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Working Jews: Hazanim and the Labor of Religion in Nineteenth-Century America

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 June 2018

Shari Rabin
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Abstract

This article uses the case of hazanim, nonordained Jewish religious functionaries, to explore how religious work operated as a market activity in the nineteenth century. Building on recent work at the intersection of religion, class, and capitalism, it recasts ministers, rabbis, and other religious leaders as contracted workers who sought ways to acquire wages through the specific marketing of ritual authority. Scholars have described the history of the American ministry as a path toward professionalization, seen as the outcome of clerical self-assertion in the aftermath of disestablishment. These accounts, however, ignore the everyday social and economic factors shaping the development of American religious institutions, which were particularly challenging for Jews, who had specific needs for religious labor, no existential distinction between ministers and congregants, and no institutional infrastructure to oversee qualifications and placement. As Jews founded congregations in the United States, they required particular human resources, which were acquired through unregulated contracts and unreliable credentials. These complex conditions contributed to the possibility of religious exploitation, personal fraud, communal instability, interpersonal distrust, and social conflict, which shifted in meaning and intersected with notions of religious authenticity. In this context, Jews increasingly prioritized preaching and teaching and founded national institutions, which together would make religious work more specialized, labor markets more efficient, and the resultant professionals more reliable in their work. Understanding religious workers in this way encourages us to see how religion was, and is, labor.

Keywords

JudaismLaborCapitalismNineteenth CenturyMinisters
Type
Research Article
Information
Religion and American Culture , Volume 25 , Issue 2 , Summer 2015 , pp. 178 - 217
Copyright
Copyright © Center for the Study of Religion and American Culture 2015

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References

Notes

I wish to acknowledge the following for their crucial feedback during the conceptualization and writing of this article: the members of the American religious history writing group at Yale University, Andrew Seal, and members of the Hebrew Union College community who heard an early version of this paper during my time as a Rabbi Harold D. Hahn Memorial Fellow at the American Jewish Archives.

1. Wanted, Occident, February 1862. 2. The Hebrew ym can be transliterated as “hazan, ” “hazzan, ” “hasan, ” “chazan, ” “hazzan, or” “chasan. ” I use “hazan” unless quoting a primary source with a variant spelling.

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14. In Nevada City, California, a Mr. Lee of New York served, “but of course there were others who took their respective parts and conducted themselves with credit.” A. Rosenheim to Isaac Leeser, December 28. 1852, Box 2. Folder 2. MS-197, Isaac Leeser Papers, American Jewish Archives, Cincinnati, Ohio (hereafter cited as AJA). In Macon in 1867. a Mr. Cahn of Monezuma was “tender[ed] a note of thanks” and ten dollars for “his kind offer to serve during the holidays.” Minutes, July 21. 1867, Mss 151. Temple Beth Israel, Macon, Georgia, Oversize Folder, Cuba Archives of the Breman Museum, Atlanta, Georgia (hereafter cited as Cuba Archives).

15. Liberles, R., “Emancipation and the Structure of the Jewish Community in the Nineteenth Century,” Leo Baeck Institute Yearbook 31, (1986): 51–67;Google Scholar Berkovitz, Jay R., The Shaping of Jewish Identity in Nineteenth-century France (Detroit, Mich. : Wayne State University Press, 1989);Google Scholar Teller, Adam, “Rabbis without a Function? The Polish Rabbinate and the Council of Four Lands in the Sixteenth to Eighteenth Centuries,” in Wertheimer, Jewish Religious Leadership; Marc Saperstein, Jewish Preaching, 1200-1800: An Anthology (New Haven, Conn. : Yale University Press, 1989);Google Scholar Judd, Robin, Contested Rituals: Circumcision, Kosher Butchering, and Jewish Political Life in Germany, 1843-1933 (Ithaca, N. Y. : Cornell University Press, 2007);Google Scholar Hyman, Kublin, Akiva Zimmerman, and Rela M. Geffen, “Hazzan,' in Encyclopaedia Judaica, ed. Michael Berenbaum and Fred Skolnik, 2nd ed. , vol. 8 (Detroit: Macmillan Reference USA, 2007), 502-5, Gale Virtual Reference Library, accessed on February 4. 2014.

16. Petuchowski, J. J., “Abraham Geiger and Samuel Holdheim: Their Differences in Germany and Repercussions in America,” Leo Baeck Institute Yearbook 22. (1977): 139-59;CrossRefGoogle Scholar Meyer, Michael A., Response to Modernity: A History of the Reform Movement in Judaism (Detroit, Mich. : Wayne State University Press, 1995);Google Scholar Altman, Alexander, “The New Style of Preaching in Nineteenth-Century German Jewry,” in Essays in Jewish Intellectual History (Hanover, N. H. : University Press of New England, 1981).Google Scholar

17. Lyons, J. J. and Sola, Abraham De, A Jewish Calendar for Fifty Years… Years (Montreal: John Loveli, 1854).Google Scholar

18. On contracts, see Hurst, James Willard, Law and the Conditions of Freedom in the Nineteenth-Century United States (Madison, Wis. : University of Wisconsin Press, 1956), 11–18.Google Scholar

