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Updated: June 29, 2025
Taking its clue from the West, the Council delineates three ways of bringing about "a radical transformation of this people": 1: Cultural reforms, such as the establishment of special secular schools for the Jewish youth, the fight against the old-fashioned heders and melammeds, the transformation of the rabbinate, and the prohibition of Jewish dress.
A society which called itself Poles of the Mosaic Persuasion was organized in Warsaw, an organ of extreme liberalism was founded in the weekly Israelita, and, with the election of Isaac Kramsztyk to the rabbinate, German was replaced by the native Polish as the language of the pulpit. Some champions of reform did not rest satisfied with mere innovations and improvements.
What with rabid zealots yearning for the piety of the good old times, spiritually-minded ministers working with uncomfortable earnestness for a larger Judaism, radicals dropping out, moderates clamoring for quiet, and schismatics organizing new and tiresome movements, the Rabbinate could scarcely do aught else than emit sonorous platitudes and remain in office.
It was suspected by the pious that there was a taint of heresy in the flour used by the ordinary bakers, and it was remarked that the Rabbinate itself imported its Matzoth from abroad.
The transformation of the Rabbinate through the establishment of rabbinical seminaries, the appointment of graduates from German universities as rabbis, and the formation of consistories after the pattern of Western Europe. The reform of school education through the opening of secular schools after the model of Odessa and Riga and the training of new teachers from among the Maskilim.
The Rabbinate, whose grave difficulties in reconciling all parties to its rule, were augmented by the existence of the Flag, pronounced it heinous to introduce English excerpts into the liturgy; if, however, they were not read from the central platform, they were legitimate; harmoniums were permissible, but only during special services; and an organization of mixed voices was allowable, but not a mixed choir; children might be confirmed, but the word "confirmation" should be avoided.
Half a century of stagnant reform and restless dissolution had left Orthodoxy still the Established Doxy. For, as Orthodoxy evaporated in England, it was replaced by fresh streams from Russia, to be evaporated and replaced in turn, England acting as an automatic distillery. Thus the Rabbinate still reigned, though it scarcely governed either the East End or the West.
But in the earlier time, too, a spirit of enlightenment pervaded them. The study of the Talmud fostered in them was regarded both as a religious duty and as a means to an end, the rabbinate.
The many lawyers and physicians who were debarred from practicing their professions sought to become candidates for the rabbinate.
He ought to be under you only he expresses his ignorance in English and the fools think to talk nonsense in good English is to be qualified for the Rabbinate." The remark touched the Rabbi in a tender place. It was the one worry of his life, the consciousness that persons in high quarters disapproved of him as a force impeding the Anglicization of the Ghetto.
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