Читать книгу Prophet in a Time of Priests - Janice Rothschild Blumberg - Страница 8

II - UNCHARTED WATERS AND SOPHIE

Browne sailed forth into the uncharted, turbulent seas of the American rabbinate only partially prepared for the conditions that awaited him. Although Wise had ostensibly introduced his protégé to the real world of the American rabbinate by taking him along on some of his travels, the fledgling rabbi had yet to observe the far reaching ramifications of the power struggle that divided American congregations and their rabbis.

This was a period of transition, a time when many were undecided about the degree of reform that would best serve their needs both as new Americans and as Jews. Congregations fluctuated back and forth between the modern orthodoxy taking root in Europe, and the emerging neologism—radical reform—that they were now free to practice without restraint in America. Much depended on the views of congregational presidents and their boards of directors. No longer ruled by a government-appointed rabbi as in Europe, laymen rebelled against rabbinic domination and often relegated their spiritual leader to the position of mere functionary, an employee to be curbed or fired at the will or whim of an influential member. Personal egos ran high on both sides of the bima (pulpit).1

A few exceptionally well-qualified rabbis prevailed over this condition by gaining “star power,” through authorship of periodicals and prayer books, as well as by crowd- pleasing oratory. Occasionally a congregation would import an already renowned rabbi from Europe, as did New York’s B’nai Jeshurun in 1849 when it lured Morris Raphall from Birmingham, England, with the promise of high salary and life tenure. Such rabbis represented a range of Jewish thought from the uncompromising orthodoxy of Abraham Rice, who immigrated in 1840 and was the first ordained rabbi to serve an American congregation, to the extreme Reform of David Einhorn, who arrived in 1855, unable to hold a pulpit in Germanic states because of his radical views. Between these poles others maintained their own agendas for the salvation of American Jewry, some remaining adamant proponents of particular views; others compromising to further their various missions, and some genuinely moved by a change of philosophy.2

Isaac Leeser, although educated in America and unordained, was a traditionalist who nevertheless advocated Americanizing Judaism. Despite his German background, he had served as hazan (cantor and reader) of Mikveh Israel, Philadelphia’s historic Portuguese Congregation. Widely known for his efforts to educate American Jews through his many publications including the first Jewish-oriented translation of the Bible into English, and the Occident, the first nationally disseminated American Jewish periodical, he traveled extensively performing weddings, dedicating synagogues, and persuading far flung communities such as that of Atlanta to form congregations. As early as 1841, he attempted to organize a congregational union. The only rabbi of his day to approach him in output or travel was his energetic younger colleague, I. M. Wise of Cincinnati.3

By the time of Leeser’s death in 1868, Wise had become the recognized leader of “Western” Jewry—Jews living west of the Alleghenies. Congregations in need of a rabbi typically asked him for recommendations, which gave him increasing power and influence, putting younger rabbis in his debt as their benefactor. Knowing how fluid these positions were, such rabbis were reluctant to risk Wise’s disapproval even after achieving their immediate goals.

Leading Wise’s competition in the East were the cutting-edge liberals, David Einhorn, who by that time had moved from Baltimore to Philadelphia and then to Adath Israel (now Temple Beth El) of New York, and Samuel Adler of New York’s prestigious Temple Emanu-El, the wealthiest congregation in America. Unlike Wise, who immigrated as an unknown, they had attracted attention in Europe arriving in America as recognized scholars and ardent reformers. They were older than Wise, and despite being more traditionally educated than he, were even more determined to break with tradition. In 1869, they published a weekly newspaper, the Jewish Times, to promote their views.4

Wise had already established his two weekly newspapers, the Israelite (English) and Die Devorah (German), as well as a publishing house for Jewish books. Having little formal education but a mind quick to absorb and retain, he was, in Browne’s words, “a self-made man, [who] had much business enterprise....” He organized the so-called Western Jews “on a business-like basis, and... continually [went] for his opponents so that they became mortal enemies.”5

A major point of controversy was competition over the selection of prayer books. With few exceptions, congregations in post-colonial America used either the traditional Minhag Ashkenaz to which they were accustomed, or a liturgy composed by their rabbi in response to members’ request for more modernization. The earliest of these was Leo Mersbacher’s Order of Prayer, published in 1855, then quickly followed by Wise’s Minhag America in 1856, which reflected his purpose of uniting American Jewry, thus being seen as “middle of the road.” Einhorn, who had no desire to compromise or Americanize, competed the same year as Wise by publishing his Olat Tamid in German as an appeal for intellectualized radical Reform in the German tradition. Among others who published later according to their own precepts were Adolph Huebsch of New York, Raphael da Cordova Lewin of Brooklyn, David Levy of Charleston, Max Landsburg of Rochester, Aaron Hahn of Cleveland, Solomon Sonneschein of St. Louis, and Browne himself in New York. Not only did the purchase of these books produce income for their authors, it also indicated the degree to which congregations approved a particular rabbi’s views on liturgy. They served as weapons in the rabbis’ war for control of American Judaism, a conflict frequently marked by unbridled accusations in the Jewish press, notably in journals published by the rabbis themselves.6

Wise and Einhorn divided on more basic, inherent differences, however. The latter, an ideologue and uncompromising revolutionary, refused to bend his convictions even temporarily in order to gain wider support. He was an intellectual; Wise was not. Wise was a politician whose great appeal lay in his popular style and affable approach, his ability to relate to the public. His most compelling issue was uniting American Jewry in order to support a seminary for the training of rabbis who would then spread his interpretation of Reform across America. He often bent his tactics to further his progress, but never deviated from his goal of establishing a seminary.