19. From Pueblo, Colorado, in 1870. a shochet reported, “having learnt Shechitah some years since, I make practical use of it here.” Jewish Messenger, April 29. 1870, cited in Berman, Jeremiah J., “The Trend in Jewish Religious Observance in Mid-Nineteenth Century America,” Publications of the American Jewish Historical Society 3. (1947): 31–53.Google Scholar On Jewish education in central Europe in the period, see Lowenstein, Steven M., “The Beginning of Integration,” in Jewish Daily Life in Germany, 1618-1945, ed. Kaplan, Marion A. (New York: Oxford University Press, 2005), 131-42.Google Scholar Training and certification of mohelim and shochetim were overseen by Jewish communities and governmental bodies in much of Europe. See Judd, Robin E., “German Jewish Rituals, Bodies, and Citizenship” (Ph. D. diss. , University of Michigan, 2000).Google Scholar

20. “The Jewish Ministry,” Occident 3, 1845, 577.

21. “The Scarcity of Ministers,” Jewish Messenger, August 31, 1860, 68. In July 186. alone, with the autumnal high holidays around the corner, the Israelite featured advertisements for hazans or rabbis in Williamsburg, Long Island; Richmond, Virginia; Honesdale, Pennsylvania; Lafayette, Indiana; San Francisco; Paducah, Kentucky; Petersburg, Virginia; Quincy, Illinois; New Orleans; New York City; Saint Louis; and St. Missouri, Joseph. Ads, Israelite , July 28, 1865, 30.Google Scholar

22. Annual Report; October 20. 1867, Minute Book, Magnes Collection on Congregation Ohabai Shalome, BANC MSS 2010/695, Magnes Collection of Jewish Art and Life, Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley (hereafter cited as Magnes).

23. “Why Judaism Meets with No Better Progress in This Country,” Israelite, May 2. 1856, 348. Leeser also objected to “the irreligious system of electing ministers… to select men of whom nobody knows anything, except that they have a voice, and whose learning is not inquired after, and whose principles are at times more than doubtful.” “H. A. Henry,” Occident 9, 1851. 271. Congregations, argued, Leeser, “engag[ed] men of whom they know nothing, except that they call themselves Rabbi, doctor of divinity, doctor of philosophy, or master of arts.” Note by the Editor, Occident 15, 1857, 496.Google Scholar

24. By 1836. the majority of Congregationalist, Episcopalian, and Presbyterian ministers were college graduates, Holifield, , God's Ambassadors, 115.Google Scholar Hatch, Nathan, The Democratization of American Christianity (New Haven, C. T. : Yale University Press, 1989), 18.Google Scholar Scott, From Office to Profession; Howe, Daniel Walker, “Church, State, and Education in the Young American Republic,” Journal of the Early Republic 22, (2002): 15.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

25. Paper documentation was becoming more important in other parts of the economy as well, amid increased mobility and anonymity. Mihm, Stephen, A Nation of Counterfeiters: Capitalists, Con Men, and the Making of the United States (Cambridge, Mass. : Harvard University Press, 2009);Google Scholar Lauer, Josh, “From Rumor to Written Record: Credit Reporting and the Invention of Financial Identity in Nineteenth-Century America,” Technology and Culture 49. (2008): 301-24.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

26. December 4 and 11. 1859, Minutes Book, Mss 151. Temple Beth Israel, Macon, Georgia, Cuba Archives.

27. Gershom Kursheedt of New Orleans asked Leeser about a candidate: “I want to know from you entre-nous if he is a safe man.” August 6, 1853, Box 1. Folder 3. MS-197, Isaac Leeser Papers, AJA. Henry S. Jacobs, just arrived in New York from Jamaica, wrote to Leeser in 185. declaring his presence, qualifications, and experience and requesting “the kind insertion of the same in the ‘Occident’ together with any remarks which may prove serviceable to me in this country.” January 13, 1854, Box 1. Folder 4. ibid. ; B. H. Gotthelf wrote that he “wished you had other correspondents here [who] might have written to you occasionally about me, something that could be to my advantage.” January 26. 1851, Box 1. Folder 3. ibid. Isaac Mayer Wise's credentials were never proven. He had attended yeshiva at Golsich-Jenikau and had spent a total of three years studying at the universities of Prague and Vienna, and although he described himself as a doctor, he never received a degree. Before emigrating, he had worked as a teacher in Radnitz, Bohemia. David Philipson, “Max Lilienthal and Isaac M. Wise: Architects of American Reform Judaism,” accessed on May 14. 2014, http://americanjewisharc-hives.org/journal/PDF/2003_55_02_00_ruben.pdf, 2. fn 9. Temkin, S. D., Isaac Mayer Wise: Shaping American Judaism (New York: Oxford University Press, 1992);Google Scholar Sussman, Lance J., Isaac Leeser and the Making of American Judaism (Detroit, Mich. : Wayne State University Press, 1996).Google Scholar

28. Easton, Pennsylvania's Covenant of Peace required three auditions: “All candidates for the office of Hazan [hazan] shall officiate and read the prayers in the Synagogue at least three times prior to the election.” Article 10. Section 2. Constitution, November 24, 1842, MS-370, Box 1. Folder 1. Temple Covenant of Peace Records (Easton, Pa. ), AJA. Ad for Saint Louis's United Hebrew Congregation, Israelite, July 28, 1865, 30.

