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The Impact of Nineteenth-Century Christian Missions on American Jews

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The Impact of Nineteenth-Century Christian Missions on American Jews Christian Missions and American Jews JEWISH APOSTACY IN THE MODERN WORLD Jews in the United States, will focus on two critically important areas 9 ed. Todd M. Endelman Jew York/London: Holmes & Meier, 1987 of missionary impact on American Jewish life. It will argue that missionaries ultimately strengthened the Jewish community by forc­ ing Jews to confront first, the uncertainties of American religious pluralism, and second, serious community problems that they had hitherto neglected. The Impact of Nineteenth-Century 1 The history of Christian efforts to convert American Jews may be Christian Missions on American Jews summarized briefty. 2 In the colonial and early national periods such efforts were private and often casual religious solicitations undertaken either by ministers or laymen, usually with the intent of converting someone with whom they were already socially acquainted. The JONATHAN D. SARNA eagerness of Ezra Stiles to convert his friend Aaron Lopez of New­ port, and efforts by people in Warrenton, North Carolina, to convert Jacob Mordecai typify situations that numerous Jews faced at one time ~\osT historical discussions of Christian efforts to convert American or another. 3 In many cases, asking a Jewish friend to convert was not a Jews concentrate on the goals set by the missionaries themselves. fanatical or even an unfriendly act, nor did Jews view it as such. The After evaluating the efforts expended, the money spent, and the suggestion, indeed, was often a backhanded compliment, a way of relatively small number of souls converted by the missionary organiza. inviting popular but not yet completely acceptable members of the tions, thev conclude-unsurprisingly, given the weight of the ai­ community to upgrade their civic status by becoming "good Chris­ dcnce-that "these attempts have failed." "If the historical importantt tians," and joining a church like everyone else. of such associations is measured by their success in promotill2 a The first organized American societies dedicated to Jewish evan­ cause," Professor Lorman Ratner thus writes, "then [the Ameri~ gelization were formed in New York (the American Society for Evan­ Societv for Meliorating the Condition of the Jews] should be left in gelizing the Jews) and Boston (the Female Society of Boston and the 1 obscu~itv, for it accomplished very little. " \'icin~ty for ~moting ~hristianity among the Jews) in 1816, during This negative appraisal of missionary accomplishments, whik ~·hat ts known m Amenca as the Second Great Awakening. Societies accurate in some. respects, leaves much unsaid. Indeed, the evidan for the promotion of innumerable benevolent causes were formed seems to me to suggest that missionaries, albeit unknowingly 111111 ~ during thi.s period, a~o?g the~ the American Bible Society (1815), unwittingly, actually contributed in important ways to the dadop­ the Amencan Colomzatton Soctety ( 1817), and the American Tract ment and strengthening of the American Jewish community. Amer­ Society (1825), and many of the same reform-minded evangelicals ican Jews might have been happier had missionaries not posed their ~-ere involved in each group. 4 challenge, but they would also have been substantially worse off. Spurred on by Joseph S. C. F. Frey, 5 a founder of the London To explore this surprising paradox, this paper, after brieftv ~ Society for Promoting Christianity among the Jews, author of a best­ viewing the history of nineteenth-century Christian missions t~ lbr f: selling missionary autobiography, and himself a convert, recently t removed to N~w York; a~d also spurred by "intelligence from Ger­ I am grateful to Professors Benny Kraut and Jacob R. Marcus and to Rabbi I.-a­ f many ann~uncmg the deme of a number of Christian Jews to emigrate S. Sussman for their comments on earlier drafts of this paper, and to the ~lcmarill to the Umted States for the purpose of forming a Christian-Jewish 1 Foundation for Jewish Culture and the American Council of Learned Societies'­ i' scnlement,"6 the American Society for Evangelizing the Jews re- their generous support of some of the research upon which this paper is based. 