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The earliest American synagogues were created by immigrants hoping to sustain Jewish ritual, practice, and community in a new environment. As the number of Jews in the United States grew (from around 5000 in 1820 to approximately 250,000 in 1880), and as the social and economic status of one-time new immigrants trended upward and solidified, expectations for their public religious lives transformed accordingly. As synagogue communities evolved to meet the needs of Americanizing Jews, so did expectations for the men invested with congregational leadership.
By the mid-nineteenth century, Jews in numerous American cities had organized themselves into congregations, often hiring functionaries to lead services, slaughter kosher meat, and collect membership dues. The men hired for these tasks were not highly valued, as it was presumed that any literate male Jew should be able to perform their duties. Meanwhile, congregational lay leaders navigated the often messy process of adjusting traditional religious practices to new world expectations. When disagreements over slaughter technique or worship style arose, there were no collectively recognized authorities to settle such disputes. Communities might defer to those with the most ritual knowledge, put issues to a vote, or turn to authorities in other cities or countries. The results were not pretty, often resulting in fistfights, excommunications, court battles, and occasionally new congregations.
In Who Rules the Synagogue? Religious Authority and the Formation of American Judaism, Zev Eleff portrays the struggle for religious authority in nascent congregations as the terrain on which the Americanization of Judaism took place. Rather than focus on the particulars of ritual reform, Eleff tracks the...