29. “Wanted. By the Baltimore Hebrew Congregation, Lloyd St. , Baltimore, Md. a Hazan with thorough musical attainments and fully competent to officiate with a choir.” Ads, Israelite, October 7, 1870, 11.

30. At Macon, Georgia, in 185. they wanted a man who would serve “according to the German orthodox minhag,” while others sought a Polish or general Ashkenazi minhag. Minutes, Sunday, December 4. 1859. Macon Beth Israel, Cuba Archives.

31. 12 Elul 5613. Box 1. Folder 5. MS-197, Isaac Leeser Papers, AJA. Lay leader Gershon Kursheedt of New Orleans was searching for a new rabbi in 185. and complained that while in Mobile, “their minhag is German þ for this there are dozens of clever men… the Portuguese can only look to you [Isaac Leeser], Eckman, [and] Rosenfeld.” August 6. 5612, Box 1. Folder 3. ibid. Some hazanim were able to promote the fact that “I can teach in both the German and Portuguese minhag,” while others had to adapt their skills to the demands of the market. Joseph Spira to Leeser, January 3. 1855, Box 2. Folder 2. ibid.

32. March 31, 1873, Minutes, Box 1. Portland, Oreg. , Temple Beth Israel, MS-554, AJA.

33. “We Want Missionaries,” Jewish Messenger, February 10, 1860, 44. Occident, September 1863. 3; Occident, March 1862. 6; Israelite, September 4, 1863, 79. “Wanted Immediately,” Occident, August 1863. 8; Wanted, Occident, March 1864. 4; Occident, February 1865. 2.

34. In many cases the circumcision of baby boys and the preparation of kosher meat were arranged with an outside independent contractor and purchased by individual consumers. While these independent shochetim and mohelim also engaged in labor disputes and were subject to concerns about authenticity and competency, this article focuses on those who enacted these jobs as part of their full-time contract with a congregation. For a shochet conflict in San Francisco, see “Rev. Dr. Eckman's Self-Defence,” Israelite, May 30, 1856, 382.

35. “Articles of Agreement,” August 19, 1864, Folder 2. MS-531, Cong. Tree of Life (Pittsburgh, 1858-1917), AJA.

36. Constitution, December 4, 1859, Minutes Beth Israel, Macon, Georgia, Cuba Archives.

37. Ibid. Slobin, Chosen Voices, 42.

38. 12 Elul 5613. Box 1. Folder 5. MS-197, Isaac Leeser Papers, AJA. While some preached in German, increasingly they had to make do in English. Henry Vidaver, having gone back to Europe but intending to return to the United States, wrote to Leeser in 1863. “I even flatter myself to be able now more than 2 years ago to preach in English.” October 7. 1863, Folder 92. Isaac Leeser Papers, P-20, American Jewish Historical Society, Boston, Mass. and New York, N. Y. (hereafter cited as AJHS). Even an established rabbi like Solomon Sonneschein of St. Louis reported in 1873. “Although I can not yet speak it fluently and cannot drop even a few ‘impromptu’ lines—by a careful preparation, which certainly affords some time, I may rely upon producing a quite tolerable piece of literary workmanship.” March 26. ‘73, X-132, Solomon H. Sonneschein Papers, AJA. In Philadelphia, Isaac Leeser began giving English lectures following services on some Sabbaths soon after he was hired in 1829. Sarna, , American Judaism , 76.Google Scholar On American Jewish sermons, see Cohen, Naomi Wiener, What the Rabbis Said: The Public Discourse of Nineteenth-Century American Rabbis (New York: New York University Press, 2008).Google Scholar

39. “A single Gentleman preferred,” December 4. 1859, Macon Beth Israel, Cuba Archives. Paducah, Kentucky, preferred a married man, Ads, Israelite, July 28. 1865, 30. Although throughout history there had been various sumptuary laws and required costumes for Jews—imposed by governments and by Jewish communities—there was no specific attire expected of rabbis or hazanim. In Eastern Europe, rabbis wore beards and fur-trimmed gowns and hats, while in western Europe and Sephardic lands, they mimicked Christian clerical garb. Ze'ev, Yeivin, Alfred Rubens, and Miriam Nick, “Dress.”, accessed on February 18. 2014.

40. Constitution, December 4, 1859, Beth Israel, Macon, Georgia, Cuba Archives.

41. “Articles of Agreement,” August 19. 1864, Folder 2. Cong. Tree of Life (Pittsburgh, 1858-1917), MS-531, AJA.

42. Bledstein, The Culture of Professionalism; Hochschild, Arlie Russell, The Managed Heart: Commercialization of Human Feeling (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2003);Google Scholar Wharton, Amy S., “The Sociology of Emotional Labor,” Annual Review of Sociology 3. (2009): 147-65.Google Scholar

43. All estimations of monetary inflation are from http://www.westegg.com/inflation/infl.cgi, accessed on May 18. 2014.

44. He was to receive fifty cents per head for killing beef, ten cents for sheep, and twelve and a half cents for calves; five dollars for performing a marriage; one dollar for watching corpses plus an additional two dollars “for attending to everything by a corpse”; and one cent for every pound of matzah plus five percent of all payment at Passover. “Articles of Agreement,” August 19. 1864, Folder 2. Cong. Tree of Life (Pittsburgh, 1858-1917), MS-531, AJA.

