National Scholar Updates

Classical Judaism vs. Romantic Judaism

The difference between the cultures of the Romantic and the Classical periods is well known.[1] This can be seen in style, thought processes, and the various aspects of life on which they focused. Sephardic Judaism has been characterized as Classical Judaism, as opposed to Romantic Ashkenazic Judaism.[2] Sephardic Judaism emphasizes different fundamental points that can be designated as Classical: (a) Tradition – that is to say the continuity of the heritage; concepts of loyalty, a sense of belonging to the general public, and mutual responsibility both in the present and in relation to earlier generations. (b) Compatibility – that is, balance and harmony between the Torah's requirements and those of our lives, between the individual person's work and his integration into society, between the unique Jewish world and the wider world in general, between the traditions handed down through the generations and the new and changing present, between the internal Jewish knowledge and general knowledge. (c) Simplicity and Structure – a methodical and logical structure, preserving the spiritual framework both in style and formulation (grammar and language), in the types of works written (codification projects) and in educational approach (order and progression, rules and methods, and keeping away from all kinds of unfounded scholasticism and abstractions).

Of course, it is not our intention to describe all Sephardic sages here, but only to present general examples that represent Sephardic culture as a whole.

The Written Torah Precedes the Oral Torah

Through the ages, the Torah has been transmitted in two different ways that complement each other.[3] On the one hand are the books and the written tradition, and on the other is 'life learning', experiential and verbal, as it was passed on from the Hakhamim, the community, and the family. Traditionally, the living commentary and oral study have always guided the learner in his understanding of the written text. Changes in Ashkenazic Judaism in the second half of the 20^th century led to a preference for the written path of transmission rather than the living one. Thus, we have become the people of the book, not necessarily in the positive sense of the phrase: we have become a society that clings to the written word, to the book, and minimizes the value of the living tradition as an essential path for transmitting Jewish culture. This phenomenon is characteristic of the Hareidi community, which sanctifies the book even at the expense of well-founded, living family tradition; and also those who seek to skip tradition altogether and to connect directly to the cardinal texts of Jewish culture. As opposed to the Ashkenazic countries, where the conditions for these developments were bred, Sephardic communities continued to transmit the Torah in its two paths (until the last generation, where we witness the adoption of Ashkenazic characteristics by Sephardic Sages). Furthermore, sometimes for these Sephardic Sages, there is even a preference for the living tradition over the written one.[4] In fact, the basis of the preference for a living tradition is a different perception of culture in general, which sees Judaism as a living, dynamic, complex culture in which the living, human element is what gives life to the culture. This is the Torah that has been passed on to us, that has been passed along from generation to generation, and was not invented by us through direct contact with the written word.

Behind this cultural outlook there are also important emotional characteristics such as loyalty, humility, and the constant presence of He Who Gave the Torah among those who transmit it. This too is one of the meanings of the living Torah: a Torah that was first the source of life, before it became the source of learning.

We will now move on to the fundamentals of the Sephardic Sages Torah learning, divided into three categories: the scope of their intellectual wisdom, their methods of action, and their spiritual character.

The Scope of their Wisdom

In this section we will outline the cultural perspective of the Sephardic sages, the spiritual and human world in which they lived, and how their relationship with this world – whether stated or not – shaped their works. We will divide our discussion into three sections:

1. The Scope of the Jewish Cultural World

As opposed to a simplified approach, which focuses on Jewish learning of the Talmud and Halakhic concepts, the Sephardic sages remained loyal to a very broad Jewish culture. To a certain extent, this value is a continuation of the world of the Sephardic Sages in Spain, who created their works in all fields of knowledge, all subjects of the Torah, from the Bible to the wisdom of the Kabbalah, through Talmud and Jewish law, commentaries, conceptual research, grammar and poetry.

Up until the present era, traditional study in the Sephardic world began with a broad familiarity with the Bible. This course of study was implemented early on in elementary school, by memorization of the five books of the Torah, the books of the Prophets and the Writings, through traditional melodies. The basic concepts of Yirat Shamayim (humility before God) and ethical texts of the Bible (such as Proverbs) were taught in a natural, pleasant, enjoyable way. This course of study was characterized by placing the textual perspective in a place of honor in Sephardic culture: mastery of the Hebrew language, including familiarity with grammar, the rules of the language, poetic expression, and writing styles, as the necessary basis for all creative works and the study of Jewish culture. From this comes a love of Hebrew poetry based on, among other things, the foundations of the Scriptures. In particular the classical Hebrew poetry from the Golden Age of Spain was privileged to enter the prayer book. These Sephardic communities continued to write poetry, and poetic expression served as the typical way they expressed their artistic sensibilities. But in addition to language and poetry, this textual perspective created a spiritual closeness to various topics from the Bible that relate to the fundamentals of faith and contemplation wherever they appear (such as the books of Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, and Job), topics that served as introductions to many Derashot (sermons). Indeed, the public sermon was one of the most important ways in which the Hakham took responsibility for his community and for current affairs, based on principles from the Bible, on Jewish commentaries through the ages and his own creative development in order to derive from them spiritual content on all questions that might arise. From here it was a short step to begin learning Midrash and the general Jewish philosophical literature; and as a direct continuation of Midrash and its meditations comes the Sephardic Sages' study of Kabbalah alongside other Torah studies.

