Orthodox Rabbis Research Articles

Teodycea w czasie Zagłady. Wojenne kazania rabina Szlomy Zalmana Unsdorfera

Many analyses of the Holocaust’s influence on Jewish theology emphasize the dimension of the lack of continuation. From this perspective, the Holocaust, as an unprecedented event, made the Jewish theology face new inquiries, at the same time radically questioning the traditional answers. The wartime letters written by Orthodox rabbis who were witnesses to and victims of the intensifying repressions constitute a fascinating primary source, the analysis of which makes it possible to paint a picture of the transformation of Jewish theology in reaction to the Holocaust. Krawcowicz presents an interpretation of rabbi Szlomo Zalman Unsdorfer’s wartime sermons, laying stress on the many dimensions in which Unsdorfer’s thought is a continuation of selected threads of rabbinical tradition and the way in which it fits into the framework of the traditional Jewish theological responses to historical catastrophes ratherthan reach beyond them.

Memoirs of a Refugee: The Travels and Travails of Rabbi Pinchas Hirschprung

In October of 1941, twenty-nine rabbis and rabbinical students left Shanghai and eventually arrived in Montreal, under an unusual Canadian government visa program to help Orthodox rabbis. Among these refugees were the future chief rabbi of Montreal, Pinchas Hirschprung, as well as nine shlichim of the Lubavitcher rebbe. This article offers a detailed account of Hirschprung’s journey from his hometown of Dukla, Poland, through Lithuania, Latvia, the Soviet Union, Japan, Shanghai, and the United States, until his arrival in Montreal. Through Hirschprung’s personal experience, the article highlights the complexities and difficulties of searching for refuge during this particular period of the war, prior to the US entry after Pearl Harbor. As well, this article brings together previously untranslated archival and biographical information on the other rabbinical refugees who travelled with Hirschprung including students and teachers from some of the best-known prewar yeshivot of Lithuania and Poland. The article also addresses the tensions between the Orthodox and secular rescue organizations during the Holocaust.

A Portrait of the Rabbi as a Young Man: Rabbi Pinchas Hirschprung’s Memoir of His Escape from Europe to Canada

In November 1944, Rabbi Pinchas Hirschprung published a memoir of his escape from Nazi-held Europe entitled Fun Natsishen Yomertol: Zikhroynes fun a Polit [From the Nazi Vale of Tears: Memoirs of a Refugee]. This book is remarkable from several important perspectives. It is one of the earliest examples of Holocaust survivor memoirs, written and published while the systematic destruction of European Jewry was ongoing. It thus enables us to see the way the Holocaust was approached before the pattern of survivor memoirs was fully developed. It is also one of the rare examples of a twentieth-century Orthodox rabbinical autobiography. From an examination of his memoir, Rabbi Hirschprung obviously saw his narrative as a continuation of the chronicles of massacres and other disasters befalling Jewish communities in the past. This book enables us to perceive the ways in which a young Orthodox rabbi reacted to some of the most important moral, intellectual, and political challenges facing Jews in the twentieth century and how he attempted to relate them to previous trials and persecutions of the Jewish people.

1944: A Year in the Life of a Montreal Orthodox Rabbi

The Association for Canadian Jewish Studies encourages research on the Canadian Jewish experience through the disciplines of political science, sociology, economics, geography, history, demography, education, religion, linguistics, literature, architecture, performing and fine arts, among others.

Modern Orthodoxy in the Forties

This article examines trends in Modern Orthodoxy in North America in the 1940s. Canadian and American Orthodox rabbis and laypeople belonged to the same organizations, such as the Union of Orthodox Jewish Congregations of America and the Rabbinic Council of America (RCA). The major Orthodox rabbinic seminaries were located in the United States, and many Canadian rabbis were trained there. One of the issues the article addresses is Modern Orthodoxy’s issues with Traditional Orthodoxy, which - while newer on the scene in the 1940s - was beginning to make its mark. Orthodox leaders also took an active role in the war effort; the role of Orthodoxy was enhanced on the American scene by the contributions that the RCA made in the area of military chaplaincy. Orthodox leaders also took on a major role in the attempt to rescue European Jewry. Finally, just as there was a new role for America in Modern Orthodoxy, there was a new role for Zionism and Eretz Yisrael.