233 232 Christian Missions and American Jews JOI"ATHAN D. SARNA sionaries, representing twenty-nine different societies, in thirteen organized in 1820 and applied for a state charter. It received one, in 10 April of that year, and emerged both with a new name, the American ! United States cities. Society for Meliorating the Condition of the Jews (ASMCJ). and with a new objective: · 2 to invite and receive from any part of the world such Jews as do already profess the From early on, American Jews viewed Christian missionary ac- Christian religion or are desirous to receive Christian instruction, to form them into 1 tivities directed against them both as a serious threat to their own a settlement and to furnish them with the ordinances of the Gospel and with such immediate well-being, and, more broadly, as another in a long series of employment in the settlement as shall be assigned to them.' Christian efforts to undermine Jewish civilization. Jews knew that they had to respond to such challenges, and respond they did­ . ~umer~us no~ables co~nected themselv~s with the ASMCJ dur­ 11 mg thts penod. Ehas Boudmot, former pres1dent of the Continental vigorously. American Jewish responses to missionaries began in Congress, served as its president. John Quincy Adams, William Phil­ 1816, with Tobitt Letter to Levi, or, since that seems to have been li~s, Stephen Van Rensselaer, Je~emiah Day, Ashbel Green, Philip penned by a gentile, in 1820, with Israel Vindicated (written by one 12 .\hlledoler (the last three, respectively, presidents of Yale, Princeton. who called himself "An Israelite," even if he wasn't), and continued and Rutgers), and former New York governor DeWitt Clinton, aU to appear right through the century, with the antimissionary fulmina­ serve~ at ,·arious times as honorary vice-presidents. Peter Jay, son o( tions of Rabbi Isaac Mayer Wise being particularly noteworthy. The the dtplomat John Jay, served as treasurer. By the mid-l820s, the literature is enormous, considering the small size of the American AS.\ ICJ enjoyed prestige, publicity, and liberal support from se\-era) Jewish population at the time, and it covers a wide spectrum from hundred auxiliary societies scattered in different states of the union. • theological arguments, to historical arguments, to ad hominem argu­ :--.:othing came of the ASMCJ's effort to colonize Jews. In 1826 ments. It borrows liberally from European polemics, particularly following a spate of bad publicity and a shift in public attitudes bad~ those of Isaac Troki and Isaac Orobio de Castro, as well as from deistic toward more secular concerns, the society collapsed amid factional tracts. Yet at the same time, it includes arguments and emphases and lt~gal squabbling. 9 It continued to languish, although periodical~\· peculiarly appropriate to American Jews' own situation-for example, showmg renewed spurts of vigor, particularly in the 1840s, but it arguments based on the Jewish contribution to American indepen­ n~\·e~ regained its. former eminence. Henceforward, the ASMCJ and dence. It thus displays elements both of continuity and of change. It mtsstons to Am.encanJews gen~rally attracted fewer supporters,~ reflects, in this sense, the American Jewish experience as a whole. detractors (Jew1sh and non-Jewish). and far less money. Premillennial While American Jewish antimissionary literature portrays an hopes that Jewish converts would spur the onset of the "end of dn • ostensibly unified community responding as one to a common threat, ~\'aned, confidence in colonization schemes faded away, and missi~~­ in fact the missionary challenge set off a highly significant-and mg .a~sum,cd .th~ form, known as direct missionizing, that remains hitherto overlooked-tactical debate within that community over how famthar. Soc1et1e~-the ASMCJ and denominational societies liu best to formulate a response appropriate to America's distinctive reli­ those of t~e Baptists and Presbyterians-hired individuals, mam· o( gious situation. In Europe, after all, Jews had always been forced to them Jewish apostates! .and sent them into Jewish neighborh~. respond to missionaries from a position of weakness, particularly in where they formed a VlSlble presence (sometimes in storefronts). and the post-emancipation period when Jews depended on Christians for 0\ L- toleration, and feared to offend them. Even in England, Jewish oppo- could confront. "potential. converts" on a one-to-one basis • 'ef Iaiit years, t hts m1s~1?nary presence grew stronger or weaker depend' f · nents of the London Society for Promoting Christianity amongst the ~oth on the rehg10us temper of the times and on the perceived pot:! r Jews had to remember that they were a minority fighting an estab­ ttal. for. success. In . 1900,. according to A. E. Thompson, the J e"DU..:.L lished church at a time when Jews had yet to win full legal equality.n mtsstonary cnterpnse m America consisted of some sevcnty-fi\"e mii.- In the United States, by contrast, "free exercise of religion" was 234 235 joNATHAN 0. SARNA Christian Missions and American jews guaranteed by the Constitution, if not always by the states, and there know, that the Society in London where there are 20,000 Jews who employed him, was no established church at all. Legally, at least, Jews had won bade him farewell without regret, and in this country he has not made a single equality, not mere toleration. 14 They were one minority religious con~. We ha~ no obj~ions to his success, if sincerity and piety really govern his group among many others. mob~, but we ha~ no 1dea of permitting the community to be deceh'ed on this subject. We could say much more on the occasion, but rellgion should not occupy Some American Jews, conscious of the freedom America af­ the columns of a newspaper.
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