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Alternatives to Assimilation
Alan Silverstein
其他書名
The Response of Reform Judaism to American Culture, 1840-1930
出版
Brandeis University Press
, 1994
主題
Religion / Judaism / History
Social Science / Sociology / General
Social Science / Jewish Studies
ISBN
0874516943
9780874516944
URL
http://books.google.com.hk/books?id=29TXAAAAMAAJ&hl=&source=gbs_api
註釋
Historians have long debated whether the mid-nineteenth century American synagogue was transplanted from Central Europe or represented an indigenous phenomenon. Alternatives to Assimilation examines the Reform movement in American Judaism from 1840 to 1930 in an attempt to settle this issue. Alan Silverstein describes the emergence of organizational innovations such as youth groups, sisterhoods, brotherhoods, a professionalized rabbinate, a rabbinical college, and a national congregational body as evidence of Jews responding uniquely to American culture, in a fashion parallel to innovations in American Protestant churches. Silverstein places the developments he traces within the context of American religious and cultural history. He notes the shifting roles of American women, children, and ethnic groups as well as America's changing receptivity to trans-Atlantic cultural influences. He also utilizes census records, as well as congregational and national archives, in synthesizing a view of the Reform movement from its local temples and nationwide organizations. By offering a viable response to American culture's rampant secularization and to its pressure on Jews to relinquish their distinctive traditions and commitments, the Reform movement also inspired emerging Conservative and Orthodox Jewish movements to offer their own constituents tangible institutional alternatives to assimilation.