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The Pittsburgh Platform
The Pittsburgh Platform is a pivotal 1885 document in the history of the United States, American Reform Judaism, Reform Movement in Judaism that called for Jews to adopt a modern approach to the practice of their faith. While it was never formally adopted by the Union of American Hebrew Congregations (UAHC) or the Central Conference of American Rabbis founded four years after its release, and several rabbis who remained associated with Reform in its wake attempted to distance themselves from it, the platform exerted great influence over the movement in the next fifty years, and still influences some Reform Jews who hold classicist views to this day. The Platform The most important principles of Judaism as practiced by the largest Jewish denomination in the United States were laid out in eight concise paragraphs: Historical context This founding document of what has come to be called "Classical Reform" ideology was the culmination of a meeting of Reform Judaism, Reform rabbis f ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
United States
The United States of America (USA), also known as the United States (U.S.) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It is a federal republic of 50 U.S. state, states and a federal capital district, Washington, D.C. The 48 contiguous states border Canada to the north and Mexico to the south, with the semi-exclave of Alaska in the northwest and the archipelago of Hawaii in the Pacific Ocean. The United States asserts sovereignty over five Territories of the United States, major island territories and United States Minor Outlying Islands, various uninhabited islands in Oceania and the Caribbean. It is a megadiverse country, with the world's List of countries and dependencies by area, third-largest land area and List of countries and dependencies by population, third-largest population, exceeding 340 million. Its three Metropolitan statistical areas by population, largest metropolitan areas are New York metropolitan area, New York, Greater Los Angeles, Los Angel ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bratislava
Bratislava (German: ''Pressburg'', Hungarian: ''Pozsony'') is the Capital city, capital and largest city of the Slovakia, Slovak Republic and the fourth largest of all List of cities and towns on the river Danube, cities on the river Danube. Officially, the population of the city is about 475,000; however, some sources estimate daily number of people moving around the city based on mobile phone SIM cards is more than 570,000. Bratislava is in southwestern Slovakia at the foot of the Little Carpathians, occupying both banks of the Danube and the left bank of the Morava (river), River Morava. Bordering Austria and Hungary, it is the only national capital to border two sovereign states. The city's history has been influenced by people of many nations and religions, including Austrians, Bulgarians, Croats, Czechs, Germans, Hungarian people, Hungarians, Jews and Slovaks. It was the coronation site and legislative center and capital of the Kingdom of Hungary from 1536 to 1783; elev ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bernard Drachman
Rabbi Dr. Bernard Drachman (June 27, 1861, in New York City – March 12, 1945 in New York City) was a leader of Orthodox Judaism in the United States at the beginning of the twentieth century. Biography Drachman was born to parents who were immigrants from Galicia and Bavaria. After studying in a Hebrew preparatory school, Drachman earned a B.A. from Columbia College. He earned a scholarship at the Jewish Theological Seminary of Breslau where he received his rabbinic ordination. He also earned a PhD from the University of Heidelberg. In 1890, Drachman began serving as rabbi in the Park East Synagogue, where he led for the next fifty-five years. Drachman was president of the Orthodox Union and professor at the Jewish Theological Seminary. He translated Samson Raphael Hirsch's The Nineteen Letters of Ben Uziel into English. This was ironic as the works of Zecharias Frankel Zecharias Frankel (30 September 1801 – 13 February 1875) was a Bohemian-German rabbi and a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Alexander Kohut
Alexander (Chanoch Yehuda) Kohut (; April 22, 1842 – May 25, 1894) was a rabbi and orientalist. He belonged to a family of rabbis, the most noted among them being Rabbi Israel Palota, his great-grandfather, Rabbi Amram (called "The Gaon," who died in Safed, Palestine, where he had spent the last years of his life), and his great-granduncle Rabbi Chayyim Kitssee, rabbi in Erza. The last-named was the author of several rabbinic works. Early training Kohut's father, Israel Kohut, was a great linguist and well versed in rabbinic literature. He was so poor that he could not afford to send his son to the village school. There being no Hebrew school (''cheder'') in his native town, Alexander reached his eighth year without having learned even the rudiments of Hebrew or Hungarian. His family soon relocated to Kecskemét, where Kohut received his first instruction. He attended the gymnasium and at the same time studied Talmud with an old scholar, Reb Gershom Lövinger. In his fi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sabato Morais
Sabato Morais (; April 13, 1823 – November 11, 1897) was an Italian-American rabbi of Portuguese descent, leader of Mikveh Israel Synagogue in Philadelphia, pioneer of Italian Jewish Studies in America, and founder of the Jewish Theological Seminary, which initially acted as a center of education for Orthodox Rabbis. Early years Morais was born in Livorno, Italy. He was the elder son and the third of nine children of Samuel and Bona Morais. The Morais family came originally from Portugal, being probably among the large number of Jews who fled thence from the Inquisition. At the time of Sabato's birth, Italy was in the thick of her great struggle for freedom. Samuel Morais was an ardent republican, at one time undergoing imprisonment for his political views, and his father, Samuel Morais, was prominently identified with the political movements of his day. Upon young Sabato early rested the responsibility of aiding in the support of the family. While still a child he ea ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Jewish Peoplehood