In this spirit of compromise Wise spearheaded a conference in Cleveland in 1855. It was a third attempt to unite all American Jewish congregations. This infuriated Einhorn, who arrived in America just as the conference was about to begin and refused to attend. Although its adopted platform failed when traditional leaders recognized it as a tactic for establishing Reform, its most virulent opponents were Einhorn’s supporters at the opposite pole. They abhorred compromise, however temporary or practical it may have been.

Einhorn responded by immediately producing yet another competing prayer book, Olat Tamid, and establishing Sinai, a monthly German language periodical. The journal lasted only six years, whereas Wise’s weekly, The Israelite, in publication before Einhorn’s began, is still being published today and enjoyed a wide circulation during Wise’s lifetime, especially across the mid-west and the south. Ironically, although Wise’s views prevailed at the time, Einhorn’s, known as radical reform, ultimately emerged as the winner, becoming the foundation of Classical Reform through the leadership of his distinguished sons-in-law, Rabbi Emil G. Hirsch of Chicago and Rabbi Kaufmann Kohler who, after Wise died, became president of the Hebrew Union College.7

Browne was drawn into the Wise versus Einhorn (moderate versus radical Reform) controversy in September 1868, when Wise took him to New York for the dedication of Temple Emanu-El’s outstanding new synagogue. The congregation’s rabbi, Samuel Adler, pulled Browne aside to advise him that the occasion presented “a very favorable opportunity” for reconciling the conflict between Einhorn and Wise. Believing that their “entire enmity comes from their prayer books,” Adler thought that they might be persuaded to collaborate on a new minhag as replacement for their existing ones. He offered to bring Einhorn to the table if Browne could bring Wise. Wise agreed. Einhorn refused.8

Competition among rabbis over philosophy and control, fueled by their overarching egos, exacerbated differences between Wise and his opponents. Freed from the restraints of censorship as in Europe, they publicly insulted each other in vitriolic terms that would be unacceptable today. Einhorn, for example, memorably referred to Wise’s lowly position in Europe and questionable ordination as rabbi with the statement that he, “would not set with that Bohemian ex-schochet [ritual slaughterer] ‘Rev. Dr.’ under one roof.” He called Wise “the Barnum of the Jewish pulpit” who “arrogates to himself the role of dictator,” and declared Wise’s Minhag America “an abortion.” Wise responded in The Israelite, calling Einhorn and his friends a pack of “unprincipled nobodies.”9

One of those friends was the revered scholar Marcus Jastrow, who after earning a rabbinical degree and doctorate of philosophy, had been jailed in Poland for speaking out on human rights. In 1866, Congregation Rodeph Shalom of Philadelphia brought Jastrow to America with a generous life contract and salary of $4000 a year, thus assuring his status as a “celebrity” rabbi. In contrast to his east coast colleagues Einhorn and Adler, Jastrow was a more temperate reformer who immediately enabled his congregation “to feel the pulse of the times in Judaism in America,” and was later instrumental in establishing Conservative Judaism. His opposition to Wise stemmed from theological differences and the fact that he viewed the Cincinnati rabbi as a radical reformer without principle or learning. He opposed Wise’s idea of a Union of American Hebrew Congregations and the seminary that it would support.10

Jastrow apparently called Wise a liar in a published pamphlet, whereupon Browne recalled having gone to Philadelphia “with the sole purpose of cowhiding Dr. Jastrow.” Fortunately the hot-headed acolyte reconsidered, but not without having called attention to himself as a quick-triggered spokesperson for Wise.11

Montgomery, 1868

With this already dubious reputation, Browne entered his career as a rabbi. Steering him clear of the volatile east coast communities, Wise sent him to a pulpit safely within the protective confines of his own “western” influence. In 1869, when the turbulence of Reconstruction gave Southern Jews more pressing issues to contend with than disputes over differing views of Judaism, Wise sent his protégé to the “Cradle of the Confederacy,” Montgomery, Alabama.