‘The Golden Chain of Pious Rabbis’: the origin and development of Finnish Jewish Orthodoxy

This article provides the first historiographical analysis of the origins of Jewish Orthodoxy in Helsinki and describes the development of the rabbinate from the establishment of the congregation in the late 1850s up to the early 1980s. The origins of the Finnish Jewish community lies in the nineteenth-century Russian army. The majority of Jewish soldiers in Helsinki originated from the realm of Lithuanian Jewish (Litvak) culture, that is, mainly non-Hasidic Jewish Orthodoxy that emerged in the late eighteenth century. Initially, the Finnish Jewish religious establishment continued this Orthodox-Litvak tradition. After the independence of Finland, the Helsinki congregation hired academic, Modern Orthodox rabbis educated in Western Europe. Following the devastation of the Shoah and the Second World War, the recruitment of rabbis faced new challenges. Overall, the rabbi recruitments were in congruence with the social and cultural development of the Helsinki community, yet respected its Orthodox roots.

Kosher USA: How Coke Became Kosher and Other Tales of Modern Food by Roger Horowitz

Reviewed by: Kosher USA: How Coke Became Kosher and Other Tales of Modern Food by Roger Horowitz Ari Ariel Roger Horowitz. Kosher USA: How Coke Became Kosher and Other Tales of Modern Food. New York: Columbia University Press, 2016. Xi + 320 pp. Hard-cover $35, paperback $26, ebook, $25. ISBN: 9780231158329, 9780231158336, 9780231540933. Kosher USA, by Roger Horowitz, is an invaluable look into the history and development of kosher certification in the United States. It demonstrates that kashrut is not static. Kosher certification is not simply about enforcing rules, but rather interpreting them in new contexts. Moreover, Horowitz illustrates the process by which Orthodox Jewish individuals and organizations established certification programs, which then created new structures for debating and adjudicating kashrut, and new hierarchies of authority within the American Jewish community. Chapter 2 and 3 focus on the certification of Coke and Jell-O, respectively, highlighting the anxiety that came to the fore as modern industrial food processing forced Jewish communities to delineate the relationship between scientific and religious knowledge. For each of these products, industrial ingredients that bear little resemblance to traditional foodstuffs problematized kosher certification. In both cases, some rabbis deemed these ingredients kosher, while others objected. In part, the difference lay in interpretation of Jewish law. Did the glycerin in Coke, derived from non-kosher animal [End Page 77] sources, make the beverage treif? Perhaps the minute percentage of glycerin in a larger mixture could be fall under the rule of bitul (nullification) even thought this status had traditionally been reserved for small amounts of non-kosher ingredients unintentionally introduced to a kosher food. Likewise, had the gelatin in Jell-O been so chemically transformed that it could be considered kosher regardless of its origins? In these cases, the scientific nature of modern food production processes called into question the very ability of rabbis to rule on the kosher status of food. Initially, rabbis rejected any attempt on the part of lay scientists to encroach on their authority. Over time, however, rabbinical authorities conceded that scientific expertise was a necessary component of determinations about kashrut. Chapter 4, “Who Says It’s Kosher?,” examines how the Orthodox movement came to dominate kosher certification in the United States. Once Orthodox rabbis had come to terms with the role of science in modern food systems, they used their authority to restructure the American kosher industry around their trademarks. As a result, the Orthodox Union (OU) in particular became “a central church of Orthodox Judaism.” (101) In the past, individual shoppers, if necessary in consultation with local rabbis, decided if a food was kosher or not. Starting in the latter part of the twentieth century, the industrialization of food networks made this impossible. If expert knowledge was required to determine what was in a food product, kashrut itself had to become a science, and trademarks became the ultimate proof of kosher status. Moreover, as the OU and other Orthodox certifiers created sophisticated organizations, they were able to dominate the field of kosher supervision in the United States. In fact, conservative rabbis had never tried to create national organizations dedicated to kashrut. Orthodox religious institutions garnered profits from their certification programs and were then able to channel monies to proselytize for Orthodox Judaism, and against the conservative and reform movements. This explains, in part, the “renaissance of Orthodox Judaism in the latter part of the twentieth century.” (104) Chapter 5 engages an important debate about the success of kosher food in the American processed food industry. Sue Fishkoff, in Kosher Nation: Why More and More of America’s Food Answers to a Higher Authority (Knopf, 2010), and others, have pointed out that the majority of consumers of kosher food in the United States are non-Jews. The standard reason given for this has been that American consumers, anxious about what is in their food, understand kosher to mean healthy and high quality. This explanation has never satisfied me. What percentage of consumers purchasing Heinz Ketchup or Newman’s Own Ranch Dressing are even aware that they are kosher? Most consumers buy kosher products inadvertently. Horowitz provides a compelling explanation for this. Focusing on food chains, he highlights the influence of institutional consumers...

