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57 C h a p t e r 2 B’nai B’rith as Platform for an American Jewish Identity, 1850–75 Growth, Development, and Function of the Order Between 1850 and 1875, the Independent Order of B’nai B’rith developed new organizational structures and a sense of mission that would characterize its identity and its function as a driving force in the development of a modern and specifically American Jewish identity for decades to come. The development of B’nai B’rith during this consolidation phase was not only strongly influenced by the continuing immigration from Central Europe but also by the beginning of internal migration to the American West. In the period between 1840 and 1870, a total of around 140,000 Germanspeaking Jews arrived in the United States.1 At first, only a minority of young, single, and mobile men or young families joined Jewish congregations. The reasons for this are to be found in the immigrants’ high mobility and in the fact that they frequently were unable to find appropriate German congregations or else could not afford membership. Their need for acculturation and their simultaneous desire to maintain a Jewish community linked them to the expanding fraternal movement, which provided immigrants with the opportunity to experience various elements of civil and religious identity, to hold fast to both German and Jewish elements, and at the same time to advance their transformation into a Jewry with a national self-awareness—as American Jews. The affinity European immigrants showed with the order concept brought about an unexpectedly large and rapid growth in B’nai B’rith, making it into the first national Jewish organization. When a number of outstanding theologians, mostly followers of the radical Reform movement who were disillusioned by the religious and political situation in the German territorial states, immigrated to the United C H A P T E R 2 58 States in the mid-1850s, the Reform idea assumed a new momentum. As a result, the theological establishment of an American Reform movement became a genuine possibility and was actively pursued. Alongside Leo Merzbacher in New York, and together with Max Lilienthal and Isaac M. Wise, who had both been living in Cincinnati since 1854, a range of first-rate theologians began exerting a powerful influence on the religious development of a future American Israel. This circle included David Einhorn, who had lived in Baltimore since 1855; Bernhard Felsenthal , who had been active in Indiana since 1854 and later moved on to Chicago ; Samuel Hirsch, who came to Philadelphia in 1866; and Samuel Adler, who became the rabbi of Temple Emanu-El in New York following Merzbacher ’s death. Their presence, the constant growth of the congregations, and the desire to anchor a genuinely modern Judaism in America provoked a discussion on the future religious content and structure of this new American Judaism. Inspired by the idea of advancing the Reform idea in America, the Reform rabbis faced the central challenge of finding a platform upon which to preserve Jewish identity and community while at the same time preventing complete assimilation. It was at this point that the notions of the religious leaders went radically separate ways. Proponents of moderate Reform, led by Wise, advocated the principle of Jewish cohesion through the creation of a religious union based on congregation membership. This union was to be based on the model of American churches with the goal of setting out fundamental theological principles as its basis and thus bindingly institutionalizing a religious authority. Furthermore, it was to coordinate a closer cooperation among the congregations in regard to congregational issues. However, Wise’s first attempt to implement such a “synod” to regulate Jewish life had failed thanks to resistance from the Lichtfreunde.2 The religious-cultural climate in the town of Cincinnati on the Ohio River, which had become one of the largest Jewish communities in the country through internal migration and where Wise was excitedly received by Congregation KK B’nai Yeshurun, may have reinforced Wise’s old plans. Here in the West, the region of the Ohio and Mississippi valleys, which was still regarded as the frontier, there was hardly religious authority or organizational cohesion to be found. Frederick Jackson Turner described the society of the West as “atomic.” He averred that “the unchecked development of the individual was the significant product of this frontier democracy,” thus describing the deep roots that the idea of the republic...

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