Congregation Kahl Montgomery (now Temple Beth Or) although incorporated in 1852, had actually been in existence for twenty years and its membership—mostly German, Alsatian, and Polish in origin—had increased far beyond its original thirty founders. In 1862, the congregation acquired a synagogue building, largely through a bequest from New Orleans philanthropist Judah Touro.12

The congregation had been served by numerous readers, whose duty it was to lead the services and sometimes to teach the children. They had to know Hebrew, but were neither ordained rabbis nor necessarily scholars. Only one actual rabbi, James K. Gutheim, served in Montgomery before Browne. A staunch Confederate, distinguished scholar and advocate of moderate Reform, Gutheim left New Orleans rather than sign a pledge of allegiance to the United States when the city fell to Federal forces. He survived the war by settling his family with his wife’s parents in Mobile and earned a minuscule income by serving the congregations both of Montgomery, Alabama, and Columbus, Georgia, to which he commuted on a part-time basis. At war’s end he returned to New Orleans, having led the formerly traditionalist Kahl Montgomery well into Reform.13

Browne might have anticipated encountering special problems in this Deep South community still anguished by defeat in what local residents referred to as the “War of the Northern Aggression.” When he arrived, the Alabama capital, original capital of the Confederacy, was still under military rule and far from having healed its war wounds. Montgomery’s Jews, although largely residents of long standing ostensibly comfortable in their gentile environment, under the stress of war had become ever more sensitive to their neighbors’ view of them. Although economic disaster engendered by the war affected Jews and Christians alike, it aroused some envy of those Jews who noticeably prospered, one example of which was a Jewish shoe manufacturer appointed to supervise production of shoes for the Confederate army. This stirred previously dormant antisemitism, and among Jews dredged memories of enduring persecution in Europe which intensified their resolve to be acknowledged as fervent defenders of the Lost Cause. It was not unusual to see framed Confederate money and army discharge papers mounted on the walls of their homes.14

The post-bellum situation called for utmost discretion in public discourse, especially in regard to patriotism and social justice. Browne refrained from overt reference to these subjects in his first lecture in Montgomery, which he gave on Sunday morning, August 1, 1869. Because in those days lectures were a major source of entertainment and it was understood that some Christians would attend, he chose “Ethics of the Talmud,” an apparently nonpolitical subject to which he had given much thought over a long period of time and for which he held passionate convictions. As a devotee of the Talmud since childhood, he strongly disagreed with Einhorn and the radical reformers who decried it. Considering his congregants’ sensitivity to Christian scrutiny however, some of his ideas may nevertheless have caused them discomfort.

In his preamble Browne stated that Talmudic ethics could be understood only “in close alliance with modern sciences,” which clearly indicated that he viewed sacred texts from a scientific perspective. The latter, a relatively new and disputed form of study known as Biblical criticism, was being developed primarily by Christian scholars in Europe, some of whom were reputedly anti-Semitic. Browne contended that few people of either faith understood Talmudic ethics because “only a few gentlemen of the old European Hebrew school” were sufficiently trained to comprehend the text, and they had been taught to regard it as “a study claiming the implicit faith of the student, a work which should not pass the speculative processes of the mind . . .beyond the test of mental synthesis or analysis.” Christian scholars, in turn, while devoting “much of their time to the investigation... according to the means at their command” had even less possibility of understanding it because they were “confined to mere translations, frequently very defective, generally very unsystematically arranged, and nothing more than trifling fragments.”15

Browne followed with a brief definition of the Talmud, including the fact that it was written over a period of six centuries, “and perhaps much longer... .” Furthermore, he noted, current knowledge depended upon men who collected and compiled the traditions long after their authors had died.

In the body of his lecture Browne examined four divisions of Talmudic ethics: reverence toward father and mother, charity and benevolence, preservation and restoration of peace, and study and instruction above all. He illustrated its ethical superiority by contrasting such examples as Sophocles’ reprimand of his son for disrespecting his mother Xantippe, and the story of Cleobis and Biton according to Herodotus and Plutarch, with the Talmudic account of Rabbi Tarphon having placed his hands under his mother’s feet to protect her from stepping on barren ground.

Browne then cited Talmudic sections on charity and peace, referring to Bar Kaprah’s “glimpse into heaven” to demonstrate that angels harbored no hatred despite their differences. Underscoring ecumenism, he quoted the Talmudic passage, “All that are toiling for the restoration and preservation of peace, without religious distinction, shall inherit of the Lord peace and happiness here and hereafter,” adding the similar passage from Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount, “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called the children of God.”16

Regarding the Talmudic injunction to study and teach, he reminded listeners that the Jewish tradition of public education dated from the time of Ezra, and described the zeal with which ancient rabbis pursued their own studies. To illustrate the excess of that zeal (and demonstrate his attitude toward the traditionalists) he noted that the rabbis of the Talmud, “like the ultra-orthodox of our days, carried everything to the extreme.” Scholars were so revered, he said, that they were exempted from such ordinary concerns as providing for their own sustenance. He cited as an example the story of Rabbi Simon Bar Yochai secluding himself in a cave for thirteen years, sustained by fruit from a tree that miraculously grew in the depths of the cave for that purpose. To emphasize such heavenly provision for poets and scholars, he translated and quoted Friedrich Schiller’s poem “Die Theilung der Erde” (The Division of Earth), its lesson being “that real devotion to knowledge cannot be coupled with the enjoyments of earthly pleasures.”