Social Change and Halakhic Evolution in American Orthodoxy by Chaim Waxman

Reviewed by: Social Change and Halakhic Evolution in American Orthodoxy by Chaim Waxman Marc. B. Shapiro (bio) Social Change and Halakhic Evolution in American Orthodoxy. By Chaim Waxman. Liverpool: Littman Library of Jewish Civilization, 2017. vi + 226 pp. In his new book, Chaim Waxman combines a few different areas of study. There is the sociology of the American Jewish community, in particular the Orthodox. Together with this, there is a good deal of history of the Orthodox segment, and both of these areas are combined with analysis of halakhic evolution in the American Orthodox community. This latter point is very significant, since at the end of the day what defines the Orthodox community is its adherence to halakhah. This is a valuable book, and anyone interested in American Jewish studies and halakhic development will gain much from Waxman's analysis. The reader will quickly see that there is actually a lot in the book that really has nothing to do with American Orthodoxy per se [End Page 111] but is about Orthodoxy as a whole, or the situation in Israel. I think, therefore, that the stress on American Orthodoxy in the title is not apt, as Waxman's insights go beyond the American scene. For example, there is a discussion of the Louis Jacobs affair in England, which would seem to have nothing to do with the United States. Waxman assumes that the dispute over Jacobs's writings was not so much about what he said but reflected British inter-Orthodox politics, and he does not think that American Modern Orthodoxy would have had the same reaction to Jacobs. I do not believe this point is correct, as Jacobs advocated a complete acceptance of higher biblical criticism, which in the 1960s was anathema to the entire Modern Orthodox community. Among the numerous important points in the book, Waxman calls attention to the fact that while many of the Modern Orthodox are selective in their observance, this is a matter of personal choice and there is no attempt to legitimate their behavior. Thus, they are not a challenge to the rabbinic authorities. In such circumstances, "Orthodoxy can tolerate deviance when it is so recognized by the actor; what it cannot tolerate is the legitimation of what it considers to be deviance through the rejection of its rabbis" (100). This is a very important point that explains a good deal about the interactions between Modern Orthodox laypeople and rabbis, including ultra-Orthodox rabbis. Waxman also notes that the very openness of Modern Orthodoxy is what limits its attractiveness for many, maybe even most. This is because many people are looking for black and white answers rather than the sort of complexity found in Modern Orthodoxy. While there is no doubt some truth to this, how do we explain why Modern Orthodoxy was the leading type of Orthodoxy throughout much of the twentieth century? Any discussion of the growth of right-wing Orthodoxy, which has occurred at the same time as Modern Orthodox growth, just to a greater extent, also must take into account the financial assistance provided by the welfare state. Let me note a few examples where I do not think matters are as clear as the author presents them. Waxman uses the 2013 Pew survey which, while valuable, also has problems that I have not seen discussed in any serious way. For example, of the evidence cited by Waxman, what is one to make of the result that two percent of Orthodox respondents are intermarried? Clearly, what the respondents regarded as Orthodox is not what anyone else would regard as such. There are other such problems in the survey which raise questions as to how people who identify as Orthodox understand the term. In addition, Waxman writes, "It should be emphasized that this does not mean that the amount and level of Talmud learning in the United States is the same as it was in eastern [End Page 112] Europe, where a much higher percentage devoted several hours daily to Talmud study" (96 n. 38). Waxman has unfortunately been taken in by a widespread haredi myth. The truth is just the opposite. There are today many more people, both in...

War, Musar, and the Construction of Humility in Modern Jewish Thought

This article considers how the musar (virtue-focused) tradition in Jewish ethics may shape Jewish moral judgments on questions of war and peace, focusing on various constructions of the virtue of humility in modern Jewish thought. It gives particular attention to concepts of humility advanced by Menachem Mendel Lefin, the leading figure of the Polish Haskalah, and it suggests that Lefin’s model of critical selfassessment, especially if carried out in partnership with those from different nations or traditions, could help to restrain the misplaced pride, enthusiasm, and impulses to dehumanize enemies that may emerge at times of war. The article brings Lefin’s approach into dialogue with three Jewish thinkers who argued that proper humility should in some cases encourage the use of violence and even the dehumanization of enemies: the Lithuanian Orthodox rabbi Simhah Zissel Ziv, the American Reform rabbi Kaufmann Kohler, and the militant Orthodox Israeli rabbi Meir Kahane.

