page_title: Hamburg Temple disputes
section_title: Second dispute
hierarchical_section_title: Hamburg Temple disputes / Second dispute
caption_attribution_description: Westfassade Tempel Poolstraße, Einzelblatt Zeichnung
context_page_description: The Hamburg Temple disputes were the two controversies which erupted around the Israelite Temple in Hamburg, the first permanent Reform synagogue, which elicited fierce protests from Orthodox rabbis. The events were a milestone in the coalescence of both modern perceptions of Judaism. The primary occurred between 1818 and 1821, and the latter from 1841 to 1842.
context_section_description: In the two decades that followed after the end of the first controversy, the social and cultural processes which led to the establishment of the Israelite Temple ripened and intensified, engulfing most of German Jews. An entire generation went to modern schools; levels of personal observance, which were steadily declining for many years, now reached a critical turning point. In the 1840s, the majority could be classified a non-Orthodox. The last traditional yeshiva, that of Fürth, closed in 1828. Higher education became mandatory for rabbis both by government decree and popular demand. Young university graduates slowly replaced the old religious leadership. Reform tendencies, limited to the upper crust of acculturated laymen twenty years earlier, now permeated the rabbinate itself.
  Many of its members were steered by the social pressures of a public losing interest in its religion and the intellectual challenge of Judaic studies (Wissenschaft des Judentums), pioneered by Leopold Zunz and his circle. Subjecting tradition to scientific scrutiny, under the influence of liberal Protestant theologians who had done the same, various concepts - like the Resurrection of the Dead, the mentions of Angels in the liturgy and the like - taken for granted were now critically reevaluated, and condemned as alien imports from ancient middle-eastern pagan religions. The most radical partisan of Wissenschaft was the young Rabbi Abraham Geiger, who launched the irreverent journal Wissenschaftliche Zeitschrift für Jüdische Theologie, where Judaism was critically analyzed with little concern for received forms or beliefs. By 1837, the liberal wing was sufficiently strong for Geiger to convene a group of like-minded rabbis in Wiesbaden and suggest radical measures to bridge the gap between most of the Jewish public and its religion.
  On this background, in April 1839, the spiritual leadership of the Hamburg Temple decided to draft a second edition of its prayerbook, indeed the only new Reform liturgy since the former. Approaching its semi-jubilee, the directorate believed it was high time to break out of the isolation and gain the influence they believed accorded their association. The commission in charge comprised Gotthold Salomon, Eduard Kley, Bresselau and Fränkel. Kley resigned from the temple, replaced as preacher by Naphtali Frankfurter, and Bresselau died on 25 December. They declared that the new tome must express the "pure teaching of our ancestral religion", and all that contrasted it "must be removed." In comparison to the Wissenschaft-inspired rabbinical cadre the Hamburg commission was still quite dilettante, lacking a well-defined ideological stance, a matter which little concerned them. It also had to accommodate a diverse congregation and maintain its legitimacy within the wider community. "Not a few" among its constituents, as Meyer commented, were rather conservative, even strictly observant, and had no interest in far-reaching modifications. Their aim was to compose an inspiring liturgy, not a theologically consistent one.
  The second edition, published in August 1841, introduced few innovations. It both restored several traditional formulae, like the hymnal verses and some petitions for Jerusalem (though in small print and untranslated) and omitted others, producing a rite that altogether was not more radical than the 1818 version. Yet this time, the authors declared they hoped that the prayerbook would be adopted "in all communities where the strive for progress reigned alongside a genuine fear of God." In addition, The constituency of the Temple grew, and the old building was overcrowded. In 1840 they requested the Hamburg Senate to be allowed to build a new, 640-seat sanctuary in the Poolstraße. They also wrote the main community, arguing they were due-paying members and asked for it to aid in financing the project. The outreach efforts of the Reform party alerted Bernays into action, in spite of his contract.
  On 16 October 1841, the Hacham issued an announcement that the new prayerbook did not fulfill the minimal require
caption: The new Temple at the Poolstraße.
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