45. Donald Scott's research showed that in the mid-1850s of sixteen clergymen in one association, four made $700-$1, 500, while the rest averaged only $460, and pastoral tensure was also precarious. Scott, From Office to Profession, 113-14. In his study of clerical wealth, E. Brooks Holifield found that in 186. Jewish ministers, most of them immigrants, possessed much less wealth—including real estate and other durable goods—than Christian ministers, both in the North and in the South. Protestant ministers could receive as little as $150 per year in some rural communities, but in urban areas they generally earned between $1, 000 and $2, 000 per year, with those in the South earning more than those in the North. Holifield, “The Penurious Preacher?” Scholars have estimated that the minimal living costs for a family in New York in 185. was $500, an amount that manual workers found difficult to attain, while nonmanual workers such as mid-size retailers could make between $2, 000 and $6, 000. Blumin, The Emergence of the Middle Class. In 1860. a Jewish press report mentioned a minister in Syracuse, also a butcher, “who not only must sell pork and ham but he must sell it on Sabbath to earn a livelihood.” Israelite, July 27. 1860, 30.

46. March 4. 1849, Minutes, MSS B54, Mishkan Israel, New Haven Museum Whitney Library; May 9. 1858, Minutes, MS-471, St. Paul Mount Zion Temple Records, 1857-, AJA; Article 11. Box 1. Folder 1. MS-370, Temple Covenant of Peace Records (Easton, Pa. ), AJA.

47. “Thoughts on the Jewish Ministry,” Occident, July 1852. Bylaws Article II, Section 1. May 1860. West Lafayette, Ind. , Congregation Temple Israel Records, X-356, AJA. In 1842. Easton's Covenant of Peace planned to earn its revenue through “the renting of seats, free offerings, donation and the sale of… religious honors in the synagogue according to the custom of Israelitish congregations,” as well as through the payment of dues. “Constitution and By-Laws of the Congregation Covenant of Peace of the Borough of Easton,” Box 1. Folder 1. MS-370, Temple Covenant of Peace Records (Easton, Pa. ), AJA. Some offered extravagant gifts to their hazanim, yet many congregations struggled to raise funds. At Congregation Emanu-El in New York, Rev. Mr. Rubin, “chasan of this congregation, was presented with $3000 as a New Year's gift,” an unusually generous offering, as the editor of the Jewish Messenger added, “May this eccentricity find many imitators!” “Local Intelligence,” Jewish Messenger, October 5, 1866, 4.

48. “From the scarcity of members þ from the effects of the war times,” the secretary reported, “we were compelled to dispose with the serve of a chasan + we had to engage the service of a shochet.”August 11. 1861; August 13, 1861; September 8, 1861; Minutes Book, Box 1. MS-532, Indianapolis Hebrew Congregation, AJA. For an account of the financial difficulties facing one American Jewish congregation, including an account of its hiring history, see Raphael, Marc Lee, “'Our Treasury Is Empty and Our Bank Account Is Overdrawn': Washington Hebrew Congregation, 1855-1872,” American Jewish History 84. (1996): 81–98.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

49. “The Rev. Dr. Lilienthal Elected,” Israelite, April 27, 1855, 325. In 1858. Isaac Mayer Wise advised Rabbi Ludwig Lewisohn that a “position in Baltimore is better than that of the Temple in New York, with respect to remuneration, because 1, 500 [dollars] in Baltimore are more than 2, 000 in New York.” To Ludwig Lewisohn from I. M. Wise, Handwritten German with English translation, November 12. 1858, Isaac Mayer Wise Digital Archive, http://americanjewisharchives.org/collections/wise/home.php, accessed on May 15. 2014.

50. Minutes, October 21. 1859, X-107, Congregation Bene Yeshurun (Cincinnati) Records, AJA; Letters, July 2. and August 16. 1864, Box 1. MS-153, Bernhard Felsenthal Papers, AJA.

51. Constitution, December 4, 1859, Minutes Beth Israel, Macon, Georgia, Cuba Archives.

52. “Articles of Agreement,” August 19, 1864, Folder 2. MS-531, Cong. Tree of Life (Pittsburgh, 1858-1917), AJA.

53. This was similar to landladies who kept boardinghouses and were thus paid to do a range of domestic tasks usually presumed to be rooted in affection. Gamber, Wendy, The Boardinghouse in Nineteenth- Century America (Baltimore, Md. : Johns Hopkins University Press, 2007).Google Scholar Like clerks, hazanim had high aspirations but were poorly paid and increasingly depended on their appearance and comportment, leading many to wonder whether their true intentions were the craft per se or their own selfish advancement. The fear was, to paraphrase Michael Zakim, that religion, “once a site of cooperative effort and hierarchical obligation… was transformed into an instrumental means of serving one's own ends.” Zakim, “The Business Clerk as Social Revolutionary,” 576.

54. “Under these unpleasant circumstances what remains for us to do but seek for a removal?” he asked, adding “my heart þ mind is full of good intentions.” Macon, Georgia, August 17. 5620 (1860), Folder 5. MS-197, Isaac Leeser Papers, AJA.

