The Secret History of Reform Judaism

The first Reform Jewish service in history looked almost exactly like a Lutheran church service. Seesen, Germany, 1810: organ music, German hymns, clerical robes, and a synagogue service reshaped for modern European Jews. That was not accidental. Reform Judaism began in a crisis: Jews across Western Europe were converting to Christianity in large numbers, and reformers believed the synagogue had to become more orderly, dignified, vernacular, and church-like if Judaism was going to survive. This is the story of Israel Jacobson, Moses Mendelssohn's descendants, the Hamburg Temple, Samuel Holdheim's Sunday services, Zacharias Frankel's walkout, Isaac Mayer Wise's American institutions, the Treyfa Banquet, the Pittsburgh Platform, and the later return of Zionism, Hebrew, Shabbat, and ritual into Reform Judaism. A history of a movement that began by adapting the forms of the church – and then spent two centuries finding its way back toward Jewish tradition.