In closing, Browne apologized for inability to do full justice to the subject in the given time, and again referred with slight disparagement to the ultra-orthodox who continued to accept Scripture and Talmud literally. He noted that it was his intention “simply to remove part of the prejudice entertained against the Talmud” not only by outsiders, but also by “Israel’s own sons [who] add now to its misrepresentations.” In America, some of the blame for those misrepresentations could be attributed to its scarcity of trained rabbis.

Turning from the fundamentalists to their opposites, Browne then criticized radical reformers who rejected the Talmud:

the American Jewish pulpit, like all professions, has its parasites, being blessed (?) with a great number of so-called Rev. Drs.... [whose] titles consist in a dozen or two of white cravats and a waist-coat buttoned up to the chin.... Yet they wish to be reformers, and to be that, they believe it a contingency to decry the Talmud, which they cannot even read. But that is a great mistake. The Talmud is a treasure of learning, and Israel’s leading reformers quote it freely in their daily works and writings.

Although Browne’s Montgomery audience may have been impressed with his knowledge, overall approval of these remarks was questionable. Few Jews, regardless of their degree of reform, were ready to accept biblical criticism, even fewer to shed their long ingrained belief in divine revelation. Also, some listeners may have taken umbrage at his condemnation of “so-called” rabbis or of those radical reformers who thought that the Talmud was irrelevant. Still others, sensitive to the reaction of Christians in the audience, may have been disturbed by his candor in criticizing conditions within the “American Jewish pulpit.”

While this does not appear to have been a prudent discourse for Browne’s debut in Montgomery, it obviously pleased his mentor in Cincinnati, whose own beliefs he so devotedly reiterated. Wise published the lecture in its entirety, spreading it over his next three issues of the Israelite.

A few weeks later, Browne preached a sermon for Rosh Hashana, the Jewish New Year, much milder and only a fraction as long as his lecture on the Talmud. The title, “Comparative Mythology - The Book of Life,” described it well, his premise being that we should not dismiss as myths the religious literature of other ancient peoples while continuing to accept as literal truth equally anthropomorphic imagery in our own. Citing the traditional Jewish New Year’s blessing “May you be inscribed in the book of life for a good year,” as a timely example, he contradicted the general assumption that it referred to an actual notation, presumably by the hand of God. He said that it was a metaphor which meant that we should inscribe ourselves for life metaphorically by the manner in which we live. Even this innocuous nod to the scientific approach, however, was apparently more radical than some of his Montgomery congregants could accept. Temple Beth Or dismissed Browne forthwith because of that sermon.17

Despite so short a tenure, the exposure of his scholarship, eloquence, and unorthodox views gained Browne recognition elsewhere. There were few rabbis in America then with a sufficient command of English for use on the pulpit, and an increasing number of congregations anxious to infuse more English into their services that were still conducted in Hebrew and German. Browne received an invitation from Philadelphia’s Reform congregation Keneseth Israel, where the fiery Einhorn had once served, to be its English preacher alongside the German speaking Rabbi Samuel Hirsch. Wary of Einhorn’s lingering influence and not yet ready to leave the orbit of his mentor, Browne declined, opting instead for Wise’s recommendation that he become the first rabbi of a newly formed, second congregation in Milwaukee.18

Milwaukee, 1869

The move took him from a southern city decimated by the Civil War to a northern city enriched by it. Congregation Emanu-El had broken off from Milwaukee’s long established Congregation B’nai Jeshurun only the year before, instigated by the community’s burgeoning Jewish population which expanded from a maximum of seventy families in the 1850s to more than two thousand individuals by 1869. Pioneer Jews who only a few years earlier had been country peddlers, small grocers, and clothiers had suddenly become manufacturers, meat packers, purveyors of grain, and moguls of transportation on the Great Lakes. Upwardly mobile and flexing their muscle, leaders of the new congregation readily offered their rabbi a three- year contract at an annual salary of $2500.19

Again Browne promptly displeased his congregants, but apparently not due to a sermon. On the grounds that he lacked the necessary qualities demanded of the position, the board asked him to resign within three months, paying him only $700 for his efforts. Having been given no specific reason for dismissal, he complained in Wise’s paper, now renamed the American Israelite. He demanded an explanation but did not receive one. His later claim that he resigned because the congregation had no building seems somewhat specious because the congregation acquired a building the following year. In light of his future reluctance to deal with financial matters other than personal ones, it is reasonable to suppose that he refused to become involved in the congregation’s building campaign and that perhaps this was the major quality in which the trustees found him lacking. It is also possible that he expressed his position in less than diplomatic terms. The former wunderkind was developing a knack for sarcasm and a short fuse for dealing with those whom he considered pompous incompetents.20

Before leaving Milwaukee, Browne had the joy of celebrating the fifth anniversary of his arrival in America—i.e., the date on which he became eligible to apply for citizenship. He lost no time in doing so. Accompanied by two Milwaukee friends, A. S. Singer and attorney Max N. Lando, who co-signed his application, Browne appeared before the municipal court of Milwaukee on January 25, 1871, to become a naturalized citizen of the United States.21