Jewish peoplehood (Hebrew: עמיות יהודית, ''Amiut Yehudit'') is the conception of the awareness of the underlying unity that makes an individual a part of the Jews, Jewish people. The concept of peoplehood has a double meaning. The first is descriptive, as a concept factually describing the existence of the Jews as a people, i.e., a national Ethnoreligious group, ethnoreligious indigenous group. The second is normative, as a value that describes the feeling of belonging and commitment to the Jewish people. The concept of Jewish peoplehood is a paradigm shift for some in Jewish life. Insisting that the mainstream of Jewish life is focused on Jewish nationalism (Zionism), they argue that Jewish life should instead focus on Jewish peoplehood, however the majority of Jews see peoplehood as encompassing both Jews living inside Israel and outside in diaspora. The concept of peoplehood, or "''Klal Yisrael''" has permeated Jewish life for millennia, and to focus on it does not ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Halacha
''Halakha'' ( ; , ), also transliterated as ''halacha'', ''halakhah'', and ''halocho'' ( ), is the collective body of Jewish religious laws that are derived from the Written and Oral Torah. ''Halakha'' is based on biblical commandments ('' mitzvot''), subsequent Talmudic and rabbinic laws, and the customs and traditions which were compiled in the many books such as the '' Shulchan Aruch'' or '' Mishneh Torah''. ''Halakha'' is often translated as "Jewish law", although a more literal translation might be "the way to behave" or "the way of walking". The word is derived from the root, which means "to behave" (also "to go" or "to walk"). ''Halakha'' not only guides religious practices and beliefs; it also guides numerous aspects of day-to-day life. Historically, widespread observance of the laws of the Torah is first in evidence beginning in the second century BCE, and some say that the first evidence was even earlier. In the Jewish diaspora, ''halakha'' served many Jewish comm ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
David Woolf Marks
David Woolf Marks (22 November 1811 – 3 May 1909) was a British Hebrew scholar and minister. He was the first religious leader of the West London Synagogue, which seceded from the authority of the Chief Rabbi, where he advocated a quasi- Karaite philosophy. Biography Marks was born in London. His father was a merchant named Woolf Marks and his mother's name was Mary. Marks senior died when his son was just nine years old, in July 1821, and the child was sent to attend Jews' Free School, where he soon emerged as a prodigy. He spent most of the time tutoring other pupils in Hebrew, while studying advanced material at night. He supported himself by iterating Kaddish for the soul of a deceased man and reading the Bible for the blind wife of Rabbi Solomon Hirschell, thus becoming his confidant. He earned a hundred pounds, a vast sum at the time, when the School's principal died and he replaced him for a while. That money sufficed to sustain him for five years in Hirschell's boar ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Isaac Mayer Wise
Isaac Mayer Wise (29 March 1819 – 26 March 1900) was an American Reform rabbi, editor, and author. Early life Wise was born on 29 March 1819 in Steingrub in Bohemia (today Lomnička, a part of Plesná in the Czech Republic). He was the son of Löbl Doktor and Regina Weiss; since his parents weren't civilly married, he went by his mother's surname. He received his early Hebrew education from his father and grandfather, later continuing his Hebrew and secular studies in Prague. He may have received the '' hattarat hora'ah'' from the Prague bet din, composed of Rabbis Rapoport, Samuel Freund, and E. L. Teweles, or from Rabbi Falk Kohn, however there is debate as to whether he was an ordained rabbi at all. It was even a source of controversy with his intellectual rival, Rabbi David Einhorn. In 1843 he was appointed rabbi at Radneitz (now Radnice near Plzeň), where he remained for about two years. In 1846 Weis emigrated to the United States, arriving on 23 July. He changed ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Kaufmann Kohler
Kaufmann Kohler (May 10, 1843 – January 28, 1926) was a German-born Jewish-American biblical scholar and critic, theologian, Reform rabbi, and contributing editor to numerous articles in '' The Jewish Encyclopedia'' (1906). Life and work Kaufmann Kohler was born into a family of German Jewish rabbis in Fürth, Kingdom of Bavaria. He received his rabbinical training at Hassfurt, Höchberg near Würzburg, Mainz, Altona, and at Frankfurt am Main under Samson Raphael Hirsch, and his university training at Munich, Berlin, Leipzig, and Erlangen ( Ph.D. 1868). His Ph.D. thesis, ''Der Segen Jacob's'' ("Jacob's Blessing"), was one of the earliest Jewish essays in the field of higher criticism, and its radical character had the effect of closing off to him the German synagogal pulpit. Abraham Geiger, to whose ''Zeitschrift'' Kohler became a contributor at an early age, strongly influenced his career and directed his steps to the United States. In 1869, he accepted a call to t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Social Justice
Social justice is justice in relation to the distribution of wealth, opportunities, and privileges within a society where individuals' rights are recognized and protected. In Western and Asian cultures, the concept of social justice has often referred to the process of ensuring that individuals fulfill their societal roles and receive their due from society. In the current movements for social justice, the emphasis has been on the breaking of barriers for social mobility, the creation of safety nets, and economic justice. Social justice assigns rights and duties in the institutions of society, which enables people to receive the basic benefits and burdens of cooperation. The relevant institutions often include taxation, social insurance, public health, public school, public services, labor law and regulation of markets, to ensure distribution of wealth, and equal opportunity. Modernist interpretations that relate justice to a reciprocal relationship to society a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
