El Paso herald. (El Paso, Tex.) 1901-1931, 1911-01-18
AMERICAN JUDAISM
IS A NEW HUMANITY
DR.. Kaufman Kohler Pays
Tribute to Work of Amer
lean Israel

New York, N. Y, Jan. 1S.-In his
address before the 22nd annual council
Of the Union American Hebrew congre-
cations at the Hotel Astor, Rev. DR..
Kaufman Kohler. president of the He
brew Union college at Cincinnati said
in part:
When I think of what Judaism
meant to our fathers when within the
gloomy Ghetto walls, amidst unparal-
leled woe and in the face of cruelest
persecution by fanatics and death
dealing mObs, they went each morning
to the synagog to proudly proclaim
the unity Of God in the Sh'ma Yisroel
~and' declare their readiness 10 offer
their life sand all they had for the
glorificatioT1- of the Most High, while
reciting the benediction: Blessed be.
the Lord whose name is to be sancti-
fled before the whole world and when
I compare Herewith what Judaism
means to us who live in amity and in
concord with all our fellow citizens
round about, enjoying the same rights
and privileges and finding all avenues
and opportunities to success and sta
ton, to power, honor and influence
open to each as the peer and equal of
all, and yet stand up with heart and
soul, with might and main, with burn
ing zeal and glowing enthusiasm for
the ancient faith, to the poten " ard
vitality Of which our magnificent tenn
pies and our glorious institutions Of
philanthropy and education all over
the country give loud and unequivocal
testimony; and when fourther consider
what is being done by American Israel
for the suffering and struggling, the
storm tossed and fury dashed Jew Of
other lands and chimes, then American
Judaism, the soul and spiritual essence
of American Jewry, appears to me to
be theme so grand and rich, so bright
in out look, and so suggestive of hope
and unlimited potentialities that the
pen quivers and the tongue falters in
the endeavor to do it Justice
What is American Judaism and for
what does it stand? The very name
has been challenged by those who
assert that there is, and there should
be but one Judaism, Catholic Judaism,
as theE choose to call it, pointing to
the traditional law, the Halakah, as
the impregnable fortress and founda-
ton Of united Israel. AS if this very
law with its diverse codes, as if this
very Judaism of the centuries was not
the product Of various lands and civil.
iZatiOns. Whether PaleStinian or Baby
lOnianS, Alexandrian or Persian. Polish
or Portuguese, medieval or modern,
Judaism at al times received its pc
culiar traits, views and forms from its
environment, which either broadened il
or rendered it narrow and clannfsh
'In the dreary Russian or medieval
Ghetto its growth became stunted, and
it degraded into a system of hair
splitting casuistry and superstition.
There is no room for Ghetto Judaism
in America Look at any of the creeds
and churches in our free land They
are all more tolerant more liberal,
more humane and sympathetic in their
mutual relations than those in Europe
Our free institutions, our common
school education, our enlightening
press and pulpit with their appeal to
sense, enlarge the mental ano
social horizon and render progress the !
guiding maxim. Least Of all. could |
Judaism retain its medieval garb, its !
alien form, its seclusiveness in a coun- /
try that rolled off the shame and the I
taunt of centuries from the shoulders |
Of the wandering Jew, to place him, the |
former Pariah of the nations, along |
side Of the highest and the best, ac- |
cording to his worth and merit as man, |
and among a people that took the very |
principles of justice and human dig /
nifty proclaimed by IsraePs lawgivers !
and prophets and made them the foun- /
dalton stones of their commonwealth. /
No, American Judaism must step forth, /
the equal Of any church in broadness /
Of view and largeness of scope as a /
living truth, as an inspiring message /
to the new humanity that is now in I
the making, not as mere memory of /
the past and a piece of Orientalism in |
the midst of vigorous. forward press
ing Occidental civilization"