55. Occident, October 1856. 3. News Items, Occident 15. 1857, 304-11.

56. Though he sought financial help from his congregation to take his children to relatives in England, he never received it. “J. Herzfeld and H. Goodman shall report to the meeting the reason why Revd. Loewenthal did not received the $100 promised to him.” Minutes, February 3. 1861, Temple Beth Israel, Macon, Cuba Archives; SC-15970, Rock Island Ill. Cong. , AJA.

57. “They are now counting Omer-like the days of my engagement, sweetly hoping to return to their former comforts of no Teacher, no Shochet, no Hazan and no Mohel and above all no need of going to the house of prayer every Sabbath—what a blessing that will be!” Domestic Record, Israelite, July 11. 1862, 10. When he was elected soon after in St. Louis, it was mentioned that he had also served in Buffalo, New York, “Missouri, ” Jewish Messenger, December 12. 1862, 181. By May 1863. he was secretary of UHC, searching for a rabbi. May 13. 1863, Folder 58. P-20, Isaac Leeser Papers, AJHS.

58. An extreme example of this fuzzy boundary was Simon Gerstmann, a Jew in Savannah who claimed, in an 186. U. S. Court of Claims case, that in order to avoid confederate army service, “I organized a church of my faith with my own money, in order to get appointed reader.” Simon Gerstmann v. The United States, 3 Ct. Cl. 233. 1867 U. S. Ct. Cl. LEXIS 156. accessed on January 12. 2015. www.lexisnexis.com/hottopics/lnacademic.

59. “The Jewish Ministry in America,” Occident, February 1850. 39. According to Leeser, leaders were usually “the least informed on matters in which they wish to direct others, and they generally make up in bold assurance and reckless assertion what they lack in solid knowledge. ” “Thoughts on the Jewish Ministry,” Occident, November 1851.

60. January 6. 1863, Box 2. Folder 4. MS-197, Isaac Leeser Papers, AJA.

61. Hazanim like Loewenthal were experiencing not only occupational and financial woes but the “emotive dissonance” of work requiring the display of inauthentic emotions. Hochschild, The Managed Heart, 90.

62. June 20. 1854, Box 1. Folder 3. ibid. Henry S. Jacobs agreed from Augusta in 186. that in his congregation, “Mammon has stronger claims + greater influence than Adonay.” Henry S. Jacobs to Isaac Leeser, November 21, 1865, Box 1. Folder 4. ibid.

63. In New Orleans in 1851. in the words of Judah Touro, there was “much lukewarmness. The members of the congregation here as a general thing do not do any of their duties in supporting it either with their presence or other means.” Judah Touro to Isaac Leeser, April 10. 1851, Isaac Leeser Papers, P-20, folder 90. AJHS; Leeser argued in 1852. “Synagogues are indeed built everywhere, and persons are always ready to join them as nominal worshippers. But when this is done, all else seemingly stops. ” “Thoughts on the Jewish Ministry,” Occident 10, 1852, 225.

64. August 17, 1859, Box 1. Folder 5. Isaac Leeser Papers, MS-197, AJA. In 1860. Isaac Mayer Wise visited Lafayette, Indiana, where he “instructed [them] to count the ladies to a minyan.” Lafayette, Israelite, January 6. 1860, 214.

65. He continued, “An automaton could effect that as well and better than a living man.” Gutheim, J. K., “The Jewish Ministry,” Occident , May 1850. 14.Google Scholar Leeser encouraged congregants to go to synagogue, elaborating, “The idea of so much salary for so much labour and when both parties have fulfilled that part of the contract it is no farther matter what course they pursue, is infinitely degrading. ” “Thoughts on the Jewish Ministry,” Occident, May 1850, 14.

66. May 4, 1851, Minutes, MSS B54, Mishkan Israel, New Haven Museum Whitney Library.

67. April 5. 1852, ibid. In the 1870s, Rabbi Elias Eppstein of Milwaukee repeatedly clashed with congregational leaders, complaining that they were “ignoramuses, ” uneducated at best and lying hypocrites at worst. In June of 1873. a group endeavored to have his contract dissolved, accusing him of smoking on the Sabbath and drinking beer on Passover. He did not deny it, “but stated that they were not competent to adjudge said matter.” November 17. 1872, and June 15. 1873, Folder 1. MS-220, Elias Eppstein Diaries, AJA.

68. “Is It Right?” Occident 13, 1855, 501-2.

69. Sternheimer had arrived in Philadelphia in 184. and previously served at New Haven and Memphis before moving to Columbus, Georgia. He had first applied for the position of hazan at Temple Beth Israel in December of 185. but was passed over for Loewenthal. News Items, Occident 7, 1849. 424; April 5. 1852, Minutes, MSS B54, Mishkan Israel, New Haven Museum Whitney Library; News Items, Occident 14. 1856, 454. When he was finally elected, he was the only candidate, and he soon was in conflict with the congregation regarding time off for performing circumcisions. February 3 and July 10. 1861, Temple Beth Israel, Cuba Archives.

