Reform Judaism

Reform Judaism, as the term is understood in North America, refers to the first modern branch of Judaism that originated in Germany in the 1800s. This liberalizing movement sought to reform and modernize Jewish belief and practice in light of contemporary scholarship and views, and followed German Jewish emigration to countries including The United States of America, where it is currently the largest branch of Judaism. Its principles include:

Classic German Reform prayer services

The Reform movement in its earlier stages involved sweeping changes in public worship, in the direction of rendering them more like what could be found in services of Protestant Christians. With this in view, the length of the services was reduced by omitting certain parts of the prayer-book. In addition, the piyyutim (poetical compositions written by medieval poets or prose-writers) were curtailed.

Related Topics:
Protestant - Piyyutim

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The Reform movement gradually removed the majority of traditional prayers from the Jewish prayer book; instead of translating the prayers into modern German, they were usually deleted. In their place Reform liturgists created new liturgies that had only a few paragraphs in Hebrew, surrounded by German chorals, and occasional sermons in the vernacular. The rite of confirmation for teenagers also was introduced, first in the duchy of Brunswick, at the Jacobson Institute. These measures were aimed at the esthetic regeneration of the liturgy rather than at the principles of Jewish faith or modification of Jewish law.

Related Topics:
Jewish prayer book - Jacobson

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The Reform movement later took on an altogether different aspect in consequence, on the one hand, of the rise of Wissenschaft des Judentums, or "Science of Judaism," the first-fruits of which were the investigations of Leopold Zunz, and the advent of young rabbis who, in addition to a thorough training in Talmudic and rabbinical literature, had received an academic education, coming thereby under the umbrella of German philosophic thought.

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On the other hand the struggle for the political emancipation of the Jews (Gabriel Riesser) suggested a revision of the doctrinal enunciations concerning the Messianic nationalism of Judaism. Toward the end of the fourth and at the beginning of the fifth decade of the nineteenth century the yearnings, which up to that time had been rather undefined, for a readjustment of the teachings and practices of Judaism to the new mental and material conditions took on definiteness in the establishment of congregations and societies such as the Temple congregation at Hamburg and the Reform Union in Frankfurt (Main), and in the convening of the rabbinical conferences at Brunswick (1844), Frankfurt (1845), and Breslau (1846).

Related Topics:
Gabriel Riesser - Hamburg - Frankfurt - Brunswick - 1844 - 1845 - Breslau - 1846

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These in turn led to controversies, while the Jüdische Reform-Genossenschaft in Berlin in its program easily outran the more conservative majority of the rabbinical conferences. The movement may be said to have come to a standstill in Germany with the Breslau conference (1846). The Breslau Seminary under Zecharias Frankel (1854) was instrumental in turning the tide into conservative or, as the party shibboleth phrased it, into "positive historical" channels, while the governments did their utmost to hinder a liberalization of Judaism.

Related Topics:
Berlin - Zecharias Frankel - 1854 - Positive historical

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