The Synagogue in America: A Short History

by Marc Lee Raphael

Overview

Read the Jewish Idea Daily's review here.
In 1789, when George Washington was elected the first president of the United States, laymen from all six Jewish congregations in the new nation sent him congratulatory letters. He replied to all six. Thus, after more than a century of Jewish life in colonial America the small communities of Jews present at the birth of the nation proudly announced their religious institutions to the country and were recognized by its new leader. By this time, the synagogue had become the most significant institution of American Jewish life, a dominance that was not challenged until the twentieth century, when other institutions such as Jewish community centers or Jewish philanthropic organizations claimed to be the hearts of their Jewish communities.

Concise yet comprehensive, The Synagogue in America is the first history of this all-important structure, illuminating its changing role within the American Jewish community over the course of three centuries. From Atlanta and Des Moines to Los Angeles and New Orleans, Marc Lee Raphael moves beyond the New York metropolitan area to examine Orthodox, Reform, Conservative, and Reconstuctionist synagogue life everywhere. Using the records of approximately 125 Jewish congregations, he traces the emergence of the synagogue in the United States from its first instances in the colonial period, when each of the half dozen initial Jewish communities had just one synagogue each, to its proliferation as the nation and the American Jewish community grew and diversified.

Encompassing architecture, forms of worship, rabbinic life, fundraising, creative liturgies, and feminism, The Synagogue in America is the go-to history for understanding the synagogue’s significance in American Jewish life.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780814775820
Publisher:	New York University Press
Publication date:	04/18/2011
Pages:	259
Product dimensions:	5.80(w) x 8.40(h) x 0.80(d)

About the Author

Marc Lee Raphael is Gumenick Professor of Judaic Studies, Professor of Religious Studies, and Director of the Program in Judaic Studies at The College of William and Mary. His recent books include The Columbia History of Jews and Judaism in America; Diary of a Los Angeles Jew, 1947-1972: Autobiography as Autofiction; and Judaism in America.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments vii

1 Building the Synagogue Community in Colonial America: The Earliest Years 1

2 Reforming Judaism Everywhere: Ushering in Change in the Nineteenth Century 15

3 An Explosion of Immigrant Synagogues: Jewish Mass Migration to America 44

4 Conservative and Orthodox Judaism Define Themselves: Between the Wars 66

5 Expanding Suburbs and Synagogues: The Post-World War II Years 120

6 Reinventing, Experimenting, and Racheting Up: Judaism after 1967 169

Appendix: Counting Synagogues 209

Sources 211

Index 227

About the Author 247

What People are Saying About This

From the Publisher

“A virtuoso in several genres of American Jewish history, but a specialist in the evolution of American Judaism, Marc Lee Raphael has produced the culminating work of his career. This synoptic account of the institution of the American synagogue—and in effect of the rabbinate as well—is punctuated with wonderful insights and assured generalizations. The author wears his learning lightly. A fascinating scholarly overview, The Synagogue in America also happens to be a pleasure to read.”

-Stephen J. Whitfield,Brandeis University

“Thanks to years of relentless toiling through synagogue archives coast to coast, and by virtue of his close examination of prayer books and rabbis' sermons, Marc Lee Raphael has provided readers with intriguing vistas and insights into the contours of Jewish religious life from the founding of the earliest communities in America to the present day. Written in clear prose by a master teacher, this volume will be welcomed both within university classrooms and in congregational study groups.”

-Jeffrey S. Gurock,Libby M. Klaperman Professor of Jewish History, Yeshiva University

“No one knows more about the American synagogue than Marc Lee Raphael, whose compact yet comprehensive study reveals the astonishing diversity of Jewish congregational life over the last three centuries. Leaving dry institutional history in the dust, Raphael vividly conveys how the synagogue reflected the concerns, needs, and tastes of American Jews, as well as the contradictions that so often characterized their religious identities..”

-Eric L. Goldstein,author of The Price of Whiteness: Jews, Race, and American Identity

“A useful and concise scholarly treatise, which neatly interweaves the facts of the evolution of the American synagogue.”

-Library Journal,

"Raphael, a Reform rabbi and professor of religious studies at the College of William and Mary, has written a concise, detailed history of the synagogue as a religious institution in the U.S." -Booklist

Editorial Reviews

A leading American Jewish historian as well as an ordained rabbi, Raphael, chair in Judaic studies at the College of William and Mary, has written or edited many books and articles. His latest contribution is this brief overview of synagogues in America, beginning with the six that existed in 1789, when George Washington became president, and continuing to the present, when some estimate the number to be between 3,500 and 4,000. In a two-page appendix, "Counting Synagogues," Raphael argues cogently that these numbers are fallacious, saying that the definition of "religious body" used in enumeration is too vague. He arranges his presentation chronologically and denominationally, touching lightly on synagogue history among Reform, Conservative, Orthodox, and Reconstructionist Jews. A Reform rabbi himself, he pays somewhat more attention to that branch of Judaism. He discusses synagogue architecture, but the few pictures he offers hardly do justice to this subject, which has been treated extensively in other books. Similarly, the entire topic of American synagogues is dealt with far more thoroughly by such writers as Kerry M. Olitzky, Samuel C. Heilman, and Jack Wertheimer. Despite his far-ranging research, Raphael makes only a minimally useful contribution to the existing literature on the American synagogue. (Apr.)