70. December 11, 1859; April 24, 1864; June 18, 1864; September 19, 1865; Temple Beth Israel, Macon, Cuba Archives. He appears to have been reinstated by 1876. Letter, American Israelite, June 23, 1876, 6.

71. Letter, Israelite, November 2, 1866, 6.

72. Leeser, Isaac, “Thoughts on the Jewish Ministry,” Occident , July 1852. 1.Google Scholar Isaac Mayer Wise argued that in the ideal worship service, “The minister facing the congregation reads the prayers in a solemn tone without any sort of so ng.” Isaac Mayer Wise, Editorial Correspondence, Israelite, July 27. 1860, 30. Leeser, Isaac, “Thoughts on the Jewish Ministry,” Occident , July 1852, 1.Google Scholar

73. February 27. 1850, Box 1. Folder 1. MS-197, Isaac Leeser Papers, AJA.

74. “Most people do not seem to understand how easy it is for a butcher to hang out a sign indicating that he sells [kosher] meat; and hence, take it for granted that what they purchase from him must and ought to ‘be all right. '” Israelite, July 30, 1869, 11.

75. They hired him to work as shammes [beadle] and shochet for a one-year, fifty-dollar contract. It had been made known that “in the event that he does not get five dollars for leading the services on Yom Kippur, he would bring the local Jewish community misfortune.” He took back his comments and was paid three dollars. March 4 and December 26. 1849, MSS B54, Mishkan Israel, New Haven Museum Whitney Library.

76. I Samuel 1:13-15; Babylonian Talmud Berakhot 31b. Cited in Tigay, Jeffrey Howard et al. “Drunkenness. ” EJ. 4 Feb. 2014. On alcohol consumption in early America, see Rorabaugh, W. J., The Alcoholic Republic: An American Tradition (New York: Oxford University Press, 1979).Google Scholar

77. July 2. 1857, Box 1. Folder 3. MS-197, Isaac Leeser Papers, AJA. Jacob J. Greenwald of Hagerstown, wrote to Leeser in 186. to warn against a “Rabbi Holstein” who had scandalized the community by convincing the local butcher to abandon his wife and family and totally neglecting his duties. Not only did he improperly butcher the meat, opening other Jews to accidental impurity, but “on Sabbath he smoked, butchered, became beastly drunk” and so harassed his friend's wife that he had been imprisoned. April 16, 1863, Box 1. Folder 3. ibid.

78. After his dismissal, Peres worked as a bookkeeper in the store. The courts insisted that evidence from congregational proceedings was not enough to deny Peres's contract rights, insisted that a new trial had to be held, and recognized that the three-fold nature of the job— teacher, preacher, and hazan—might bear on the outcome of a future trial. The Congregation of the Children of Israel v. Jacob J. Peres, 4. Tenn. 620. 1866 Tenn. LEXIS 4. 2 Cold. 620. accessed on January 12, 2015. www.lexisnexis.com/hottopics/lnacademic.

79. “Shall We Meet?” Occident, 1849. note, p. 67-68.

80. He had requested assistance from the Jewish benevolent society even as he claimed that his father was Christian, said he was uninterested in Jewish religion, and had not boarded with Jews. N. Gellinger to Leeser, September 9, 1853, Box 1. Folder 3. MS-197, Isaac Leeser Papers, AJA. In 1855. Isaac Oppenheimer wrote from Rock Island, Illinois, describing Dr. Listenheim, a self-proclaimed rabbi who had arrived in town claiming to be a pious old hazan in need of assistance and acquainted with Isaac Mayer Wise, “but after having received considerable aid, and seeing that his hypocrisy was detected,” he had converted to Christianity, “thinking to make a living by that without working.” Letter, Israelite, September 14. 1855, 77-78. On discourses of idleness, see Knighton, Andrew Lyndon, Idle Threats: Men and the Limits of Productivity in Nineteenth-Century America (New York; New York University Press, 2012).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

81. Correspondence, Israelite, August 4, 1871, 6.

82. “Shall We Meet?” note, p. 67-68.

83. Note by the Editor, Occident 15. 1857, 494-96. February 25. 1867, Box 1. Folder 2. MS-197, Isaac Leeser Papers, AJA. See also “The Cincinnati Union,” Jewish Messenger, July 18, 1873, 5.

84. Board Resolutions: January 23, 1872; February 5, 1872; February 16. 1872, Carton 2. Folder 22. and February 8. 5632, Carton 3. Folder 9. Congregation Sherith Israel records, BANC MSS 2010/720, Magnes.

85. Scott, From Office to Profession; Holifield, God's Ambassadors; Carmilly-Weinberger, Moshe, “The Similarities and Relationship between the Jiidisch-Theologisches Seminar (Breslau) and the Rabbinical Seminary (Budapest),” The Leo Baeck Institute Yearbook 44. (1999): 3–22.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

86. American Israelite, October 12, 1877, 3.

87. Correspondence, Israelite, 6; November 27. 1871, MS-220, Elias Eppstein Diaries, AJA.

88. March 18, 1866, Minutes, Magnes collection on Congregation Ohabai Shalome, BANC MSS 2010/695, Magnes. In 1871. Eppstein was proposed a five-year contract with an annual salary of $2, 000 at Chicago. A year later his colleague Judah Wechsler was hired for $2, 000. Later, he wrote to apply for a job in Boston at $2, 000. January 25, 1872; April 2, 1873; May 25, 1874, MS-220, Elias Eppstein Diaries, 1871-1903, AJA.

