The Empire of Our Religion

Amidst unfettered mobility, Jewish leaders like Isaac Mayer Wise and Isaac Leeser attempted not only an institutional overhaul of American Judaism, but also an ideological one. Jewish leaders engaged in popular geography and new forms of theological reflection, drawing on Jewish thought and the ideologies of American imperialism. They both critiqued the settings of American Jewish life, even advocating for agricultural colonies, but also developed a Jewish pastoral ideal. In this mode, they developed novel understandings of Jewish identity, Jewish institutions, and religious change. The internalized “Jewish heart” and the powerful “empire of our religion” both became widespread metaphors for explaining how and why Judaism would flourish anywhere. They were used by a broad swath of Jewish leaders, as was the concept of “progress,” although those allied with Wise’s Reform Judaism and with Leeser’s traditionalism soon developed competing understandings of how religious change should happen and of whether Judaism should be fully mobile or merely portable. In spite of these divides, they helped establish an underlying confidence that Judaism could and should prevail throughout the American continent through institutional development and individual identities.

A Congregation of Strangers

This chapter argues that American Jewish denominationalism developed not only to enshrine religious authority but to create cooperation, familiarity, and access among mobile American Jews who seemed to be “strangers” to one another. Beginning with newspapers and informal social networks, leaders like Isaac Mayer Wise and Isaac Leeser worked to develop programs for traveling preachers, rabbinic credentials, and the collection of statistics. These became some of the most important goals of their new denominational bodies, the Board of Delegates of American Israelites and the Union of American Hebrew Congregations, which sought to familiarize and order American Jewish life. Efforts to create a national union failed because of sectarian and sectional divisions, but they did succeed in enshrining norms of congregational membership, professional leadership, and rational information throughout the nation.

Reminding Myself That I Am a Jew

Jewish migrants to the United States reveled in their ability to move, but also struggled to adapt to the distinctive social and economic relations of the United States, which was a “world of strangers.” This chapter shows how Jews created a wide range of social ties and institutions—not just congregations—in search of stability, trust, and identity. They entered into friendships and voluntary societies with non-Jews, but also sought out coreligionists through informal ties, newspapers, kosher boardinghouses, fraternalism, and worship services. Gradually, they moved to create Jewish organizations that were public and recognized by the state, including mutual aid societies, literary societies, fraternal lodges, charities, and congregations. Voluntarism did not perfectly map onto Jewish communalism, however, even more so because mobile Jews were rarely consistent, stable, or religiously uniform. This was especially problematic for congregations, which struggled to determine the boundaries and meaning of “membership” as well as the nature of congregational identity, liturgy, and worship.

Introduction

The introduction presents the case of a single mobile Jew with eclectic religious practices, Edward Rosewater, arguing that he is a compelling if unexpected starting point from which to redescribe religion in America. Building on religious studies methodologies developed in the American Catholic context, this book helps explain American religious eclecticism. As with contemporary “nones,” for nineteenth-century Americans like Rosewater, congregations, denominations, and stable identities were not obvious or inevitable. Rather, they were particular strategies—among many others—for coping with life amidst the individuating forces of American law, economics, and racial logics. While some Jews believed that Judaism was already suitable for all locales, most Jews recognized that they would have to reconcile Judaism with this new context, whether through individual adaptations like those of Rosewater or through the national projects proposed by famous leaders Rabbi Isaac Mayer Wise and Isaac Leeser.

’Tis in the Spirit Not in the Form

This chapter describes material culture, popular theology, and the new ideologies that they informed. Without established communities to procure authentic Jewish objects or religious authorities to offer orthodox theological positions, mobile Jews improvised, drawing together diverse material and intellectual resources. As they did so, emerging Judaica markets struggled with the growing pains of free-market capitalism, including inefficiencies, mismatches between supply and demand, and threats of fraud. Although they still invoked the communal God of Israel at some moments, Jews also embraced a more expansive and personal theological orientation that interpreted and explained both the possibility and uncertainty of Jews’ mobile lives. This combined with the increasing eclecticism of Jewish practice to foster new ideologies—including but not limited to American Reform Judaism—which were concerned less with legal obligation and communal participation than with personal intent as a marker of Jewish authenticity.

I Prefer Choice Myself

The search for stability and identity found expression not only in social life, but also in family life and the rhythms of the life cycle. Mobility intensified the desire for families, even as conditions made them difficult to create and maintain. There was a shortage of Jewish women as well as the requisite resources for traditional practice. Whereas in Europe, government-supported authorities had overseen these ritual practices, American law featured its own weak regulations of marriage, education, and death, usually in diverse state-based configurations. While some Jews did abandon Jewish practices, many tried to maintain them, cobbling together the requisite resources through informal networks or nascent institutions. In so doing, Jewish men and women often departed considerably from the expectations of Jewish authorities, embracing principles of sentimentalism and individualism, which were more mobile and reliable than Jewish legal strictures.

Wandering Sons of Israel

While Jews in Europe had long been associated with movement and alterity, most famously in the image of the Wandering Jew, in reality Jewish movement was heavily determined by state controls. Jewish identity in Europe remained a bureaucratic category, affecting Jewish mobility and religious life. In the United States, a confluence of legal, political, and economic structures meant that for men deemed white, including Jews, mobility was “unfettered.” This chapter explores incidents of American diplomacy from the 1850s, debates about peddling licenses and Sunday closing laws, and two incidents from the Civil War, including General Grant’s infamous Order No. 11. All of these demonstrate the linkages between mobility and whiteness as well as the complicated place of Jewish identity, as Americans tried to both affirm unfettered mobility and cope with the existential threats that it posed.

Conclusion

Two important but relatively unknown events marked the summer of 1877, involving businessman Joseph Seligman and Rabbi Isaac Mayer Wise, highlight the impact of mobility on religious life and thought at the end of an era in American history. The shifting economy and demography of American life created a new context for religious life, in which Jewish mobility was less common and Jewish whiteness was questioned. The 2.2 million Jews who came to the United States around the turn of the twentieth century built on the American Jewish infrastructure that earlier Jews had created and that would see its heyday at the middle of the twentieth century. Today, globalization and the Internet have thrust Americans back into an age of relentless mobility, anonymity, and uncertainty. Again, unafilliated Jews—and the much-heralded “nones” of all backgrounds—seek identity and belonging through family, informal social ties, print culture, and forms of knowledge unmoored from stable, coherent, and authoritative religious sources.