Kaufmann Kohler
| Kaufmann Kohler | |
|---|---|
Kaufmann Kohler
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| Personal details | |
| Born |
May 10, 1843 Fürth, Bavaria |
| Died | January 28, 1926 (aged 82) New York City, United States |
Kaufmann Kohler (May 10, 1843 – January 28, 1926) was a German-born U.S. reform rabbi and theologian.
Kaufmann Kohler was born into a family of rabbis. He received his rabbinical training at Hassfurt, Höchberg near Würzburg, Mainz, Altona, and at Frankfurt am Main (under Samson Raphael Hirsch), and his university training at Munich, Berlin, Leipzig, and Erlangen (Ph.D. 1868; his thesis, "Der Segen Jacob's", was one of the earliest Jewish essays in the field of the higher Biblical criticism, and its radical character had the effect of closing to him the Jewish pulpit in Germany). Abraham Geiger, to whose Zeitschrift Kohler became a contributor at an early age, strongly influenced his career and directed his steps to America. In 1869 he accepted a call to the pulpit of the Beth-El congregation in Detroit; in 1871 he became rabbi of Chicago Sinai Congregation. In 1879 he succeeded his father-in-law, David Einhorn, as rabbi of Temple Beth-El, New York City; his brother-in-law, Emil Hirsch, becoming his successor in Chicago. Feb. 26, 1903, he was elected to the presidency of Hebrew Union College, Cincinnati.
From the time of his arrival in America, Kohler actively espoused the cause of Reform Judaism; he was one of the youngest members of the Philadelphia Jewish Rabbinical Conference of 1869, and in 1885 he convened the Pittsburgh Rabbinical Conference, which adopted the so-called "Pittsburgh Platform", on which Reform Judaism in America stands. While in Chicago he introduced Sunday lectures as supplementary to the regular Sabbath service. Kohler served for many years as president of the New York Board of Ministers, and was honorary president of the Central Conference of American Rabbis. He was editor-in-chief of the Sabbath Visito, a Jewish weekly for youth, from 1881 to 1882 and, with I. S. Moses, and Emil G. Hirsch, "The Jewish Reformer," a weekly, devoted to the interests of Reform Judaism, in 1886. He was deeply interested in the "Jewish Chautauqua" movement. Shortly before his departure from New York in 1903 he delivered a series of six lectures at the Jewish Theological Seminary on "Apocryphal Literature".
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