Volume XLVI Spring/Summer 1994 Number I American Jewish Archives A Journal Devoted to the Preservation and Study of the American Jewish Experience Jacob Rader Marcus, Ph.D., Editor Abraham J. Peck, Ph.M., Managing Editor Ruth L. Kreimer, Editorial Associate Tammy Topper, Editorial Assistant Published by The American Jewish Archives on the Cincinnati Campus of the Hebrew Union College - Jewish Institute of Religion Dr. Alfred Gottschalk, President American Jewish Archives is indexed in The Index to Jewish Periodicals, Current Contents, The American Historical Review, United States Political Science Documents, and The Journal of American History. Information for Contributors: American Jewish Archives follows generally the University of Chicago Press "Manual of Style" (12th revised edition) and "Words into Type" (3rd edition), but issues its own style sheet which may be obtained by writing to: The Managing Editor, American Jewish Archives 3101 Clifton Avenue Cincinnati, Ohio 45220 Patrons 1994: The Neumann Memorial Publication Fund This publication is made possible, in part, by a gift from Congregation Emanu-El of the City of New York. Published by The American Jewish Archives on the Cincinnati campus of the Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion ISSN 002-905X O 1994 by the American Jewish Archives Contents I Mordecai M. Kaplan's Orthodox Orientation Jacob J. Schacter When Rabbi Mordecai M. Kaplan became the first graduate of the Jewish Theological Seminary to receive a pulpit at an Orthodox synagogue, one of America's most prestigious ones at that,not only eyebrows were raised. Orthodox rabbinic voices denounced the appointrnent,forcing Kaplan to accept the title of "minister" rather than rabbi until such time as he received a "kosher" ordination. Indeed, Kaplan sought and received such an ordination from one of the great European rabbonim of the time. Yet, in this foretaste of a forthcoming book on Kaplan's relationship to Orthodoxy,JacobJ. Schachter maintains that even before receiving such an Orthodox ordination, Kaplan had begun to move away from Orthodoxy toward a view of Judaism that would bring him into the most seri- ous of conflicts with the traditional Jewish world. 13 Uncle Gustavo in Lima: A Nineteenth-Centu y German-Jewish Immigrant C.C. Aronsfeld Like many of his fellow German Jews of the mid-nineteenth century,Gustav Badt sought his fortune elsewhere. Leaving Germany at the tailend of the great German Jewish migration to the Americas, he did not land in New York,but in Lima,Peru. The story is taken up by his twentieth-century relative, C.C. Aronsfeld,who with a mixture of wry humor and obvious family pride, recounts the story of "Uncle Gustavo," who succeeded in business and remained a Jew in circumstances which required working hard at both. 27 There is a Doctor in the House Judah Rubinstein As a young man of almost eighteen,Marcus Rosenwasser of Cleveland,Ohio left to study medicine in Europe. He went back to the country of his birth,Bohemia, where he settled in to study at the University of Prague surrounded by family and urged on by his desire to become a physician. His years of study were high- lighted by war,a lost love, and academic achievement. He returned home to become an outstanding physician and,according to Judah Rubenstein," Cleveland's first Jewish home-grown physician." 39 The Case of the Part-Time Jew:A Unique Incident in Nineteenth-Centu y America Ralph G. Bennett If one can go beyond guessing its remote location on the north- eastern coast of South America, one can learn some very interest- ing facts about Surinam and its early Jewish population.One can learn,for instance, that by 1730 Surinam was the leading economic community in the Americas, far wealthier than Boston, Philadelphia or New York. This also meant that its Jewish commu- nity was an extremely wealthy one. What Ralph Bennett has tried to understand about Surinam and its Jews is the fascinating case of a man who lived both as a Christian and a Jew,the former in America and the latter in Surinam. Through the skillful approach- es of genealogical research and networking, Bennett has achieved a reasonable assumption about this "part- time Jew."He has done so in the spirit of the practicing genealogist who "must also be something of an artist, weaving imaginative visions of past worlds." 63 Morris Goldsmith: Deputy United States Marshal Stephen M. Passamaneck American Jews have been no strangers to law enforcement in the United States,either as the "good or "bad" guys in its history. Josephine Sarah Marcus married Wyatt Earp and appeared in the movie; various Jews served the mob,from Legs Diamond to Meyer Lansky;and the Texas Rangers counted among their number fear- less Jewish upholders of the law. Stephen M. Passamaneck intro- duces us to the latest good guy. Meet Deputy United States Marshal Morris Goldsmith of Charleston,South Carolina,who in the early decades of the nineteenth century found time to battle pirates and smugglers and to act as the secretary of the Reformed Society of Israelites,which helped to create the backgound for the Reform movement in American Judaism. That Goldsmith is the object of Passameck's scholarly inquiry is not surprising,since the author teaches rabbinic literature and is a law enforcement officer. It has taken one sleuth,both as scholar and police officer, to create the historical portrait of another. 