89. Wise stayed in Cincinnati, however. Caplan, “In God We Trust,” n. 35.

90. When Elias Eppstein applied at Hartford in 1874. he wrote a letter containing “all necessary information concerning my abilities. Sent him at the same time copy [of several works he had] published.” August 24, 1873, Elias Eppstein Diaries, 1871-1903. MS-220, AJA. Some men used degree signifiers to prove their credentials, most flamboyantly, E. B. M. Browne, known as “Alphabet” because he followed his signature with “LL. B. , A. M. , B. M. , D. D. , M. D.” Janet Rothschild Blumberg, “Rabbi Alphabet Browne: The Atlanta Years,” Southern Jewish History 5 (2002): 1-42.

91. Ad, American Israelite, July 9, 1875, 7.

92. He had been described thusly by Elias Eppstein, another Milwaukee rabbi: “find him a young man who has well used his youth; he seems to be a good Hebrew scholar, what his talents are in speaking I know not, but they speak well of him here.” On another occasion he wrote, “Mr. Spitz the minister of the Emanuel Congr. spoke German rather too long—he sings too much.” January 2. and March 12. 1872, MS-220, Elias Eppstein Diaries, AJA. Spitz moved to St. Louis in 1878. Singer, Isidore and Adler, Cyrus, The Jewish Encyclopedia: A Descriptive Record of the History, Religion, Literature, and Customs of the Jewish People from the Earliest Times to the Present Day (New York: Funk and Wagnalls, 1916), 524.Google Scholar

93. “American Hebrew Ministers, which combine Learning with professional experience, elocution powers with an acute knowledge of the progress of the age, pleasing and winning manners with stern and unyielding convictions, are so well settled nowadays, that they hardly could be induced to change their position.” November 8. 1877, Solomon H. Sonneschein Papers, X-132, AJA.

94. For instance, see the following ads: Occident, October 1862, 2; Ads, Weekly Gleaner, February 20. 1857, 47. Ads, Israelite, July 15. 1854, 7. Grinstein, Hyman, The Rise of the Jewish Community of New York, 1654—1860, (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society of America, 1947), 299–305;Google Scholar Berman, The Trend in Jewish Religious Observance in Mid-Nineteenth-Century America.

95. Blumin, The Emergence of the Middle Class.

96. On English preaching, see “Why Judaism Meets with No Better Progress in This Country,” Israelite, April 25. 1856, 340. “Thoughts on the Jewish Ministry,” Occident, July 1852. Isaac Leeser, “Thoughts on the Jewish Ministry,” Occident, July 1852, 1. Even traditionalists warned that “singing Hazanim should know that the safety of our religion does not rest upon the mere recitation of a prayer, the chanting of a peculiar song, or the motions of their bodies.” They feared that Jews “just go to the Synagogue to hear the [hazan] chant a nice ידו דהכ✓” [lecha dodi, a melodious Friday night prayer]. “An Itinerant Ministry,” Occident, September 1858. 299. On decorum, see Sarna, American Judaism, 95-96. Goldman, Karla, Beyond the Synagogue Gallery: Finding a Place for Women in American Judaism (Cambridge, Mass. : Harvard University Press, 2001), 79–80.Google Scholar Early on, many congregations had established rules dictating that, for instance, “on the Hasan, singing any psalm or prayer, every person shall remain silent,” regulations which grew more common over time. Constitution and By-Laws of the [k'k brit shalom] Congregation of the Covenant of Peace, January 28, 1843, MS-370, Temple Covenant of Peace Records (Easton, Pa. ), AJA. At Temple Emanuel in Milwaukee, “There is more order, quiet and decorum here than in my temple, every one feels himself more in the presence of God.” September 27. 1873, MS-220, Eppstein Diaries, AJA.

97. Correspondence, Israelite, July 27, 1860, 30.

98. Temkin, , Isaac Mayer Wise, 124.Google Scholar In 1873. a Jew wrote from Davenport, Iowa, that while many in the congregation were more conservative than the Minhag America, they had agreed to use it “for the sake of peace of the congregation in this country. There is no dispute any longer how to model the service—what there was said in this or that country.” Letter, Israelite, September 12, 1873, 6.

99. Appendix 1. Buchler, Joseph, “The Struggle for Unity: Attempts at Union in American Jewish Life, 1654-1868” American Jewish Archives 2 (1949); 21–46.Google Scholar

100. “Thoughts on the Jewish Ministry,” Occident 10, 1852, 225-38. While rejecting the notion of the ministry's inherent holiness, Leeser recognized that formalizing entrance into the labor would enhance propriety and respect. “Thoughts on the Jewish Ministry,” Occident, December 1851. Jewish Messenger, November 19. 1875, 5. cited in Davis, Moshe, The Emergence of Conservative Judaism: The Historical School in Nineteenth- Century America (New York: Greenwood Publishing, 1963), 198.Google Scholar n53.

101. “Third Annual Council,” American Israelite, July 21, 1876, 4. “Fourth Council,” American Israelite, July 20, 1877, 4.