Mapping Work in Early Twentieth-Century Montreal: A Rabbi, a Neighbourhood, and a Community

Rabbi Simon Glazer’s 1909 daily journal provides a window onto his role as an orthodox rabbi of a largely Yiddish-speaking immigrant community, his interactions with Jewish newcomers, the range of tasks he performed to augment the inadequate stipends he received from a consortium of five city synagogues where he was chief rabbi, and the ways in which Jewish newcomers sought to become economically independent. Using a multidisciplinary methodology, including Historical Geographic Information Systems (HGIS), Glazer’s journal offers a new lens through which to view and map the social geography of this community. Our study contributes to a growing body of literature on immigrant settlement, which has shown that such clustering encouraged economic independence and social mobility. Characterized by a high degree of diversity in ethnicity and commerce, the St. Lawrence Boulevard corridor was an ideal location for Jewish newcomers to set down roots. We argue that the community served as a springboard for social mobility and that Simon Glazer played an important role at a critical moment in its early development. It was on its way to becoming one of Canada’s most significant Jewish communities. Over the eleven years that he worked in Montreal (1907–18), Glazer carved out a vital place for himself in the city’s Jewish immigrant community and honed skills that would serve him well when he returned to the United States.

Eliah Benamozegh, Franz Rosenzweig and Their Blueprint of a Jewish Theology of Christianity

AbstractIn Jewish philosophy, be it medieval or modern, a comprehensive Jewish theological discourse about Christianity is conspicuously absent. There are, however, two prominent exceptions to this rule in modern Jewish philosophy: The Italian Sephardic Orthodox Rabbi Eliah Benamozegh (1823–1900) and the German-Jewish philosopher Franz Rosenzweig (1886–1929). In both men's thought, Christianity plays a pivotal (and largely positive) role, so much so that their Jewish philosophies would not be the same without Christianity, which has no precedent in Jewish thought. Though Rosenzweig was not aware of his Sephardic predecessor, there are some striking parallels in the two thinker's Jewish theologies of Christianity that have far-reaching interreligious implications. These parallels concern as well the basic paradigm for a positive evaluation of Christianity—the paradigm of the fire (particularist Judaism) and its rays (universal Christianity)—as well as the central flaw both of them attribute to Christianity: a built-in disequilibrium that threatens the success of its legitimate mission. These parallels are all the more striking as two thinkers arrived at their conclusions independently and by different paths: the one (Benamozegh) took recourse to Kabbalah, the other (Rosenzweig) to proto-existentialist philosophy. A comparative study of these two protagonists’ Jewish theologies of Christianity seems thus imperative.An “interreligious epilogue” at the end of the article exposes the contemporary need for a reassessment of the relationship between Judaism and Christianity from a Jewish perspective—especially in light of the deep theological revision that characterizes the approach of the Catholic Church towards Jews and Judaism following “Nostra Aetate”—but at the same time delineates the theological limits of the current Christian-Jewish interreligious endeavor. In this light, the pioneering theology of Christianity in the works of Rosenzweig and Benamozegh might yield some relevant insights.

Social work and pastoral counseling: Empowering each other

ABSTRACTThis article addresses the divergent outcomes which can result from counseling services offered pastorally versus clinically. As faith leaders often have greater direct access than social workers to supporting religious populations, it is important to explore the intersection between religious pastoral support and clinical social work. Presenting six scenarios from the author’s own experiences as both a rabbi and social worker, this article processes each scenario first through the pastoral lens of an Orthodox rabbi, followed by the clinical lens of a social worker or other mental health professional. The client outcomes which are produced from each modality are radically different. This contrast demonstrates the distinction between the goals, values, and training of each profession, and highlights importance for future work to be done in linking religious and pastoral training to mental health services, as well as broadening the scope of cultural competence for social workers and therapists who may engage with tight-knit religious populations.

1897: The Year of Jewish Revolutions?