101 Review Essay Jewish Settlement in Argentina: A View From Jerusalem Ignacio Klich Avni, Haim. Argentina and the Jews: A Histo y of Jewish Immigration 127 Book Reviews Klingenstein,Susanne. Jews in the American Academy 1900-2940: The Dynamics of Intellectual Assimilation Reviewed by Harold S. Wechsler 134 Goldsmith, Emanuel S., Scult, Mel, and Robert M. Seltzer. Edited by. The American Judaism of Mordecai Kaplan Reviewed by Henry L. Feingold 137 Helmreich, William B. Against All Odds: Holocaust Survivors and the Successful Lives They Made Reviewed by Anna Ornstein 141 Athans, Mary Christine. The Coughlin-Fahey Connection Reviewed by Bat Ami Zucker 144 Schwarz, Shuly Rubin. The Emergence of Jewish Scholarship in America: The Publication of the Jewish Encyclopedia Reviewed by Carl Alpert 150 Fishman, Sylvia Barach. A Breath of Life: Feminism in the American Jewish Community Reviewed by Regina Stein 154 Phillips, Bruce A. Brookline: The Evolution of an American Jewish Community Reviewed by David Kaufman 159 Schwartz, I. J. Kentucky (translated from the Yiddish by Gertrude W, Dubrovsky) Reviewed by Joseph Cohen 162 Kaufman, Menachem. An Ambitious Partnership: Non-Zionists and Zionists in America, 1939 - 1948 Reviewed by Rapahel Medoff 168 Langlais, Jacques and David Rome, translated by. Jews and French Quebecers: Two Hundred Years of Shared History Reviewed by Zachary M. Baker 372 Brief Notices 179 Selected Acquisitions Mordecai M. Kaplan's Orthodox Ordination Jacob J. Schacter Mordecai M. Kaplan was one of the most influential and contro- versial figures in twentieth-century American Jewish life. As a con- gregational rabbi in New York City (at Congregation Kehilath Jeshurun, the Jewish Center, and the Society for the Advancement of Judaism), an educator (primarily, but not exclusively, at the Jewish Theological Seminary), and a popular lecturer, he chal- lenged countless congregants, students, and listeners to rethink their conceptions of Judaism, in the process offering a new one of his own. As an original and iconoclastic thinker, his imprint can be found on many current American Jewish practices and institu- tions. But, at the same time, his originality and unconventionality aroused enormous hostility and antagonism, particularly in Orthodox circles. Indeed, Kaplan's relationship with Orthodoxy makes for a very interesting and multifaceted study. How did this young talmudic prodigy raised in a Lithuanian shtetl, whose father received rab- binic ordination from some of the greatest rabbis in the second half of the nineteenth century (Rabbi Yizhak Elhanan Spektor, Rabbi Naftali Zevi Yehudah Berlin, and Rabbi Yizhak Reines), who, as a teenager, was so traditional that he could not excuse his friends for speaking English in the bet midrash [daily prayer and study room] of their local synagogue, come to later espouse ideas that were considered by Orthodox Jews to be the epitome of heresy? And what about the Orthodox community's reaction to his heterodoxy? How could this young man in his twenties and thirties, who already by then had distanced himself from traditional Judaism, come to serve as the rabbi of two of New York's most prestigious Orthodox synagogues, Congregation Kehilath Jeshurun on East 85th Street and the Jewish Center on West 86th Street? Finally, and most generally, what do Kaplan's life story and voluminous writ- ings, most of which present a Judaism sharply at odds with Orthodoxy, tell us about Orthodox Jewish life in this country into the sixth decade of this century? Rabbi Mordecai M. Kaplan (1881-1983) Mordecai M. Kaplan's Orthodox Orientation 3 I am completing a book on Kaplan together with Jeffrey S. Gurock which will focus specifically on his relationship to Orthodoxy and Orthodox institutions. We will deal with these as well as other issues, providing a fuller and more nuanced picture of this highly complex and multifaceted individual as well as of twenthieth century Orthodoxy. Here I want to focus on a small but significant detail of that account-the story of the Orthodox ordi- nation Kaplan received from Rabbi Reines in 1908. This story is of significance because Kaplan, by that time, had already distanced himself theologically from Orthodoxy. His earli- est diaries, for example, dated 1904-1907, contain very sharply worded statements against the halakhic system which lay at the heart of traditional Jewish life. Other evidence, which we will explore in detail in our book, suggests similarly that Kaplan's move out of Orthodoxy had already begun at this early stage of his life.