Madison, 1870

By that time he had moved to Madison and enrolled in two courses at the University of Wisconsin School of Law. In June of the same year that he became a citizen, he received his bachelor of law degree, the only foreigner and apparently the only Jew in a graduating class of twenty. With that event he completed the collection of academic letters that inspired his nickname, “Alphabet.”22

As Browne later testified, his reason for studying American law was to deepen his understanding of Talmudic law, for he was currently engaged in writing a commentary on the Talmud. Unfortunately no copy exists by which to appraise it, but in an excerpt from its introduction he clarified the connection between the two systems of law. “The Talmud as a ‘corpus juris’” he explained, “is to the Jew what the Congressional Globe [now Record] is to the American citizen.” In other words, this was the record of Jews’ beliefs and practices, whereas the Torah was their Constitution.23

Because the Talmud is written primarily in Aramaic, which few Christian scholars understood, Christians did not realize that the lex talionis [“eye for an eye” etc.] and other primitive rulings were never carried out by Jewish courts. Likewise, they did not realize that Judaism had been developing for more than fifteen centuries before the Talmud was written. As a result, Christian scholarship fostered the perception that Judaism was a religion based on violence rather than love, and that its God was a god of wrath. These ideas fueled anti-Semitism. Now the recently developed Biblical criticism, also largely promulgated by Christian scholars unfamiliar with the intricacies of Talmud and led by the notoriously anti-Semitic Julius Wellhausen, furthered these misconceptions. The flawed scholarship gave fresh support to prejudice in Europe, which was currently being spread across America by evangelists in their mission to convert Jews to Christianity. The growing movement of Protestant evangelism and its Social Gospel understandably alarmed America’s small Jewish community, struggling to retain its Judaism.

In step with nineteenth century Reform’s emphasis on ecumenism as an antidote for prejudice, and especially as a means of ending the misguided interpretation of Talmud that furthered it, Browne used his lecture platform to interpret Talmud for non-Jews. A more powerful tool was needed, however, and along with Wise, his teacher, he foresaw the benefit that could be derived from an authoritative translation of the Talmud accessible to all English readers.

Wise, who later edited an English-language Talmud commentary written by Michael L Rodkinson, introduced Browne to the idea of writing one much earlier when Browne was his student. While present during a discussion between Wise and his Cincinnati colleagues Rabbi Max Lilienthal and Unitarian Reverend Thomas Vickers, Browne responded happily to Wise’s suggestion that he undertake writing such a volume. As Wise later noted in the American Israelite, “we advised Dr. Browne to go to that piece of work which would be appreciated very highly by English readers, especially preachers, writers and students of history...We receive numerous letters of persons who want the Talmud translated; they would be much pleased...with a good English compilation of its numerous gems, stories, parables, sayings and maxims.”24

Browne accepted the challenge. When he completed it, in 1872, E. Claxton and Company of Philadelphia asked to publish it but required that it be submitted on stereotyped plates. These cost some $4000, which delayed publication for several years while Browne sold subscriptions to pay for it. Despite the fact that he received orders from nearly 250 people, including Horace Greeley, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, and President James A. Garfield, for reasons that will be discussed in a subsequent chapter, Claxton canceled the work and it was never published. Although Browne’s work did not survive as a book, he used much of it in lectures and later published portions of it in popular form, entitled The Encyclopedia of Talmudic Beauties. Unfortunately, no copies of this volume have been found.25

With Protestant revivalism and missionary zeal spurring interest in the Old Testament, a growing number of American Christians became sufficiently curious about the current descendants of its people to seek knowledge of Jews and Judaism. Rabbi Isidor Kalisch, forced to leave Germany in 1849 because of his liberal views, while serving congregations in several mid-western American cities including Milwaukee, had spoken to Christian audiences on “Ancient and Modern Judaism.” Like him, Browne became known as one of the relatively few Jewish scholars in America with sufficient fluency in English to appear before non-Jewish audiences, and sufficiently conversant with early Christianity to effectively present the Jewish point of view.26

It is likely that Browne’s expertise became known through social as well as academic involvement during his year in Madison. Although known to avoid parties while a student in Europe and avowedly doing so in later life, the young rabbi apparently diverged from this practice in his years before settling down as a married man. In the Wisconsin capital he reportedly danced with the daughter of Chief Justice Salmon Chase and met other notables, probably including some of the state’s politicians. They learned of his oratorical ability and invited him to address the Wisconsin State Senate as well as to serve as its chaplain. This launched him on a series of public lectures that soon developed into a successful second career.27

The neophyte was not discouraged from continuing in his profession when, soon after receiving his law degree, he was hit by one of the mud-slinging anonymous writers who habitually hounded American rabbis. Someone purporting to be “M.F., a true friend of Judaism,” had written to officers of the Montgomery congregation claiming that Browne had been jailed in Hungary for stealing money and other valuables, and escaped to America leaving his destitute wife and two children in Europe. The same person also wrote to the congregation in Milwaukee before Browne arrived there, not only repeating the libel but also alleging that the rabbi had eloped with a senator’s daughter after stealing $500 from Wise’s safe with which to finance his honeymoon. Browne believed that the slanderer was a contender for his job in each of those cities. Hoping to identify his accuser, he responded in the American Israelite, “It is below the dignity of anybody to attempt an excuse emanating from such a ‘friend of Judaism.’”28

