards of eicitement and engagement which the youth informal learning, and other activities, Fabrangen lost its funding, in culture of the era offered. Some of these young people had experi- large measure due to its public discussion of Palestinians and their enced the thrill of Jewish summer camp and considered those political claims. months away from home, in the company of Jewish peers, the most Sheneyer, over the next few years, helped bring into being a Jewishly intense moments of their lives. In a cultural milieu that string of other Jewish counterculture institutions in Washington. He encouraged young people to seize the moment, the Jewish activists and another Fabrangen member tried to start an organic farm and of the 1960s attempted in essence to forge together the memories of retreat center in the country, "Kfar Out." It did not work; neither Ramah, Habonim, and the other camps, with the fervor of the rag- did an experimental kosher eatery, the Kosher Kitchen. But ing political struggles, in order to create a new, experimental, and Shneyer's music endured and became the vehicle that brought him to engaged kind of Jewish religious life.18 his most visible leadership role. As in the other cases, one example should' demonstrate the need In 1971, he founded with three other Jewish musicians, all Fah- to think about the history of American Tudaism -as a lay-ins~ired rangen members, the Fabrangen Fiddlers, a group that fused hasidic niggunim with bluegrass, folk, and other musical styles, using Jewish 18. For the broader context see Mark Oppcnherm, Knocking at Heaien's Door: I Amencan Rel~gionin the Age of Countercultnre (New Haven: Yale Un~verslty -English, Hebrew, Yiddish-lyrics. The Fiddlers performed around Press, 2003), which includes an excellent discussion of the impact of the 19. The material on David Shneyer derives from an interview with him held on 29 counterculture on American Jewish religious practice. July 2001. Hasia R. Diner Looking for Leadership in All the Right (and Wrong) Places 609 the Washington area, at bar and bat mitzvah parties, at synagogues, gious life, to him, spans conventional boundaries; and Judaism Jewish folk festivals (sponsored by the Jewish Folk Arts Society, also allows, as he sees it, for ordinary people to become leaders when and founded by David Shneyer), and other kinds of events. To earn how they feel inspired. money on a somewhat steadier basis, Shneyer taught music at a Shneyer's story, like the others sketched out here, is that of some- number of religious schools and tutored girls and boys for benei one who did not become a religious leader because of credentials or mipah. formal institutional support. All these tales of leadership involved The crucial moment came in 1977, when a few members of the women and men who saw deficiencies in Jewish religious life as it Bethesda Jewish Congregation, a non-denominational synagogue, existed and took it upon themselves to make Judaism better. They approached Shneyer with an idea. They wanted to establish a new became leaders because of their own needs and visions and because others, 'amkha, invested them in the mantle of authority. As such, hauurah, which would soon become Kehillah Hadashah, and they wanted Shneyer, along with Rabbi Harold White, to become their when searching for leaders, we should not just look to those who have been credentialized and supported by acknowledged religious "spiritual leaders." White left the Kehillah shortly thereafter tb become the Hillel rabbi at Georgetown University. Shneyer institutions. They too might be leaders, but leaders rise from the remained. He not only led (and continues to do so) the Kehillah in ranks as well, and their role needs to be recognized in order to know regular services, but together they organize yearly Rosb Hashanah the past. Historians, then, need to take up the challenge to write the and Yom Kippur services for over a thousand Jews. history of American Judaism from this broader, deeper, and richer Shneyer's leadership has spilled beyond the confines of Kehillah perspective. Hadashah. Those who heard him at high holiday services and found themselves moved by his music and his words began inviting him to officiate at their life cycle events, not just bar and bat mitzvah ser- vices but weddings as well. In 1987, Shneyer created Ma'alot to train cantors and others eager to participate musically in Jewish life. Ma'alot runs workshops in synagogues and certifies the women and men who have gone through its courses. In 1990, Shneyer conceived of the idea of Am Kolle1,an umbrella organization for several area hauurot. Am Kollel itself has spawned numerous projects, including Yedid, an emerging religious group made up of young single Jews living in the city who meet for services several times a month. Yedid has developed religious services characterized by intense music an enthusiastic dancing as part of the worship. Am Kollel has furthe more initiated a project called Shabbes House, which with a gra from the Righteous Persons Foundation reaches out to non-affiliat teenagers. In all of this, Shneyer never calls himself "rabbi," although so assume that he has ordination and call him that: But although he h neither rabbinic nor cantorial ordination, he does not feel dise powered from inventing new ways to promote Judaism by creati new forms and new modes of expression. Indeed, his chosen ti "Judaist" may be particularly appropriate. As he sees it, "Judaist" makes more sense, encompassing the breadth of Jewish life. Reli