Of course the Talmud holds a central place, but what is unique about the Sephardic Sages' world was that they stayed faithful to the ancient teaching that Torah study should be geared toward practical purposes. Their style of study included deep examination of the literal meaning of the text and a reliance on the commentaries of the Rishonim, the early Sages, in order to clarify the different opinions on which the Shulhan Arukh based its halakhic decisions. The next step was to examine the halakhic literature, both from the commentators of the Shulhan Arukh and the responsa literature. The abstract methods of study that arose among Ashkenazic rabbis in recent generations did not develop in Sephardic countries. In the eyes of the Sephardic Hakhamim, the Torah study of the Lithuanian batei midrash was perceived as divorced from the Talmudic issues and their halakhic applications. For the Sephardic Sages, text study focused on the literal meaning of the sugia (the particular passage) through an examination of the halakhic implications of each question. Even in places where a preference was developed for in-depth examination of a sugia rather than focusing on the halakhic ruling, for example the famous Tunisian study method, the sages did not overemphasize abstract analysis of the Lithuanian yeshiva sort, but rather stayed close to the meaning of each word and each sentence of the Talmud by examining its connection to the issue as a whole. Furthermore, these Sages did not differentiate between Halakhic issues in the Talmud that are discussed in the Beit Midrash and Aggadic issues from the Talmud that are not usually studied. Sometimes the text study even focused on the Aggada, as we see in the collection Ein Yaakov, whose study was popular among Sephardic communities.

Because the goal set for Talmud study was to establish halakhic rulings, one of the characteristics of the Sephardic Sages, as opposed to the Ashkenazic ones, was to rule decisively on halakha from among different approaches, and not only to take into consideration all halakhic positions and to decide on a ruling out of concern for stringent opinions, as is often found in the Ashkenazic countries. Rabbinic training for a Sephardic rabbi aimed to provide the rabbi with the tools for him to decide on halakha. This is in contrast to the education of the Lithuanian yeshivot, which provided their students with the tools for abstract, in-depth study of a Talmudic topic, but not the tools for making a ruling in Jewish law. This characteristic is one of the foundations of a Sephardic rabbi's work to this day.

It is important to note that, when we outline the main points of the cultural perspective by looking at the spiritual and educational world of certain Sages, the purpose is not to argue that all Sages in the Sephardic world dealt with all the areas we have mentioned, but rather that they operated in a cultural world with wide perspectives, while each of them was characterized by his own special creative works.

2. The Scope of Human Relationships

Beyond the cultural wealth that characterized the Sephardic sages' works, there is another element that is no less important, and that is the human factor. By this we mean the relationship of the Hakham not just to the authoritative sources, but also to the dynamic sources of human life. The human factor is a central element in the deliberations of a Hakham when he decides the halakha and in his sermons to the community. Often one can sense that the Hakham relates to the person who asked the question, to his feelings, his personality, and sometimes also to his weaknesses. The Hakham knows the person asking the question, loves him, and understands his distress. He does not see his job only as an authority figure who sets norms and laws, but as someone who is responsible for shaping the person before him, so that this person will become more responsible and will better recognize his Jewish and human obligations. It is not a rabbi's job to set the standard for the ideal, abstract person; rather the rabbi must set the ideal in relation to the individual who is standing before him. The halakhic learning of the Hakham allows him to establish the letter of the law and not just the norms for optimal behavior (hidur) and rigor (hahmarah), and through this wisdom and understanding the Hakham calculates the best solution for the specific problem at hand. The halakhic ruling is transferred from mere intellectual, theoretical deduction to a more complex pursuit that weighs the halakhic facts and also takes into account the human factor and the actual background from which the problem arose.

We must add that the human background does not necessarily consist of only the person who asked the question; usually it is a matter of an entire community or the public context that the Hakham must take into account. When he issues a decision on a particular question, he also considers the consequences of his decision on wider circles: for example, if he takes a strict position on an issue, the Hakham is not looking only at the specific, immediate situation of the person who asked the question, but he also looks at the ramifications for the entire community, for whom a stringent decision is not always the proper solution, lest it disrupt the balance of Torah principles, damage the fabric of Jewish society, or sometimes even interfere with the spiritual efforts of the person or the community.

