Jewish Reconstructionist Foundation Records

The Jewish Reconstructionist Foundation was formed in 1940 for the purpose of publishing materials to promote the Reconstructionist program, an ideology and movement founded by Rabbi Mordecai Menahem Kaplan and later formalized under the leadership of Rabbi Ira Eisenstein. Reconstructionist ideology had a significant impact on American Judaism. Kaplan's early Reconstructionist theories were influenced by the assimilation of Jews in America following the great waves of immigration in the early 1900s; he observed that Jews found it difficult to maintain their Jewish identities in their new country. Key ideas associated with Reconstructionism include interpreting Judaism as a civilization (as well as a religion and nationality), supporting a more inclusive role for women in synagogue and in communal life, expanding the role of the synagogue from merely a place of worship to a community center, and the rejection of supernaturalism.

Following its founding in 1940, the main activity of the Jewish Reconstructionist Foundation was publishing material that promoted Reconstructionist ideology. Beginning in 1941, the Foundation published a series of Reconstructionist prayer books including The New Haggadah (1941), The Sabbath Prayer Book (1945), and the High Holidays Prayer Book (1948). Concurrently, the Foundation published the highly influential magazine, The Reconstructionist. In 1954, four synagogues united to form the Reconstructionist Federation of Congregations (renamed the Jewish Reconstructionist Federation). In 1955, the Fellowship of Reconstructionist Congregations and Havurot was founded. As havurot (small groups who met for Shabbat, prayer, and community events) grew into congregations, Reconstructionist Judaism became a more formalized movement. In 1968, Ira Eisenstein founded the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College to ordain rabbis to lead in the synagogues of the Reconstructionist movement and to serve the greater Jewish community in other settings (as campus rabbis, chaplains, academics, educators, and professionals in Jewish communal organizations). In 1974, the Reconstructionist Rabbinical Association was founded by Reconstructionist Rabbinical College alumni. By 1990, over 100 synagogues and havurot were affiliated with the Jewish Reconstructionist Federation. In 2012, the plenum of the Jewish Reconstructionist Federation voted in favor of restructuring. As of 2014, the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College and the Jewish Reconstructionist Communities jointly serve as the primary organization of the Reconstructionist movement.

Mordecai Menahem Kaplan (1881-1983) was an American rabbi, theologian, philosopher, essayist, and Jewish educator, who founded the Reconstructionist ideology and co-founded the Jewish Reconstructionist Foundation. Kaplan, born in Svencian, Lithuania, was the son of Israel Kaplan, a Talmudic scholar, and Anna Kaplan. Mordecai Kaplan immigrated to the United States with his mother and sister in 1889, a year after his father had immigrated. In the United States, he was educated in the Orthodox tradition. He attended City College of New York and the Jewish Theological Seminary of America, from which he was ordained. Kaplan also earned both a Master's and Doctorate degree from Columbia University where he studied philosophy, sociology, and education. In 1908, Kaplan married Lena Rubin (d. 1958). Also in 1908, while serving as minister and superintendent of education at Kehilath Jeshurun, an Orthodox Synagogue in New York City, Kaplan was granted traditional ordination. As Kaplan developed his interest in variant theological interpretations and beliefs, he began to move away from Orthodox theology and he decided to leave his position at Kehilath Jeshurun. In 1909, he accepted a position at the Teachers Institute at the Jewish Theological Seminary, where he would remain on staff in various capacities until 1963. Kaplan served as the first rabbi at the Jewish Center, an Orthodox synagogue founded in 1917. He resigned from that position and founded the first Reconstructionist synagogue in 1922, called the Society for the Advancement of Judaism, located in the Upper East Side neighborhood of Manhattan. Kaplan supported a more inclusive role for women in synagogue and in communal life. Kaplan introduced the first bat mitzvah in 1922, when his daughter Judith read from the Torah.

In 1925, Kaplan was sent to Jerusalem by the American Zionist Organization where he met Chaim Weizmann, Louis Brandeis, David Ben-Gurion, and others. In 1935, Kaplan served as editor of the newly founded magazine, The Reconstructionist, and then cofounded the Jewish Reconstructionist Foundation in 1940. Kaplan continued to teach, write, and publish. His books include Judaism as a Civilization (1934), Judaism in Transition (1936), The Future of the American Jew (1948), Questions Jews Ask (1956), The New Zionism (1959), and The Religion of Ethical Nationhood (1970). Kaplan also coedited a series of Reconstructionist prayer books (published 1941-1948) and wrote extensive diaries (27 volumes) which were later published. After the death of his wife, Lena, in 1958, Kaplan married Rivka Rieger, an Israeli artist. He retired from the Jewish Theological Seminary in 1963. Following the founding of the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College in 1968, Kaplan taught at the College for one year. Kaplan died in New York City in November 8, 1983.

Ira Eisenstein (1906-2001) was an American rabbi, writer, editor, and one of the key thinkers and leaders of Reconstructionist Judaism. Eisenstein was born in New York City and was the grandson of Judah David Eisenstein (1854-1956), a Polish-born scholar, encyclopedist, anthologist, and writer who immigrated to the United States in 1872. Ira Eisenstein received a Bachelor's degree and Doctorate of Philosophy from Columbia University. At Columbia, he met, and later married, Judith Kaplan, an ethnomusicologist and daughter of Mordecai Kaplan. In 1931, Eisenstein was ordained at the Jewish Theological Seminary. From 1931 to 1954, he served as associate rabbi, and then as rabbi, at the Society for the Advancement of Judaism, the Reconstructionist synagogue founded by Mordecai Kaplan. Eisenstein was also the associate chairman and later the editor of The Reconstructionist from 1935 to 1982. After moving to Chicago in 1954 to serve as rabbi at Anshe Emet, he returned to New York City in 1959 to become the president of the Jewish Reconstructionist Foundation. In 1968, Eisenstein founded the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College in Philadelphia (now located in Wyncote, Pennsylvania), and served as president of the college from 1968 to 1981. Some of Eisenstein's seminal publications include Creative Judaism (1936), What We Mean By Religion (1938), The New Haggadah (coeditor; 1941), and Mordecai M. Kaplan: An Evaluation (coeditor, 1952). Eisenstein died in Silver Springs, Maryland in 2001.

References

Hirsch, Richard. "Reconstructionism." Encyclopedia Judaica, 2nd Edition, Volume 17: 146-149.

Cohen, Jack, Mel Scult, and Raphael Jospe. "Kaplan, Mordecai Menahem (1881-1983)." Encyclopedia Judaica, 2nd Edition, Volume 11: 776-779.

Reimer, Jack and Richard Hirsch. "Eisenstein, Ira (1906-2001)." Encyclopedia Judaica, 2nd Edition, Volume 6: 273.

"Movement Restructuring FAQs." Reconstructionist Rabbinical College. Accessed August 4, 2014. http://www.rrc.edu/About/Movement%20Restructuring