Wise disagreed with Browne’s theory as to the reason for the libel. He was convinced that the culprit was “no disappointed candidate, [but] a Hungarian peddler whom we have met somewhere... and who is as malicious and unscrupulous a friend as we have met one in human shape.” He not only published that opinion in his newspaper, but reaffirmed his confidence in Browne by inviting him to preach from the master’s own pulpit in Cincinnati’s magnificent B’nai Jeshurun, Plum Street Temple.29

Preaching a regular weekly sermon was a Protestant innovation adopted into Judaism by Reform that became an increasingly popular addition to Jewish services in America. This was especially true when delivered in English rather than German, the language then used in most American synagogues. Not only did it attract the younger members who spoke English and wanted to improve their fluency, but it also drew non-Jews to the synagogue since lectures were a popular form of entertainment and synagogues did not charge admission fees. Thus did the sermon grow in importance and become significant both as a factor in the process of Americanization as well as in the all-important function of combating antisemitism. As a result the role of the rabbi, which in Europe had been that of scholar and teacher with rarely any synagogue-related responsibility, changed in late nineteenth century American congregations to that of pastor, teacher, leader of the worship service, and public advocate for the Jewish community. In the words of historian Jacob Rader Marcus, the modern rabbi was expected to be “a lodestar for the youth and an ambassador to the admiring Gentiles,” an image which Wise and his immediate followers as president of the Hebrew Union College assiduously cultivated.30

Browne, well qualified in respect to pleasing non-Jews, had no trouble finding another pulpit after failing in his first two. He received a call from Charleston’s historic Congregation Beth Elohim to be its English reader alongside the Dutch-born, German-speaking Rabbi Joseph H. M. Chumaceiro. While traveling to that Deep South post, however, he made what he thought would be a temporary stop to speak for the Evansville, Indiana, lodge of B’nai B’rith, the international Jewish service organization founded in 1843. There he encountered a combination of circumstances that changed his life.31

Evansville, 1871

Jewish communities up and down the Ohio River from Cincinnati knew Isaac Mayer Wise and frequently sent him news to be published in the American Israelite. In September, 1871, he received a report from Samuel Meyer, a furniture manufacturer in Evansville, who wrote:

It is with feelings of greatest pleasure that I write to inform you that we have selected the Rev. Dr. Browne as Rabbi of our congregation, and I congratulate myself on the fact that our society is indebted to me for that piece of good fortune. While on a visit to Cincinnati, I had the pleasure of making Dr. Browne’s acquaintance, and I requested him to visit Evansville, feeling that he was just the man of whom we stood in need.... Dr. Browne declined my proposal... being about to start for Charleston, S.C., where he had been called to a position as rabbi, of which any minister might be proud. I thereupon entreated him to take the route to Charleston via Evansville & Nashville, the distance being about the same as via Louisville. Dr. Browne agreed... and on the evening of his arrival, the B’nai B’rith invited him to address them.... The Doctor spoke extempore for over an hour, and the congregation were quite charmed... Many present declared that no foreigner could acquire greater proficiency in the English tongue.... We offered Doctor Browne every inducement in our power to accept the position... but he replied that he felt himself called to Charleston. We found, however that he was favorably impressed with our temple and congregation, and we contrived to detain him among us a little longer. He subsequently delivered his lecture on the Talmud before the largest and most intelligent audience in Evansville, and our Gentile brethren were loud in his praises, while the city press spoke in very high terms of his discourse. But just when it seemed that we were about to lose Dr. Browne, news suddenly reached him that the yellow fever had broken out in Charleston, and this intelligence caused him to accept our invitation....

It may have been more than the news of yellow fever that persuaded Browne to remain in Evansville. In addition to mentioning that the congregation had previously considered five other candidates, each old enough to have been Browne’s father, Meyer also wrote that Wise might be called upon shortly to perform a marriage ceremony for the young man, it being “not unlikely that some of the most beautiful young ladies in our city are setting their caps for him.”33

Wise had dedicated Evansville’s first synagogue in 1865, and was well acquainted with its Jewish community. The congregation of B’nai Israel, then known as the Sixth Street Temple, was largely composed of 1840s immigrants from Bavaria and Wüerttemberg. It leaned toward Reform from the beginning, was among the first to join the Union of American Hebrew Congregations in 1873, and proudly claimed to be the very first to pay dues. Well situated for river traffic, its citizens prospered during the war and subsequently enjoyed the fruits of their good fortune.

Soon after Browne accepted the position in Evansville, the local B’nai B’rith lodge sponsored a ball to benefit its Hebrew Orphan’s Home in Cleveland. Since its inception B’nai B’rith had established orphanages, hospitals and other public facilities, nurturing them until they could exist on their own or were no longer needed. Balls such as these—ubiquitous as a means of supporting communal institutions and supported by Christians as well as by Jews—were scheduled to celebrate almost any occasion, especially festive Jewish holidays such as Purim and Simchat Torah at the end of Succoth, which was the case with this one. When asked to speak at the event, the rabbi noted that, although the congregation did not utilize the lulav, ethrog and succah, traditional objects for the holiday celebration, the joyous tone and charitable purpose of the event brought it closer than any other to the spirit of the festival as specified in Scripture.

