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Pittsburg Conference
The Pittsburgh Platform is a pivotal 1885 document in the history of the American 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. 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 rabbis from November 16–19, 1885 at the Concordia Club in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. It explicitly calls for a rejection of those l ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
United States
The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territories, nine Minor Outlying Islands, and 326 Indian reservations. The United States is also in free association with three Pacific Island sovereign states: the Federated States of Micronesia, the Marshall Islands, and the Republic of Palau. It is the world's third-largest country by both land and total area. It shares land borders with Canada to its north and with Mexico to its south and has maritime borders with the Bahamas, Cuba, Russia, and other nations. With a population of over 333 million, it is the most populous country in the Americas and the third most populous in the world. The national capital of the United States is Washington, D.C. and its most populous city and principal financial center is New York City. Paleo-Americ ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hatam Sofer
Moses Schreiber (1762–1839), known to his own community and Jewish posterity in the Hebrew translation as Moshe Sofer, also known by his main work ''Chatam Sofer'', ''Chasam Sofer'', or ''Hatam Sofer'' ( trans. ''Seal of the Scribe'', and acronym for ''Chiddushei Toiras Moishe Sofer''), was one of the leading Orthodox rabbis of European Jewry in the first half of the nineteenth century. He was a teacher to thousands, and a powerful opponent of the Reform movement in Judaism, which was attracting many people from the Jewish communities in the Austrian Empire, and beyond. As Rav of the city of Pressburg, he maintained a strong Orthodox Jewish perspective through communal life, first-class education, and uncompromising opposition to Reform and radical change. Sofer established a yeshiva in Pozsony (''Pressburg'' in German; today ''Bratislava'', Slovakia), the Pressburg Yeshiva, which became the most influential yeshiva in Central Europe, producing hundreds of future leaders o ... [...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 Rabbi Chayyim Kitssee, rabbi in Erza, who was his great-granduncle. The last-named was the author of several rabbinic works. Early training Kohut's father, Jacob Kohut, was a great linguist, and was 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. At a very tender age, while selling his mother's tarts in the marketplace, he was kidnapped by Gipsies, because of his extraordinary beauty. His family soon removed to Kecskemét, where Kohut r ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sabato Morais
Sabato Morais ( he, שבתאי מוראיס; April 13, 1823 – November 11, 1897) was an Italian-American rabbi, 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, Sabato 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 ... [...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 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 indigenous group, similar to the Tibetans, the Hindus, the Mayans etc. 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 f ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Halacha
''Halakha'' (; he, הֲלָכָה, ), also transliterated as ''halacha'', ''halakhah'', and ''halocho'' ( ), is the collective body of Jewish religious laws which is 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''. ''Halakha'' is often translated as "Jewish law", although a more literal translation of it 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, in the Jewish diaspora, ''halakha'' served many Jewish communities as an enforceable avenue of law – both civil and religious, since no differentiation of them exists in classical Judaism. Since the Jewish Enlightenment (''Hask ... [...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 but 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 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 boarding scho ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Isaac Mayer Wise
Isaac Mayer Wise (29 March 1819, Lomnička – 26 March 1900, Cincinnati) was an American Reform rabbi, editor, and author. At his death he was called "the foremost rabbi in America". Early life Wise was born on 29 March 1819 in Steingrub in Bohemia (today Lomnička, a part of Plesná in the Czech Republic). The son of Leo Weis, a schoolteacher, 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 Radnitz (now Radnice near Plzeň), where he remained for about two years. In 1846 Weis emigrated to the United States, arriving on July 23. He changed the spel ... [...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 of ''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 the higher criticism, and its radical character had the effect of closing to him the Jewish pulpit in Germany. 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 the pulpit ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Tikkun Olam
''Tikkun olam'' ( he, תִּיקּוּן עוֹלָם, , repair of the world) is a concept in Judaism, which refers to various forms of action intended to repair and improve the world. In classical rabbinic literature, the phrase referred to legal enactments intended to preserve the social order. In the ''Aleinu'' prayer, it refers to the eradication of idolatry. In Lurianic Kabbalah, the "repair" is mystical: to return the sparks of Divine light to their source by means of ritual performance. In the modern era, particularly among the post-Haskalah movements, ''tikkun olam'' has come to refer to the pursuit of social justice or "the establishment of Godly qualities throughout the world" based on the idea that "Jews bear responsibility not only for their own moral, spiritual, and material welfare, but also for the welfare of society at large". History In the Mishnah The earliest use of the term ''tikkun olam'' comes in the phrase ''mip'nei tikkun ha-olam'', "for the sake of repai ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Social Justice
Social justice is justice in terms of the distribution of wealth, opportunities, and privileges within a society. 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. Interpretations that relate justice to a reciprocal relationship to society are mediated by differences in cultural traditions, some of which emphasize t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Shulchan Aruch
The ''Shulchan Aruch'' ( he, שֻׁלְחָן עָרוּך , literally: "Set Table"), sometimes dubbed in English as the Code of Jewish Law, is the most widely consulted of the various legal codes in Judaism. It was authored in Safed (today in Israel) by Joseph Karo in 1563 and published in Venice two years later. Together with its commentaries, it is the most widely accepted compilation of Jewish law ever written. The ''halachic'' rulings in the ''Shulchan Aruch'' generally follow Sephardic law and customs, whereas Ashkenazi Jews generally follow the halachic rulings of Moses Isserles, whose glosses to the ''Shulchan Aruch'' note where the Sephardic and Ashkenazi customs differ. These glosses are widely referred to as the ''mappah'' (literally: the "tablecloth") to the ''Shulchan Aruch's'' "Set Table". Almost all published editions of the ''Shulchan Aruch'' include this gloss, and the term "Shulchan Aruch" has come to denote ''both'' Karo's work as well as Isserles', with Karo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