1897: The Year of Jewish Revolutions? Derek Jonathan Penslar 1897 marked the beginning of twin Jewish revolutions, one national and one social, that started out separately but took on aspects of each other as they drew closer together over time. The one was embodied in the Zionist Organization, which held its first congress in Basel in August of that year. The other was promoted by the General Jewish Labor Bund in Russia and Poland, which was founded in Vilna in October. Neither revolution appeared out of the blue, unfolding rather over a long arc of time. Across the nineteenth century, Jews had figured in radical politics throughout Europe, particularly in Russia from the late 1870s. Jewish nationalism assumed many forms, some of them oriented toward Palestine, such as the Hovevei Tsion (Lovers of Zion) societies, which sprang up throughout Eastern Europe and Romania after 1882, and which were organized into an international federation in 1884. Just as Jewish radicalism and nationalism preceded 1897, so did they continue to develop outside the framework of the Bund and the Zionist Organization. Why, then, should we look to 1897 as a turning point in the history of both Jewish nationalism and radicalism? In that year, both the Zionist Organization and the Bund formalized and pushed forward previously inchoate revolutionary political projects, and within a few years they would become the most dynamic Jewish political institutions in Eastern Europe, with global influence. Their ideologies were mutually influential: Zionism quickly attracted socialists, and over time the Bund cautiously embraced the goal of Jewish autonomism in a postrevolutionary Russian federation. Many of the competing forms of fin de siècle Jewish political life such as territorialism and middle-class, nonsocialist diaspora nationalism responded to, and in turn influenced, Zionism and Bundism. The word "revolution" is multivalent, and its meaning and consequences for Zionism and Bundism are not identical. The word is commonly associated with upheaval and the attempted supplanting of one [End Page 520] regime (be it political, social, or epistemic) by another. The revolutionary project of the Bund is obvious enough, as it sought to overthrow the Tsarist regime and construct a social democratic Russian federation. The extent to which that project succeeded, however, is debatable. The Tsarist regime fell, but the Bund did not bring about the revolutions of 1905 or 1917. During the early years of the Soviet Union, Jews enjoyed the fruits of emancipation, but in time they fell victim to oppression and persecution. The Bund's legacy was, therefore, ambiguous. Jews in North America still continue to identify more with the left than the right, but "left" almost always means liberalism, not radicalism, which is the province of small but vocal congeries of Jewish intellectuals, often cloistered in colleges and universities. Zionist achievements have been more concrete than those of the Bund. A Jewish state was established in 1948. That state has recently marked its seventieth anniversary, and it has deeply affected Jewish consciousness across the globe. In most accounts of the history of Zionism, and in Jewish popular memory, the 1897 congress and its convener, Theodor Herzl, are accorded pioneering roles in the Zionist project. Herzl himself contributed to that perception, writing in his diary shortly after the conference's conclusion, "In Basel I founded the Jewish state."1 Did he? The congress was indeed a momentous event, but its participants were divided about its goals and cautious in formulating them. Its platform, thenceforth known as the Basel Program, aspired to the "creation of a home for the Jewish people in Palestine to be secured by public law."2 This program represented a compromise between those who wanted a clear declaration of aspirations for statehood and those who feared that such boldness would endanger the status of the movement in Tsarist Russia and of those Jews living under Ottoman rule in Palestine. In the debate that preceded the adoption of the platform, some delegates demanded assurance that this "home" would be intended only for those Jews who did not wish to remain in their current lands of residence. Orthodox rabbis demanded that the movement limit itself to the improvement of the Jews' political status and not engage in religious affairs...

Heini Halberstam, 1926-2014

Heini Halberstam, 1926-2014

The rabbi and the psychoanalyst: Erich Fromm and Samson Raphael Hirsch – an unacknowledged debt

Erich Fromm (1900–1980) was one of the twentieth century’s most renowned psychologists. Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch (1808–1888) is regarded as the herald of Modern Jewish Orthodoxy. Fromm’s grandfather was an Orthodox rabbi with strong personal ties to Rabbi Hirsch. Fromm grew up as an Orthodox Jew in Rabbi Hirsch’s hometown Frankfurt, and his intensive Jewish learning until his rupture with Orthodox Judaism (at the age of 26) is well attested. Thus Fromm must have been familiar with Hirsch’s teaching and thought. Through his entire life Fromm continued to write about Judaism, from a psychoanalytic point of view. Although Fromm mentions Hirsch only in passing in two of his very early German writings, in at least two instances in his mature writings – dealing with symbolism and Shabbat – he draws heavily and undoubtedly on Hirsch’s thought. The present article presents the evidence for this claim.