Evidence of the importance that Jews placed on the approval of Christians may be seen in the report of this ball that appeared in the American Israelite. It noted that “the first American families” (i.e., native born Christian) participated, and that the local newspapers, “especially the leading and most aristocratic Journal, accorded all praise to our ladies...due homage to the beautiful ‘oriental type of our Jewesses....’” This avowal of admiration, combined with the lingering perception that Jews were somewhat foreign and exotic, reflected a well meant though mixed message on the part of Christians.34

Another note in the Evansville Journal declared, “In ball dresses amiable Miss S. W. was pronounced the most exquisite in her modest buff....” The initials identified Sophie Weil, the sixteen-year-old daughter of Moses and Clara Loewenthal Weil, well established leaders in the community.

Moses Weil had come to the region from Bavaria in1839 as a boy of twelve, settling there even before Evansville became chartered as a city. He studied law independently while working as a grocery clerk. Although admitted to the bar in later years, he never practiced law, but chose instead to remain in business. His record is similar to that of other immigrants of the time. In 1872 he was listed as a pawn broker, living on Vine Street between 7th and 8th. He later opened the first Midwest branch of the New England Mutual Life Insurance Company. Active both in civic affairs and in the Jewish community, he was also instrumental in establishing Evansville’s first synagogue.35

The men of Clara’s family, the Loewenthals, were likewise active in the community and founders of B’nai Israel. Her parents had immigrated when she was a child, bringing her, her sister Sara and their two brothers from Wüerttemburg, Germany, not far from Moses Weil’s birthplace. Sister Sara married Emil Brentano, son of another German Jewish family in Evansville and brother of the bachelor August Brentano, founder of the New York bookstore that bears his name. They became the parents of the three men credited with expanding the company onto the world stage. Clara wed Moses Weil in 1853 and produced a family of four boys and three girls. Sophie, born December 12, 1854, was their first child.36

A childhood memory that Sophie often repeated suggests that the Weils may have offered their home as a station on the Underground Railroad. She recalled her parents having instructed her and her siblings that whenever they saw a dark-skinned person hurrying across the Ohio River from Kentucky, Indiana’s slave-holding southern neighbor, they should close their eyes, point to the basement of their house, and keep their eyes closed until the fugitive had time to get inside. The reason given to the children was that a white man would soon come and ask them if they had seen where the escapee went, and they must be able to say “no” truthfully—not having seen where he went.37

Pro-slavery sentiment in that corner of Indiana was so strong that those who tried to help runaways did so at the risk of their own lives and the safety of their families. For that reason abolitionists kept no records and such recollections cannot be verified. Considering the danger, it seems truly extraordinary that immigrant Jews, themselves vulnerable and easily suspected of disloyalty, would risk their own safety by defying the prevailing sentiment of their neighbors. Perhaps it was precisely the fact that they were Jewish, however, with the memory of exodus from Egypt reinforced annually at their Passover Seder, that these fervent patriots sympathized with the Union, the government of their newly adopted Promised Land, and dared to assist others escaping slavery. It must have required enormous courage.38

Whether the Weils actually were abolitionists or not, they unquestionably gave their children worthy values. Sophie, like other daughters of upwardly mobile families of her day, probably first attended public schools and later enrolled in a private seminary for girls. She mastered French and German, read the classics in those languages as well as in English, and excelled at the piano. Her mother Clara taught her the finer points of homemaking and introduced her to daily prayers with the help of a personalized Jewish prayer book for the home, written mostly in English and published in America.39

Clara taught Sophie strict German standards of cleanliness as well as culinary skills in the German Jewish tradition, nourishing recipes that avoided pork products but probably contained no other Jewish dietary restriction since Reform Jews rejected kashruth in principle. Biblical injunction against other food such as shellfish was selectively ignored by most, but ham, pork, bacon, and sausage remained taboo. Sophie retained vivid memories of the day her father took her and her siblings to a slaughter house to see its unsanitary conditions and unsavory atmosphere in order to impress upon them the reason then espoused by logic-loving Reform Jews for not eating pork.40

As a serious sixteen-year-old, Sophie wasted no time in cultivating friendship with the new rabbi. When immediately upon arrival he organized the Evansville Literary Society, a staple offering of most Jewish communities, she joined her father and some sixty others as a founding member. Her lawyer-educated father served as the club’s “prosecutor,” and she volunteered as corresponding secretary. In early November she reported to the American Israelite that the group had accepted a “tilt” (a challenge to debate) with the Young Men’s Hebrew Association of Henderson, Kentucky, Evansville’s neighbor across the river. This was another activity characteristic of German Jewish communities.41

Comely, intelligent, and well schooled in amenities valued by the increasingly acculturated Jews of her day, Sophie appeared to be an ideal match for an American Reform rabbi. Readily smitten, Browne courted her in proper Victorian fashion. Recognizing that her intellectual interests paralleled his own, he thought that she would like to have a copy of a particular reference book that he favored, but apparently believed that it was bad form to bring her a gift and therefore hesitated to do so. After their betrothal, announced October 9, 1871, he presented the chosen volume, accompanied by a card on which he wrote, “Miss Sophie Weil, My lady– Not being entitled to bring presents to young ladies, I only lend you the use of this dictionary. Use it freely. Your most obedient servant, Dr. EBMB.”42

Formidable formality, even for Victorian times!

