The theology of conservative Judaism

Judaism, Spring, 1998 by Arnold Jacob Wolf

The Old Seminary (1886-1902) was a quasi-Orthodox institution, already funded by German liberal Jews who wanted to Americanize the new immigrants without depriving them of Jewish religious traditions, which were surprisingly important to the Reform benefactors. Kaufmann Kohler, President of the Hebrew Union College, was one of its examiners, which shows that the school was not only committed to tradition. HUC students sometimes attended summer sessions. A merger with the Cincinnati school was at least discussed, though, apparently, doomed from the start. In any case, "social elevation" of the massive new immigrant Orthodoxy was the school's primary aim, and it hoped to replace a segmented and unprofessional collection of small synagogues with an Englishspeaking, but also observant, clergy. German Jewish millionaires and welleducated rabbis agreed on this double aim.

The Jewish Theological Seminary of America properly begins with the presidency of Solomon Schechter (1902-1915), who came from Cambridge in England to assume responsibility for the reorganization and direction of the school. A well-known philologist and essayist, Schechter was the right man in the right place at a crucial time. He was imposing, learned and delightfully British, clearly in charge of everything, with Cyrus Adler, himself a Biblical and Semitics scholar, as his acquiescent Chairman of the Board.

For Schechter, scholarship, including the creation of a center for Jewish scholars and Jewish books was the foremost desideratum, and he achieved both goals. The Seminary was often called simply "Schechter's" and with good reason. He put his stamp on the thinking and program of study and research for a century and deserves the honor of being a founder whose work bore good and lasting fruit. He wrote:

Every discovery of an ancient document giving evidence of a bygone world is . . . an act of resurrection in miniature. How the past suddenly rushes in upon you with all its joys and woes! And there is a spark of human soul like yours come to light again after a disappearance of centuries, crying for sympathy and mercy. . . . You dare not neglect the appeal and slay this soul again. (I, p. 59f)

Cyrus Adler (1902-1940), no rabbi but a Ph.D. from new and promising Johns Hopkins University, was only a part-time leader. He was also president of numerous other institutions, including the American Jewish Committee and Dropsie College, founded by a gift of Moses Dropsie that outstripped all the benefactions to the Seminary at that time. Adler never moved to New York from Philadelphia He was more traditional than his predecessor but also more professional, and more pluralistic. As he wrote Kaplan:

We are all modern men, we do not engage in inquisitions or heresy hunting and we are brought up in the general doctrine of academic freedom. . . . We have all been personal friends and we must continue to be, but I think we are civilized enough to recognize and even discuss our differences without destroying our friendships. (I, p. 115)