Publishers Weekly

"Raphael has a storytellers talent and a scholars mastery of the subject. His vivid portraits of synagogue life and its many permutations and his respect for all aspects of Jewish congregational life make this book appealing to all readers who relish reading Jewish and American history."

Jewish Book Council

"Raphael's book is finely written and provides an accessible overview of the major historical, demographic, and liturgical changes in the synaogogue's long and ever-adapting history...[it is] an engaging portrait of the emergence of Jewish congregations during the Colonial and early-Republican periods."

Jewish Ideas Daily - Allan Nadler

"In the first ever study to look at American Jewish history through its synagogues, Raphael looks at the changing role of the synagogue from colonial days whe it was the central address of the community to the present, when other institutions also dominate. Reporting on synagogues in cities and suburbs around the country, he writes about prayer, rabbinic leadership, architecture, fund-raising, feminism and social life."

New York Jewish Week - Sandee Brawarsky

". . . a brilliant new interpretation of American synagogue history"

The Jewish Daily Forward - Lawrence Grossman

"Raphael, a Reform rabbi and professor of religious studies at the College of William and Mary, has written a concise, detailed history of the synagogue as a religious institution in the U.S."

Booklist

"A virtuoso in several genres of American Jewish history, but a specialist in the evolution of American Judaism, Marc Lee Raphael has produced the culminating work of his career. This synoptic account of the institution of the American synagogueand in effect of the rabbinate as wellis punctuated with wonderful insights and assured generalizations. The author wears his learning lightly. A fascinating scholarly overview, The Synagogue in America also happens to be a pleasure to read."

Stephen J. Whitfield

"Thanks to years of relentless toiling through synagogue archives coast to coast, and by virtue of his close examination of prayer books and rabbis' sermons, Marc Lee Raphael has provided readers with intriguing vistas and insights into the contours of Jewish religious life from the founding of the earliest communities in America to the present day. Written in clear prose by a master teacher, this volume will be welcomed both within university classrooms and in congregational study groups."

Jeffrey S. Gurock

"Raphael . . . has produced a short, highly readable and wholly illuminating study that will delight anyone who has ever sat in shul and told himself the beloved old Jewish joke that ends with the punch line: 'To that one, I never go."

JewishJournal.com - Jonathan Kirsch

"Raphael, one of the foremost scholars on American Judaism and American Jewish history, has written a first rate account of a fundamental institution in American Jewish life. . . He offers precise portraits of individual synagogues but also shows how those institutions, in the aggregate, reveal larger patterns of affiliation, worship, leadership, and design. . . It is a rare treat to read a historical review this compact and full of personality."

Net Reviews - Emily Katz

"Raphael offers an insightful, scholarly, and comprehensive overview of the evolution and changing role of the American synagogue""

Choice - D.B. Levy

"No one knows more about the American synagogue than Marc Lee Raphael, whose compact yet comprehensive study reveals the astonishing diversity of Jewish congregational life over the last three centuries. Leaving dry institutional history in the dust, Raphael vividly conveys how the synagogue reflected the concerns, needs, and tastes of American Jews, as well as the contradictions that so often characterized their religious identities.."

Eric L. Goldstein

"This 'short history' of the synagogue in America is concise, fairly comprehensive, and the first of its kind."

Jewish Review of Books - Riv-Ellen Prell

"Raphael...has produced a short, highly readable and wholly illuminating study that will delight anyone who has ever seat in shul and told himself the beloved old Jewish joke that ends with the punch line: 'To that one, I never go." The book is a solid work of scholarship..."

The Jewish Journal of Greater Los Angeles

"Raphael's book is finely written and provides an accessible overview of the major historical, demographic, and liturgical changes in the synaogogue's long and ever-adapting history...[it is] an engaging portrait of the emergence of Jewish congregations during the Colonial and early-Republican periods."-Allan Nadler,Jewish Ideas Daily

“A virtuoso in several genres of American Jewish history, but a specialist in the evolution of American Judaism, Marc Lee Raphael has produced the culminating work of his career. This synoptic account of the institution of the American synagogue—and in effect of the rabbinate as well—is punctuated with wonderful insights and assured generalizations. The author wears his learning lightly. A fascinating scholarly overview, The Synagogue in America also happens to be a pleasure to read.”

-Stephen J. Whitfield,Brandeis University

From the Publisher

In this brief yet detailed account, Raphael (religious studies, Coll. of William & Mary; Judaism in America) demonstrates how the evolution of the synagogue in America created a distinctly American Judaism. The majority of the book, which is arranged chronologically, focuses on the years from the 19th century to the present, the period of the most drastic changes in American synagogues, as well as in American Judaism in general. Raphael provides only a cursory treatment of the synagogue in Colonial America and nearly no background on synagogues in Europe before the colonization of the United States. A more detailed look at these two topics would have provided readers with a better background to understand the changes taking place in the centuries that followed. Raphael occasionally addresses the driving sociological forces behind this evolution, although they are often implied rather than fully discussed. Given all these circumstances, this book is best paired with a narrative social history of American Judaism. VERDICT A useful and concise scholarly treatise, which neatly interweaves the facts of the evolution of the American synagogue but is, ultimately, not contextualized enough to be an engaging read.—Amanda Folk, Univ. of Pittsburgh Lib., Greensburg

Library Journal