The book, hardly a romantic offering, was entitled A Biblical and Theological Dictionary: Explanatory of the History, Manners and Customs of the Jews and Neighboring Nation. Nearly twelve hundred pages long and three inches thick, it undoubtedly challenged the physical as well as the intellectual capacity of anyone attempting to use it. Originally compiled by Richard Watson in 1831 and published in a new edition by the Southern Methodist Publishing House in1860, its cover page identified the contents as “History, Manners, and Customs of the Jews and Neighboring Nations, with an Account of the Most Remarkable Places and Persons Mentioned in Sacred Scripture, an Exposition of the Principal Doctrines of Christianity, and Notices of Jewish and Christian Sects and Heresies.” It also included an Alphabetical Table of the Proper Names in the Old and New Testaments with “their proper pronunciation and the chief meaning or significance of each word in the original language,” as well as tables of weights, measures and money mentioned in the Bible, statistics on the religious denominations in the United States according to the 1850 census, a Biblical atlas with numerous maps, and a “Scripture Gazetteer” with engravings of ritual objects and priestly vestments as they were then imagined to have been.43

The new American edition of this tome reflected the growth of Christians’ interest in ecumenism, a positive development despite its purpose being that of conversion. Browne probably considered the encyclopedic volume interpreted by and for Christians as a useful tool for implementing his facility in relating to them. Sophie’s intellectual curiosity and dedication to her future role as rabbi’s wife likely suggested that she would derive both pleasure and benefit from it. Rabbis’ wives were often asked by Christians to elucidate remote points of Scripture that have little relevance for Jews, and this biblical dictionary readily provided authentic answers.

On the lighter side, puns were popular, and Sophie was the target of one published in the Evansville Journal, submitted by J. S. Lowenstein, secretary of the congregation. It posed the question of why Miss Sophie Wile (sic) was like an oyster being fried. The answer was, “because she will become Browne after a Wile.” The pun sheds light on popular culture as well indicating a degree of successful “fitting in.”44

Sophie and Ed were married on March 12, 1872, in a ceremony typical of those then in vogue with increasingly affluent, middle class Jewish families. Five bridesmaids and five groomsmen attended the couple. Wise and his wife Theresa journeyed from Cincinnati, he to officiate and she to stand under the chuppah, the bridal canopy, as surrogate mother for the groom. It was customary for Christian friends to be invited and for relatives from distant cities to attend, as many of them did. As reported in the local newspaper, “There was not room enough in the Sixth Street Temple last evening for the people who came to see the Rev. Dr. E.B.M. Browne married to Miss Sophie, daughter of Moses Weil, Esq.” The same newspaper recalled the event fifty years later.45

The lavish wedding gifts that the Brownes received testified to the acculturation of immigrant Jewish families who benefitted from the post-war economy. A pair of three-pronged Tiffany crystal candelabra, a large insulated hand-painted porcelain pitcher framed in silver on a stand with two silver goblets and drip bowl, a six piece silver coffee service with oil lamp warmer for the urn, and countless other items of heavy silver supplied what those of the Weils’ milieu considered standard necessities for the household of an American rabbi. Remarkably, Sophie preserved them intact through the many moves that characterized her life with Browne.46

For their honeymoon, the newlyweds boarded a river boat and plied the Mississippi, going ashore in several cities where Browne had been invited to speak. Leisurely days on the water provided time to reflect, perhaps inspiring the young rabbi to look back on his seven years in America, and assess his career to that moment.

His experiences had brought him knowledge of six post-Civil War Jewish communities, two of them Southern, and introduced him to a very negative aspect of Jewish public life as rabbis competed for control of American Judaism. After quickly failing in two congregations, he met great success in another, became initially recognized as a public orator and earned a law degree which gave him access to American courts. He had almost finished translating the Talmud so that Christians could better understand Judaism, and he had become an American citizen, married to an American-born daughter of a well-to-do Jewish family. If he had been truly circumspect, he should have perceived where his strengths and interests lay, where to watch for pitfalls, and how to deal with the exigencies of married life.

A few months after their marriage, Browne gave his bride a gold locket inscribed “To my Sophie, Ed, July 30, 1872.” Although the date itself has no identifiable significance, the anchor embossed on its cover could have been intended to carry a message. Still choosing the sea as his metaphor, Browne may have been suggesting that he was ready to drop anchor permanently in Evansville.47