Widening the circle of relationships from the individual person who asks a question to the communal sphere brings us to an even broader plane.

3. The Scope of Universality

Sephardic culture throughout the ages developed in concurrence with general culture thus continuing the tradition of the Golden Age of Spain, in which the internal Jewish world recognized the wider world without losing its own uniqueness (see Maimonides' example of perfumers, cooks, and bakers in his letter to the Sages of Lunel [Rav Shilat Edition, Part Two page 502]). The Sephardic Sages of recent generations were aware of current events and changes in the world around them. This is especially true in more recent years, since modernism in its European version arrived in the Eastern lands. The Sephardic reaction to the changes of the new age was quite different from the Ashkenazic response. On the one hand, the educational model of the Sephardic sages approved of general studies, and even considered them as worthy endeavors in addition to basic Jewish education; and in the spirit of this approach, the Sephardic sages did not withdraw from modern society in the way that some Ashkenazic Orthodox elements did. On the other hand, with the deepening of European rule in Muslim countries, the pull towards secular culture was in opposition to tradition; and the response of the Sages to protect the traditions of Israel was not to develop the model of strict, isolationist Orthodoxy. Instead, they emphasized the principles that strengthen faith that have guarded Jewish identity and communal unity, with the goal of maintaining the members of the community in the Jewish world as much as possible. Thus, an important Hakham spoke out strongly against a Rabbi who was struggling with a custom that is not essential among the commandments while other more central, basic tenets of the Torah still needed to be strengthened (Rabbi Yossef Messas, Responsa Mayim Haim Part 2 Orah Haim Section 90). That Hakham established an important concept in regard to the elements weighed in making a halakhic decision (Responsa Mayim Tehorim Even HaEzer Section 24): "And this matter will be discussed according to three pillars of jurisprudence: the law, intelligence, and time period," that is, the law that arises from the sources that determine halakha, the common sense and healthy logic that are needed to approach any issue, and the specific time in which the question was asked that takes into account the time period and the local background. It is important to emphasize that this openness to aspects of time period and common sense in deciding halakha unlocked a traditional, intra-hilkhatit option that succeeded in responding to the modern world, without relegating the validity of halakha to the trash bin of nullifying reform and without losing the age-old authority of the Sages.

Implicit in this is the secret of the relevance of these works in our time – this is the main path for interpreting the Torah in relation to society through the changes of time. We are not talking about fringe writings of the Jewish world, but about the relevant cultural center of the Jewish people as a whole, which follows Maimonides' tradition of the Golden Path.

Methods of Action

And so, what characterizes the rabbinic methods of the Sephardic sages?

As mentioned above, one of the characteristic principles of the Sephardic sages is the way they determine halaka between different approaches, as opposed to a pesak (decision) that wants to satisfy all differing opinions. This is the basic principle known in rabbinic language as kohah dehetra adif – the power of the heter (the lenient path) is the preferred. This principle praises the greatness of the Hakham who delves deeply into an issue and finds a lenient halakhic solution. Deciding halakha stringently does not reflect the greatness of a Hakham, and many times it attests to an educational concern, or to fear of deciding the halakha, which prevents the Hakham from choosing the easier path over the stricter one. Harsh halakhic decisions and the desire to accommodate all opinions have caused an accumulation of stringencies that makes it difficult for a later posek to weigh, maneuver, and navigate the halakhic process in the directions needed for a specific case that comes before him. Thus, fear of God pushes aside the dynamic force of halakha. Conversely, there are many who outwardly praise the dynamic nature of halakha, and have little fear of God in their hearts, and because of this their conclusions cannot be called halakha. Between the strict and the liberal positions, the Sephardic Sages established a third path in which their great humility before God and their commitment to serve God brought them to adopt original halakhic stances in order to deal with new situations, without fearing lenient decisions, rulings and originality. Knowledge of life experience often accompanies and guides halakhic decision-making, together with a realistic viewpoint, according to which a harsh position would apply to only a small part of the public. But the responsibility of the Hakham is to the whole community, to all of the Jewish people, perhaps for all future generations. Therefore it would not be responsible to set an excessively stringent standard of halakha that would cause a great portion of the community to be lost if they cannot abide by it.