102. For instance, the American Education Society, established in 1815. the Society for Promotion of Collegiate and Theological Education in the West, founded in 1843. Findlay, James, “The SPCTEW and Western Colleges: Religion and Higher Education in Mid-Nineteenth-Century America,” History of Education Quarterly 17. (1977): 31–62.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

103. Howe, , “Church, State, and Education in the Young American Republic,” 15.Google Scholar Istituto Rabbinico Lombardo-Veneto at Padau (1829), Ecole Rabbinique Seminaire Israelite de France at Metz (1859), Jewish Theological Seminary at Breslau (1854), Hochshule fur die Wissenschaft des Judentums in Berlin (1870), Rabbinical Seminary at Berlin (1873), and Rabbinical Seminary at Budapest (1877). Meyer, Response to Modernity, 141. 191. Carmilly-Weinberger, “The Similarities and Relationship between the Jiidisch-Theologisches Seminar (Breslau) and the Rabbinical Seminary (Budapest).”

104. Israelite, January 4, 1856.

105. Letter, Israelite, August 24. 1855, 54. Wise, Reminiscences; Sarna, , American Judaism, 80.Google Scholar “Our Protest,” Israelite, October 31. and Israelite, January 4. 1856, in May, Max Benjamin, Isaac Mayer Wise: The Founder of American Judaism; a Biography (New York: G. P. Putnam Sons, 1916), 263-65.Google Scholar Wise was arguing for a college as early as 1853. “Plan for a Hebrew College,” Asmonean, August 19, 1853, cited in ibid. , 137.

106. “Proposition to the I. O. B. B. to establish an American Jewish University,” November 1. 1866, Columbus B'nai B'rith, Cuba Archives. Moore, Deborah Dash, B'nai B'rith and the Challenge of Ethnic Leadership (Albany, N. Y. : SUNY Press, 1981);Google Scholar Wilhelm, Cornelia, The Independent Orders of B'Nai B'Rith and True Sisters: Pioneers of a New Jewish Identity, 1843-1914 (Detroit, Mich. : Wayne State University Press, 2011).Google Scholar

107. Afternoon Session, Israelite, June 23. 1871, 9. There also remained many congregations without any religious leaders, and various efforts were undertaken to supply them with occasional circuit preachers; Fox, Steven, “On the Road to Unity: The Union of American Hebrew Congregations and American Jewry, 1873-1903,” American Jewish Archives 3. (1980): 149.Google Scholar

108. May, Isaac Mayer Wise, 297-98. This event led to the infamous trefa banquet, which contributed to the split between reformers and traditionalists in American Judaism. Sussman, L. J., “The Myth of the Trefa Banquet: American Culinary Culture and the Radicalization of Food Policy in American Reform Judaism,” American Jewish Archives Journal 57. (2005): 29.Google Scholar

109. “The Hebrew Union College,” Israelite, May 28, 1875, 4.

110. “The Opening of the Hebrew Union College,” The American Israelite, October 8, 1875, 4.

111. Ibid. Lilienthal noted that it would be difficult to lure men into the rabbinate and suggested that the Jewish orphan asylums in Cleveland and New York “will furnish plenty of boys, who will cheerfully seize the opportunity offered to them of becoming future ministers.”

112. Ibid. A year later he offered a resolution at the UAHC to abolish annual elections. “Third Annual Council,” American Israelite, July 21, 1876, 4.

113. “The Central Conference of American Rabbis,” American Israelite, July 11, 1889, 4.

114. Quotes in Glaser, Joseph B., Tanu Rabbanan: Our Rabbis Taught: Essays on the Occasion of the Centennial of the Central Conference of American Rabbis (Cincinnati, O. : CCAR Press, 1990), 5.Google Scholar “The Central Conference of American Rabbis,” American Israelite, July 11, 1889, 4.

115. Glaser, Tanu Rabbanan.

116. Gurock, Jeffrey S., Orthodox Jews in America (Bloomington, Ind. : Indiana University Press, 2009);Google Scholar Marcus, Peck, and Gurock, The American Rabbinate; Cohen, Michael R., The Birth of Conservative Judaism: Solomon Schechter's Disciples and the Creation of an American Religious Movement (New York: Columbia University Press, 2013);Google Scholar Ellenson, David Harry, After Emancipation: Jewish Religious Responses to Modernity (Cincinnati, O. : Hebrew Union College Press, 2004).Google Scholar

117. “The Opening of the Hebrew Union College.”

118. Much like the American Medical Association, which in the nineteenth century imposed systems of education and licensing that marginalized “irregulars, ” midwives, and other healing practitioners, the rise of the rabbinate as a profession was premised on imposing standards that excluded hazanim. Smith-Rosenberg, Carroll, Disorderly Conduct: Visions of Gender in Victorian America, (New York: Oxford University Press, 1986), 230.Google Scholar They had to impose these standards after the fact, however, unlike professions that worked through pre-existing organizations and training institutions. As with teachers, who early in the nineteenth century were certified and hired based on localized, and sometimes questionable, standards and connections, the establishment of the college would shift the rabbi market from localized employment interactions and standards to oversight by translocal bodies and organized workers. Warren, American Teachers.

119. Glaser, Tanu Rabbanan, 1.