The Bulletin’s Day Book

It is no secret that Dr. Samuel Schulman was retired against his will by Temple Emanu-El. This rabbi had no desire to be make an emeritus, even when that, position carried with it life salary of $12,000 a year. But with the illness of Dr. Krass, the balance of the Emanu-El rabbinical triumvirate was disturbed and the directorate of the temple had for some time realized that its leadership was out of line with the times.

It was also a rabbinical truism that no first-line rabbi would come to New York’s Jewish cathedral so long as Dr. Schulman was actively connected with it. His set ideas and his definite leadership, coupled with his seniority, were factors that made discretion the better part of valor for the rabbi who was tempted to leave his happy provincial home for the metropolis. It was thus force of circumstances that resulted in the retirement of the late Dr. Hyman G. Enelow and Rabbis Krass and Schulman.

The retirement of Dr. Schulman, one of the leading lights of the Reform rabbinate, is a loss to the metropolis and to Judaism. His mind is still active, his body agile anl his voice quite as overpowering as it was in his younger days. It was a happy thought that resulted in the election of Dr. Schulman to the chairmanship of the Synagogue Council of America.

This Union of American Hebrew Congregations, the United Synagogue and the Union of Orthodox Hebrew Congregations, each with its rabbinical affiliate-had become Jewish scene. One hears about each of its component parts. One is aware of the American Jewish Committee and the American Jewish Congress. The B’nai B’rith is always in the background and the Untermyer Non-Sectarian Boycott League and the Jewish War Veterans are newly significant with the rise of Hitlerism. But rarely does one hear of the Synagogue Council.

This condition is not likely to continue. Dr. Schulman intimated so in his post-election pronunciamento. Calling his organization “unique” in the Jewish field by reason of its all-inclusive Judaism, had issued s statement demanding a place for it in the Jewish scene. Particularly did he stress the fact that Judaism, which is a religion, should get a measure of its leadership from its religious leaders. The laiety, Dr. Schulman feels a thought long dormant in his mind-has usurped too great a degree of leadership.

With Dr. Schulman unhampered by synagogue affiliations and with the council his only interest, one may safely wager that the Synagogue Council will come to life again. And now Dr. Schulman may return from his short period of retirement, a short few months he scarcely enjoyed and did not accept too gracefully.

Speaking about it recently at a meeting of the Board of Jewish Ministers gathered to pay homage to Dr. H. Pereira Menders on the occasion of his sixtieth anniversary in the ministry. Dr. Schulman told of an informal conversation with some Jewish leaders in which lay members ruthlessly over-ruled the council of the rabbinical members.

“I couldn’t accept this quietly,” Dr. Schulman said. “I suppose I wasn’t quite used to being an emeritus yet.”

At this meeting Dr. Schulman also told of the message received from Dr. Mendes on the announcement of his retirement. He told of the letter from the aged rabbi which quoted Dr. Gaster’s definition of a rabbi emeritus: “A living corpse buried in a silver casket.”

“But this,” said Dr. Schulman, “doesn’t apply to me. I am buried in a gold casket. The last rabbi retired by Emanu-El lived to be over eighty. It was great joke on the trustees.” H. W. L.