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Reorienting American Liberal Judaism For The Twentieth Century: Stephen S. Wise And The Early Years Of The Jewish Institute Of Religion, Shirley Idelson
Reorienting American Liberal Judaism For The Twentieth Century: Stephen S. Wise And The Early Years Of The Jewish Institute Of Religion, Shirley Idelson
Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects
This study explores how Rabbi Stephen S. Wise and supporters from the Free Synagogue and elsewhere sought to reorient American liberal Judaism by establishing the Jewish Institute of Religion (JIR) in the early 1920s. They believed the leaders of the Reform movement at that time were reluctant to relinquish an outmoded approach that had lost relevance in light of a new demographic reality whereby over a million Eastern European Jews now living in New York were becoming the dominant presence in American Jewish life. The JIR founders attributed this to Reform's having become insular, unresponsive to pressing social issues, overly …