Legal protection of animals in Israel

Israel’s legislatures have been strongly promoting animal welfare and animal rights in recent decades, as lawmakers have united in giving increased importance to animal cruelty and suffering at the Knesset, in a country where the number of vegans is growing impressively in line with Jewish religious and ethical values. The Supreme Court of Israel developed a three-stage test to determine whether an act is prohibited by the law, adopting a costs and benefits approach with regards to cases of alleged animal cruelty, which has prompted the ban of the force-feeding process used in the making of foie gras. However there remains room for improvement, as there is still no ban on the use of battery-cages for hens in Israel, nor of dehorning cattle without anesthesia. There are two main practices that must still be addressed as contributors to animal suffering; the shipments of live animals to be slaughtered in the Holy Land, and the ritual slaughter under kashrut. However, Government authorities are encouraging the abandonment of the practice of kaparot, with some cities having banned it already. Could the gap between animal welfare (implementation of animal welfare basic Jewish principles) and animal rights (putting an end to the slaughtering at all) be crossed with a cautious, selective and animal friendly interpretation of Jewish Laws historically putting human interests first, by trumping the speciesism that has been inherent to most religious interpretations? Vegan Orthodox, Conservative and Reform rabbis generate hope for such a change, in addition to increased secular viewpoints and democratic activism, helping the interests of non-human animal to override human greed - nothing ever seems impossible in the land of milk and honey.

A Blessing in the Midst of the Earth

A Blessing in the Midst of the Earth

Jewish extremist and terrorist organizations in Israel

This article is an extension of the research material published in the previous issue of the Journal “International Analytics” (2016, vol. 3 (17), p. 45–58), and focused on the activity of the Jewish paramilitary groups in Palestine before the establishment of the State of Israel in 1948. Originally the conspiratorial Jewish extremist organization opposed the policy of the Jewish immigration restraint which had been carried out by the socialist countries, especially the USSR. Some ultra-Orthodox groups, such as the Union of Zealots, used openly the terrorist methods in the struggle against the development of Israel as a secular and democratic state. After the war of 1967 and the Israeli occupation of the Arab territories the orthodox-nationalists, who formed the vanguard of the “Movement for Greater Israel”, created an underground network of extremist armed organizations. From the beginning, the activities of these groups were contrary to the Israeli Law on the Fight against Terror. The term commonly used for the Jewish underground groups in Hebrew is “mahteret”. There have been several dozen groups of this kind in the history of the Israeli settlements movement. The most famous of them are “Kach” (“Thus”) and “Kahane Chai” (“Kahane Lives”).The initiator and inspirer of the “Jewish Underground” was an American Orthodox Rabbi Meir Kahane. He founded a political settlement party “Kach” which had legally existed until in 1988 a ban on the list of its candidates in the parliamentary elections was imposed by the Supreme Court of Israel because of the accusations of the denial of the democratic character of the state of Israel and the promotion of racism. The activities of both organizations were declared terrorist and banned in the USA and some other countries.The article analyses religious, philosophical and political routes of the modern ideology of Israeli orthodox nationalists who participate in the settlement movement on the occupied Arab territories as well as the illegal activities of the most famous parties and organizations supporting the policy of the extension of the Israeli jurisdiction over the occupied Arab territories.

Mapping Work in Early Twentieth-Century Montreal: A Rabbi, a Neighbourhood, and a Community

Rabbi Simon Glazer’s 1909 daily journal provides a window onto his role as an orthodox rabbi of a largely Yiddish-speaking immigrant community, his interactions with Jewish newcomers, the range of tasks he performed to augment the inadequate stipends he received from a consortium of five city synagogues where he was chief rabbi, and the ways in which Jewish newcomers sought to become economically independent. Using a multidisciplinary methodology, including Historical Geographic Information Systems (HGIS), Glazer’s journal offers a new lens through which to view and map the social geography of this community. Our study contributes to a growing body of literature on immigrant settlement, which has shown that such clustering encouraged economic independence and social mobility. Characterized by a high degree of diversity in ethnicity and commerce, the St. Lawrence Boulevard corridor was an ideal location for Jewish newcomers to set down roots. We argue that the community served as a springboard for social mobility and that Simon Glazer played an important role at a critical moment in its early development. It was on its way to becoming one of Canada’s most significant Jewish communities. Over the eleven years that he worked in Montreal (1907–18), Glazer carved out a vital place for himself in the city’s Jewish immigrant community and honed skills that would serve him well when he returned to the United States.

