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2 Cincinnati: The Earlier and Later Years MARC LEE RAPHAEL Judah Leon Magnes spent a relatively brief period of his life in Cincinnati , but the academic community as well as Cincinnati Jewry at large contributed much to his thought, values, and interests, and he, in return, gave much to them. Magnes's Cincinnati phase comprises three segments: his student years at the Hebrew Union College, his brief tenure as a member of the Hebrew Union College faculty, and several decades later, his relationship with its leaders and some of its professors. Magnes attended the University of Cincinnati from 1894 to 1898 while studying simultaneously at the Hebrew Union College (he was ordained in 1900), a joint program common among rabbinic students from the earliest years of the college through the 1960s. In his senior year at the university, he was selected editor-in-chief of the student magazine, and as Arthur Goren notes, "when the faculty insisted on censoring student criticism of professors Magnes led a rebellion that agitated the university for months." That revealing episode, documented in detail in the university's archives, is not only instructive about Magnes at ages nineteen and twenty, but tells us a great deal about the character traits of the future leader.l The trouble began at the "Class Night" or graduation party of the Class of 1897, as Magnes finished his junior year. According to the Cincinnatian, the class annual, Magnes would edit the following academic year, "the most talkative man in the class" was Hyman G. Enelow, a brilliant student and record-setting hammer thrower, who 29 30 PART I. YOUTH AND EDUCATION would be ordained at the Hebrew Union College in 1898, two years before Magnes, and go on to a distinguished rabbinic and scholarly career. At the party, Enelow, as master of ceremonies, made certain peculiarities of the professors the butt of his humor, and this, coupled with similar remarks in the annual, led the faculty to announce that in the following year - Magnes's last - it would censor the annual and supervise the Class NighU Magnes, elected editor of the 1898 Cincinnatian, understood the faculty's sensitivity and agreed not to publish items ridiculing professors in the annual, while the class agreed to cancel Class Night in order to guarantee that no faculty roast would be staged. But these actions were not enough: the faculty informed Magnes that it intended to read all manuscripts submitted to the Cincinnatian for publication to guarantee that nothing objectionable would appear. Magnes vigorously opposed this censorship - with protests and petitions, in letters and meetings, sometimes gently and sometimes much more aggressively - and he succeeded in winning from the faculty, which he labeled "our inferiors;' a promise not to read manuscripts submitted to the Cincinnatian but to trust the editor. His closest friend, also a senior and a rabbinic student, was said to differ from Magnes in only one way, namely that "Solomon Lowenstein has sometimes treated the faculty with respectful consideration:'3 Magnes's election as editor was not fortuitous and his vigorous pursuit of academic freedom did not come suddenly; as a sophomore he had argued for private polling booths - previously unheard of for class elections, and as a junior he had defended Enelow before the English faculty. Enelow, editor of the monthly McMicken Review of literature and a Fellow in the Department of English, had written some "scurrilous editorials" regarding the relations between his senior class and the faculty. Having enraged the faculty, Enelow was suspended from the university, removed from the Review, and, unless he would "exculpate himself to the satisfaction of the faculty;' was to be dropped as a Fellow. Together with his advocate, Magnes, he appeared before the faculty, and after mildly apologizing for his editorials, was reinstated as a student. By then, Magnes had abundant experience with faculty sensitivity to criticism in a student publication , but persisted in arguing for the right to do precisely that in the Cincinnatian. When, according to the students, he could no longer "sacrifice his honesty of purpose and personal convictions;' and when, according to Magnes, he became disgusted with "men so false;' he resigned the editorship. Even after his resignation, however, Magnes "continued to make several trips to the Dean's office by Cincinnati: The Earlier and Later Years 31 request:' Clearly, Magnes's activism and dedication to civil liberties had become an essential feature of his life. As he wrote to his parents during what he called the "rebellion...
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