THE JEWISH IMMIGRANTS TO AMERICA FROM GERMANY

During this time, thousands of Jews had immigrated to the US from German-speaking countries. Many were adventurous, being among the pioneers into the American west. The majority were reform and progressive in outlook, and had no tolerance for the orthodox way of life, the belief in the Messianic Redemption – and certainly not Halukkah which they viewed as nothing more than charity and beggary. Orthodoxy, however, was still a substantial part of this immigrant population.

As this community gained ascendancy, eventually overtaking the previously dominant Sephardim, leaders began to emerge from among both orthodox and reform, and the relationship to the Land of Israel was shaped accordingly. Orthodox Rabbis Israel Baer Kursheedt of Congregation B’nai Yeshurun in New York and Isaac Leeser of Mikve Yisrael Congregation in Philadelphia, followed the lead of Western European Jewry and established, in 1832, the American branch of the Trumat Hakodesh Society which transferred halukkah funds to Palestine via Europe, bypassing the need of the emissaries. This was in reaction to the suspicious activities among some of the emissaries who began to arrive in the US. The Society lasted for 20 years.

The leaders of reform Jewry, on the other hand, were Rabbis Isaac Mayer Wise of Hebrew Union College and David Einhorn of Baltimore who preached that the best path for the revitalization of Palestine lay in “practical colonization” and away from the Halukkah method. But they were also strong opponents of a national revival in the ancient homeland and when the Zionist movement was in its infancy, they, along with the orthodox, were among its most outspoken opponents. However, because of their long held beliefs in “practical colonization”, these reform, anti-Zionist, German-American Jewish immigrants, can be considered the first outspoken group of Zionists in the US. Gradually, though, mainstream Zionism made inroads even in this community. Among its first advocates was Rabbi Bernard Felsenthal of Chicago in 1900 resulting in the condemnation by many of his reform colleagues. Soon, three faculty members of Hebrew Union College who were also pro-Zionist - Henry Malter, Max Margolis, and Max Schlessinger – resigned in protest of the College’s newly-appointed president, Dr. Kaufman Kohler’s, anti-Zionist views.