Who Rules the Synagogue? explores how American Jewry in the nineteenth century transformed from a lay dominated community to one whose leading religious authorities were rabbis. Zev Eleff weaves together the significant episodes and debates that shaped American Judaism during this formative period, and places this story into the larger context of American religious history and modern Jewish history.
Chronicles the history of the Jewish synagogue in America over the course of three centuries, discussing its changing role in the American Jewish community.
This study of synagogue music in the United States in the second half of the nineteenth century “sets a high standard for historical musicology” (Musica Judaica). In Jewish Religious Music in Nineteenth-Century America: Restoring the Synagogue Soundtrack, Judah M. Cohen demonstrates that Jews constructed a robust religious musical conversation in the United States during the mid- to late-nineteenth century. While previous studies of American Jewish music history have looked to Europe as a source of innovation during this time, Cohen’s careful analysis of primary archival sources tells a different story. Far from seeing a fallow musical landscape, Cohen finds that Central European Jews in the United States spearheaded a major revision of the sounds and traditions of synagogue music during this period of rapid liturgical change. Focusing on the influences of both individuals and texts, Cohen demonstrates how American Jewish musicians sought to balance artistry and group singing, rather than “progressing” from solo chant to choir and organ. Congregations shifted between musical genres and practices during this period in response to such factors as finances, personnel, and communal cohesiveness. Cohen concludes that the “soundtrack” of nineteenth-century Jewish American music heavily shapes how we look at Jewish American music and life in the first part of the twenty-first century, arguing that how we see, and especially hear, history plays a key role in our understanding of the contemporary world around us. Supplemented with an interactive website that includes the primary source materials, recordings of the music discussed, and a map that highlights the movement of key individuals, Cohen’s research defines more clearly the sound of nineteenth-century American Jewry.
American Synagogues is the first book to explore the exceptional architecture of modern American synagogues in the twentieth century, and this intriguing book relates the fascinating history of the Jewish people in America and how it is expressed in twentieth-century synagogue design. The book features all new photography of synagogues in many styles from a dozen states, many never before published in any form. The synagogues were designed by European masters, the best-known modern American architects, and by important contemporary architects including Frank Lloyd Wright, Philip Johnson, and Minoru Yamasaki.
Beyond the Synagogue Gallery recounts the emergence of new roles for American Jewish women in public worship and synagogue life. Karla Goldman's study of changing patterns of female religiosity is a story of acculturation, of adjustments made to fit Jewish worship into American society. Goldman focuses on the nineteenth century. This was an era in which immigrant communities strove for middle-class respectability for themselves and their religion, even while fearing a loss of traditions and identity. For acculturating Jews some practices, like the ritual bath, quickly disappeared. Women's traditional segregation from the service in screened women's galleries was gradually replaced by family pews and mixed choirs. By the end of the century, with the rising tide of Jewish immigration from Russia and Eastern Europe, the spread of women's social and religious activism within a network of organizations brought collective strength to the nation's established Jewish community. Throughout these changing times, though, Goldman notes persistent ambiguous feelings about the appropriate place of women in Judaism, even among reformers. This account of the evolving religious identities of American Jewish women expands our understanding of women's religious roles and of the Americanization of Judaism in the nineteenth century; it makes an essential contribution to the history of religion in America.
Assesses the current state of American Jewish life, drawing on the research and thinking of scholars from a variety of disciplines and diverse points of view.