Rabbi Haim Hirschensohn: An Orthodox Rabbi Responds to the Balfour Declaration

Rabbi Haim Hirschensohn:An Orthodox Rabbi Responds to the Balfour Declaration1 David Ellenson (bio) The eminent modern Jewish philosopher Emil Fackenheim employed the phrase, “the Jewish return into History,” to contend that the success of political Zionism in creating the State of Israel after 1800 years of Exile and restoring national political sovereignty meant that an end had come to collective Jewish political passivity.2 Through the creation of modern Israel, the Jewish people as a national group had at long last returned to the arenas of history and power politics. As the Hebrew University scholar of Jewish Thought Eliezer Schweid has phrased it, the Jewish people, as a collective, now had “new responsibility—total and comprehensive—for a state, a society…That was the full scope of the change wrought by the national movement.”3 The renewed national sovereignty of the Jewish people in their ancestral homeland brought scores of moral and practical challenges to Jewish life and thought that remain unto the present day. For many contemporary religious and cultural Zionists, one of these challenges has been, in the words of historian Adam Ferziger, to discover “alternative and more liberal ways of approaching questions of Jewish law and modernity in general and of Judaism and nationalism in particular.”4 [End Page 247] Click for larger view View full resolution Figure 1. Rabbi Haim Hirschensohn. Israel National Library. [End Page 248] In engaging in this quest, more and more religious-national and cultural Jews in Israel have turned with great interest to the writings of Orthodox Rabbi Haim Hirschensohn (1857–1935 [Figure 1]). A native of the Land of Israel who came to the United States in the first years of the Twentieth Century, he wrote on issues regarding the proposed Jewish state while living in Hoboken, New Jersey. Interest in Hirschensohn—particularly in Israel—has become noteworthy in recent decades. The scholar Eliezer Schweid wrote an impressive 1992 monograph, Democracy and Halakhah, on Hirschensohn and his thought, while David Zohar, a religious-national Israeli, authored Jewish Commitment in a Modern World: Rabbi Haim Hirschensohn and His Attitude toward Modernity, in 2003, a book that scholar Marc Shapiro has described as the starting point from “where all future analysis of Hirschensohn’s halakhic thought will begin.”5 Besides these scholars, many others have turned to Hirschensohn. This scholarship has sparked a renewed contemporary interest in Hirschensohn and his writings precisely because his great halakhic erudition as well as his warm embrace of Zionism and the modern world allowed him to argue that Judaism and Jewish law possess the capacity to affirm democracy and other modern political and cultural currents and trends.6 For religious and cultural Zionists who wish to reject the apocalyptic, messianic currents of religious Zionism as promoted by the ideological heirs of Gush Emunim, the responsa of Hirschensohn allow them to identify political-religious Zionism with the openness and rationality that they feel ought more appropriately to characterize religious Zionism. [End Page 249] Because his writings display an unwavering commitment to religious Zionism and a profound knowledge of Jewish law, Hirschensohn provides a model of authentic halakhic sobriety, creativity, and integrity that they feel Israel needs today. In this essay, my aim is to focus on two major issues he addresses in his halakhic work Malki Bakodesh: the end of Jewish political quiescence as a response to the Balfour Declaration of 1917, and the contention that Jewish law should not only accommodate democracy, but that it demands its full embrace as the form of government required by a Jewish polity. In analyzing his work, I will demonstrate the novel halakhic efforts of a scholarly rabbi residing in the United States to explain these matters from a Jewish legal standpoint. Rabbi Haim Herschensohn and Malki Bakodesh: His Life and the Context for His Halakhic Work The life of Haim Herschensohn cannot be understood without an appreciation of the mid-nineteenth century world into which he was born. The Land of Israel during the mid-1800s was under Ottoman rule. Three major groups succeeded in establishing autonomous Jewish settlements there at that time, religiously-traditional Sepharadim from the Ottoman Empire itself, Ultra-Orthodox Askenazim who fled Central...