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A learned society founded in New York City in 1892. The American Jewish Historical Society (AJHS) combined with its scientific orientation a concern for highlighting the positive contributions of American Jews to the development of the United States. Because of its anti-discriminatory agenda, it provided stimuli for the foundation of the American Jewish Committee. In the 20th century, the AJHS was faced by the challenge of modernizing its work. Its main concern now became the integration of Jewish-American themes within the general history of America.The AJHS consolidated the…

As Judaism’s central holy site, the Temple in Jerusalem was an intrinsic element of the political and religious life of the ancient Israelites. After the destruction of the Second Temple in 70 CE, Jews expressed their hopes of its reconstruction during the promised messianic era i…

Since its establishment in 1875, the Hebrew Union College in Cincinnati is the world's largest rabbinical seminary for Reform Judaism (Reform) and an important center of Jewish learning. Its history reflects the social and theological developments of the reform movement in the United States as well as the cultural and intellectual change of American Judaism as a whole. 1. BeginningsUntil the 1870s, there was no training facility comparable to a rabbinical seminary in existence in the United States, so most communities could not employ a formally ordained rabbi (Rabbinate). The founder of the new seminary, Isaac M. Wise (1819–1900), spiritual leader of the B’nai-Yeshurun congregation in Cincinnati, Ohio and publisher of the magazine American Israelite…

Since Antiquity, the Hebrew term  teshuvah (lit. reversal; return) has designated the confession and repentance of sins in order to achieve forgiveness and reconciliation with God. Teshuvah is a central component of the Jewish faith. From the Middle Ages onward it was sometimes also linked with ascetic ideas. Movements of cultural-religious returning to tradition developed during the modern era, initially among secular, religiously liberal Jews in Germany and Italy, among other places. After t…

Ultra-Orthodoxy is a broad religious-cultural current within Orthodox Judaism that emerged during the 19th century in reaction to the Reform movements throughout Western Europe. While neo-Orthodoxy kept itself open to various acculturation tendencies, traditional Orthodox Jews defended their strict religious practice first in Hungary and later across Eastern Europe as well. Initially espousing an anti-Zionist stance, the ultra-Orthodox movement diversified in the interwar period to form s…

Founded in 1945, Yeshiva University is a leading academic institution of higher education for modern Orthodoxy   in the United States, based in New York. Under the motto “Torah u-madda” (Torah and secular knowledge), the university, like its predecessor institutions dating back to the 19th century, has promoted a combination of Jewish scholarship and worldly knowledge through its curricula.Yeshiva University’s origins can be traced to two schools founded in New York towards the end of the 19th century. The Etz Chaim Yeshiva on the Lower East Side, f…