Joseph Krauskopf

Joseph Krauskopf (January 21, 1858, Ostrowo, Prussia – June 12, 1923, Atlantic City, New Jersey) was a prominent American rabbi, author, leader of Reform Judaism, founder of the National Farm School (now Delaware Valley University), and long-time (1887-1923) rabbi at Reform Congregation Keneseth Israel (KI), the oldest reform synagogue in Philadelphia which under Krauskopf, became the largest reform congregation in the nation.

In July, 1872, at the age of fourteen, Krauskopf emigrated to the United States, expecting to join his older brother, Manaseh, in New Jersey. Tragically, his brother was murdered just as Krauskopf arrived in the United States and instead he went to Fall River, Massachusetts, where he had cousins. There he found employment as clerk in a tea-store. While not denying or renouncing his own faith, he attended the local Unitarian Church (there was no Jewish congregation in the city), and became a protégé of Mrs. Mary Bridges Canedy Slade [1], who was the assistant editor the New England Journal of Education, a well-known author and composer, and the wife of the principal of the local high school, Albion Slade. Mrs. Slade directed Krauskopf’s self-education, as he could not afford to quit work to attend school. In 1875 Mrs. Slade recommended him to Isaac Mayer Wise who was organizing the first rabbinical class at the newly founded Hebrew Union College in Cincinnati, Ohio. Rabbi Wise probably respected Slade’s recommendation because she was a prominent hymnist and author of children’s literature. Also writing a letter of recommendation for Kraufkopf was William Reed, the editor of the Fall River Daily Evening News. Thus, through the intervention of this devoutly Christian woman, Krauskopf went to rabbinical school.

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