When Philadelphia was the capital of Jewish America

Between 1880 and 1920, some two million Jews entered the United States. Concerned that most would disappear into the melting pot, a group of religiously traditional and Jewishly knowledgeable Philadelphians mainly associated with Congregation Mikveh Israel joined with wealthier friends in the German-Jewish community in New York and elsewhere to create a number of major institutions on which American Jewish life came to be built in subsequent years. These included the American Jewish Committee, the Conservative religious movement (and its training arm, the Jewish Theological Seminary), the American Jewish Historical Society, Gratz and Dropsie colleges, and other institutions. In presenting the accomplishments of "the Philadelphia Group," this book provides a valuable insight into how one generation of American Jewry moved to meet the challenge to Jewish identity. In 1990, during the 250th anniversary of Mikveh Israel, a group of this country's leading Jewish historians came together under the auspices of the Center for American Jewish History, the American Jewish Committee, and Mikveh Israel to explore the path-breaking work of the Philadelphia Group. The original essays delivered at the conference - and those commissioned thereafter - are gathered together here. Among the essays included are Jonathan Sarna's on the role of the Philadelphia Group in the making of an American Jewish culture, Ira Robinson's on Cyrus Adler, David G. Dalin's on Judge Mayer Sulzberger (the "patriarch" of the group), and Robert E. Fierstien's on Sabato Morais (the first head of the Jewish Theological Seminary). In his introduction, Murray Friedman provides a group portrait of the distinguished Philadelphians and describes why Philadelphia at the turn of the century was peculiarly situated to play a special role in American Jewish life. Friedman and Daniel J. Elazar close the volume with "Jewish Leadership Then and Now," an exploration of the challenges facing Jewish leaders at different stages of American Jewish history. . This collection of essays provides a vivid and often moving portrait of an extraordinary, Jewishly committed group of individuals at a time when the destiny of the American Jewish community for the next half century was taking shape.