Leaders of American Reform Judaism Commence Sessions in Cleveland

(Jewish Daily Bulletin)

Delegates from all over the country are arriving here to attend the thirtieth biennial convention of the Union of American Hebrew Congregations which opens Monday at the Cleveland Hotel. About 1500 delegates representing every section of the country are expected. The main topic of the convention will be the Perpetuation of Judaism.

A distributed report outlines the growth of the organization during the last two years. At present it comprises 278 congregations with a membership of 56,860. The National Federation of Temple Sisterhoods has 325 constituent societies with a membership of 55,000.

Another report dealt with the Hebrew Union College at Cincinnati. This year the college has an enrollment of 115 students, the largest in its history, according to the report.

During the all day session of the Executive Board today the plans and agenda of the convention were worked out. A religious service was held tonight at The Temple where Dr. David Philipson of Cincinnati and Dr. Solomon B. Frechof of Chicago were the principal speakers.

Dr. Philipson reviewed the history of Reform Judaism in America. He emphasized the importance of Reform Judaism as a spiritual aspect which perpetuates religion. “The United States had to produce an American Judaism, and it did,” Dr. Philipson declared. “What we mean by American Judaism is something as distinctive as were Palestinian and Hellenistic Judaism of old, as was Babylonian Judaism somewhat later, as was Spanish Judaism in medieval days and Russian Judaism in modern times.”

Reform Judaism has demonstrated, he said, that the age-old Jewish faith could be adapted to modern conditions and modern thought, and it was a part of the modernist movement, “which holds that religion is not a closed chapter, but that it is still in the making.”

“The Jew lives in the modern world, not apart from it,” Dr. Philipson stated “The separation of medieval ghettoism had yielded to participation in the culture and interests of the society in which he lives and whereof he forms a part. Here the strength of Judaism must meet its supreme test.”

Referring to Zionism, he said that although he considers the political and nationalistic tendencies of Zionism as narrowing the spiritual aspect of it, he is not unsympathetic to the efforts of developing Palestine.

Dr. Philipson is the only survivor of the formulators of the Articles of Faith of Reform Judaism at the Pittsburgh convention in 1885.

Dr. Freehof devoted his address to the present conditions of religious life. Analyzing the different groups as Orthodoxy, semi-Orthodoxy and others, he said that no other Judaism but reform can exist. He sees Judaism of the future transformed by the new power awakening in Jewish life.

Dr. Freehof took issue with Dr. Philipson, stating that Reform Judaism should not abrogate to itself a sense of perfection and that logically a mighty case can still be made out for Orthodoxy, its dignified and noble attribute of self-restraint. The Reform movement should be humble since it has not brought about great changes through its own philosophy, but rather that life itself has effected these changes. Dr. Freehof cited a re-birth of the sense of art as one of the profound changes now occurring in American Jewry. Among young people especially, he said, there was a striving for expression in poetry, music, painting, sculpture and drama, all of which would have a deep effect on Judaism of the future.

“This art interest has been hitherto a path of escape,” he explained. “Youth went forth for that which it felt was missing in Jewish life. Neither orthodoxy with its restraints, nor reform with its austerities, seemed to have the grace of beauty. Rightly or wrongly it was outside the synagogue where they sought the splendors of life.

“And they are finding what they seek. More than any generation that preceded it anywhere in Jewish history, Young Israel is permeated with the joy which hides in color, form and cadence. Such a generation will never tolerate a Judaism which is coldly intellectual. A sombre form of faith from which merriment and play have all but vanished will not maintain itself unchanged in the coming generation.

“When the beauty-loving children of the coming generation once take hold of the Jewish life which we will have bequeathed to them, Judaism will be transformed in their hands.”

The Judaism of the future would have more devoutness and spiritual fervor, he added. Instead of taking a coldly scientific attitude towards the world they live in, he predicted, the Jewish people “will have heard the tidings of new philosophies–philosophies of energy and life, of mystery and change, philosophies more akin to the inherited Jewish tendency to see the work as a living process in which man and God are the eternal partners and coartists in the world’s evolution.”

An encouraging outlook for the spiritual awakening of the entire world was pictured by Adolph S. Ochs, publisher of the New York “Times.”

Mr. Ochs was to have occupied the pulpit of Rabbi A. H. Silver at The Temple Sunday morning. Due to delay in his arrival he was unable to address the congregation, and he consented that he remarks be printed.

“I see an awakening to the fact that what we, as a religious people, have preserved through centuries of oppression and suffering is rapidly becoming the universally accepted conception of the parenthood of God and the brotherhood of man.” Mr. Ochs said.

“It is called modernism but it harks back to the underlying principles of the faith of an ancient people, who gave to civilization and humanity the Ten Commandments, the prophets, the Proverbs and the Psalms.

“Dogmas, doctrines, tenets, creeds and ordinances of religious faith that beget narrowness and bigotry are being discarded, revoked and destroyed.

” ‘Lux et veritas,’ says the motto of Yale, and it is emblazoned on its shield not only in Latin but also in Hebrew.

“What we need is more light, more love, better understanding; and with light we must have truth.

“We hear much talk of prejudice, discrimination, exclusion of Jews, etc. My opinion is that we overemphasize these manifestations. We are supersensitive and are conjuring up ghosts of prejudice.

“In these days a Jew Lord Chief Justice and Viceroy and Governor of India, a Jew a member of the United States Supreme Court, a Jew Minister of Foreign Affairs of Germany, a Jew Lord Mayor of London, a Jew High Commissioner of Palestine and a Jew Chief Justice of the Court of Appeals of the State of New York by the unanimous choice of both parties. I need not go further to impress you with the changed and changing position of the Jew.

“What is the universal opinion of a Jew who does not wish to be known as a Jew? That he is ashamed of his parentage, perhaps disowning his sisters and brothers, a deserter of his kith and kin. Does any one respect such a person? What does he get out of life? Perhaps while basking in the hypocritical smiles of those who hold him in contempt, he may flatter himself that he has some of the joy of life, but if he has any intelligence and self-respect he must at times despise himself and feel akin to a man without a country,” Mr. Ochs declared.