Henry Schuhl: The Wayward Rabbi of Dallas’s Temple Emanu-El

Abstract

Henry Schuhl: The Wayward Rabbi of Dallas’s Temple Emanu-El Richard F. Selcer (bio) Click for larger view View full resolution The only known picture of Henry Schuhl is a pen-and-ink engraving that appeared in the New York Herald at the time of his disappearance in 1898. It shows a handsome, distinguished-looking gentleman with strong features highlighted by a big walrus mustache. It is impossible to say what he looked like earlier, but by this date he did not wear the traditional full beard of most rabbis. Source: Boston Post, Nov. 26, 1898. [End Page 396] The name Henry Schuhl was in newspapers all over the country between 1881 and 1898, but today he is scarcely remembered. A history of Dallas’s Temple Emanu-El devotes less than four pages to his troubled tenure, making vague reference to a “rupture” in the congregation that was “shortly healed.”1 He was the golden boy of Cincinnati’s Jewish community, then he came to Dallas and turned the staid Temple Emanu-El on its ear. During his lifetime he was a religious seeker, a politician, a labor leader, a con man, and a fugitive from justice in addition to being a distinguished rabbi. He caused one of the great religious scandals of the nineteenth century, earning him comparisons to a notable contemporary, the Reverend Henry Ward Beecher, the famed Brooklyn clergyman. In August 1881, Henry Schuhl stepped off a train in Dallas to start his tenure as rabbi of Temple Emanu-El, considered by some at the time to be “the largest, wealthiest, and most important Hebrew society in Texas.” Five years later he was on a train out of town, leaving in disgrace amid accusations of adultery, “licentiousness,” embezzlement, and swindling. But he proved F. Scott Fitzgerald wrong by going on to a second act—and more—before his life was through. Constantly on the move and on the make, Henry’s story is an extreme version of the quintessential nineteenth-century [End Page 397] immigrant experience in America, full of self-invention and new beginnings.2 Henri Schuhl was born December 6, 1846, in France, probably in the border region of Alsace-Lorraine, an area claimed by both France and Germany, which would explain why he spoke fluent German and French. After immigrating to the United States, he Anglicized his given name to “Henry.” His wife, Brunette Nathan, was born in France on September 11, 1847. They were married on November 20, 1868, and moved to America together. They settled in New York City first, then moved to Montreal, where they lived for a short time. In 1870, they were living in California where their first child was born, a daughter they named Florette. They had three more children between 1872 and 1877, Aaron, Palmyra, and Caroline. In 1878, they moved to Cincinnati, Ohio, where the Mound Street Temple hired Henry to lead singing and congregational prayers as chazzan (cantor). It was a prestigious position, equivalent to being deputy rabbi, and as a graduate of “the leading university” of Paris Henry was well-equipped for his duties. He was a dynamic public speaker who reportedly “possessed the sublime gift of oratory” to go along with his scholarly credentials. Still, he was not an ordained rabbi. The position of chazzan did not pay very well, especially for a person described by the American Israelite, the national Jewish publication out of Cincinnati, as a “gentleman of culture and refinement” who was supporting a family of six. Apparently, the job did not occupy “sufficient of his time,” either, because in 1880 he became “city agent” for the Penn Mutual Life Insurance Company of Philadelphia. If Henry was good at anything, it was selling—especially himself.3 His detour into the insurance business did not last long, however, and in 1881 he arrived in Dallas to begin a new life at Temple Emanu-El. One scholar characterizes nineteenth-century Texas as one of the last “corners” of the historic Jewish diaspora. Dallas was one of seven Jewish congregations in the state in 1881. Although the town was struggling at this date, it still represented a golden opportunity...