In addition to this, the halakhic vitality and courage that these Hakhamim often adopted should be taken into consideration. With all the modesty of the Sephardic Hakhamim, who based their decisions on the posekim who came before them and did not devise new ideas without precedent – supporting their decisions based on Jewish sources and not on their own opinions – we find in their halakhic works original analysis of earlier sources and also opinions that were not always in the halakhic mainstream.[5]

Another issue is the efforts of the Hakham, in the framework of halakha, to ensure that the law will not legitimize injustice. Indeed, on the one hand the Torah tells us, "Do not give special consideration to the poor," (Leviticus 19, 15) meaning that one must not deviate from law in order to help a poor person. On the other hand, it is also forbidden to allow those who have power to be protected by the law so that exploitation of the weak would be justified. Therefore we must act so that the law is just and so that the poor are helped; for example, using the ability to stretch the law in different directions so that truth, justice, and benevolence will be present in a halakhic ruling.[6] Sometimes we find that the Hakham adds at the end of his ruling some advice for the weak on how to conduct his affairs in the event of injustice.[7] Other paths are available to the Hakham outside the framework of the court, such as influencing the two sides to conduct themselves beyond the letter of the law in order to avoid injustice. This can be done directly – through open rebuke of the different sides – or through a sermon on ethics to the whole community with the intention of hindering the sources of injustice in the community. The last tool in the hands of the Hakham, if he did not succeed through educational means, is excommunication or expulsion. And here we must emphasize the complex nature of the Sages' conduct: on the one hand they are prepared to struggle when necessary to protect Torah values both religiously and socially, and on the other hand they adopt a stance in a pleasant way, with the wonderful ability to adopt solutions through the paths of peace and with the attribute of mercy.

The Sephardic rabbis perceived their job to be multi-faceted. They did not concentrate only on spreading Torah knowledge in a yeshiva to a chosen group of scholars, but saw their main job as serving the entire community. Certainly one of the community rabbi's jobs was to see to it that there would be a yeshiva in the area, but this was not the sum total of the Sephardic rabbi's duties. Torah study for all levels of society was his goal. Learning Torah with the lay people who made up the majority of his community is what held center stage. Beyond Torah study, the rabbi was busy with all his other rabbinic duties: as mohel, ritual slaughterer, scribe, preacher, judge, etc., along with his social responsibilities: to assure the cohesiveness of the community socially as well as religiously – concerning Torah values and also on the material plane – in other words, to see to it that the weaker members of society live with dignity within the community. As part of his responsibilities beyond the walls of the religious court, one of his main concerns was to assist the weaker members of the community by means of various welfare institutions that operated for the purpose of assuring that mutual solidarity would be a pillar of the Jewish community.

One of the basic elements of halakha that was used especially in Sephardic communities was the establishment of takanot – religious ordinances. The takanah, which is a direct ruling of the halakhic sages, continued to develop in the modern era in Sephardic communities for two reasons: one internal and one external. The internal reason is because the Ashkenazic rabbis tended to curtail the strength of new takanot and the scope of their application, also minimizing the setting of new takanot (to the point of an almost complete refusal by the Chief Rabbinate of Israel to set takanot at all in the past generation). The external reason was that the Emancipation, which brought equal rights to the Jews of Europe, also canceled the judicial independence that had been the heritage of Jewish communities throughout the generations, as well as canceling the authority of the sages to develop the various areas of Jewish civil law. As opposed to the Ashkenazic countries, the Sephardic lands continued to develop Jewish law through internal legislation and communal takanot. (Sometimes the takanot were also national, for example Moroccan takanot that were in force until the 1960s.) Through these takanot the sages provided up-to-date halakhic answers for the new problems and special needs that arose. The takanot were an additional expression of the ever-developing Torah and its involvement in the life of society.

The Spiritual World of the Sephardic Sages

The basic value in the spiritual world of the Sephardic Sages is the presence of God, and what derives from this – the service of God. Not the yoke of mitzvot, but God's constant and central presence, an awareness that we are always and notably standing before God in all aspects of our lives, not only when we are doing one mitzvah or another. The sages held a comprehensive perspective on the basic meaning of Judaism, that is, the perspective on the main purpose of the word of God to mankind. This perspective, they took upon themselves to publicize and teach. They did not receive it through study but rather through Jewish life, through the living tradition. What is a human being’s obligation? That is the question to be addressed; and the answer is not limited to doing mitzvot. This is not to suggest an attitude of compromise in keeping the mitzvot; on the contrary – serving God is the basis of man's obligation in his world, and from this develops the network of mitzvot. But from this also emerges much more than just an obligation to observe commandments; from serving God comes the need to keep "that which is straight and good in the eyes of God"; also in those areas of life that are not defined through formal mitzvot. From serving God one also derives the recognition that a person will be judged before God for everything he does in all aspects of his dealings. Studying Torah does not exempt one from humanitarian issues or from any of the groups that make up the fabric of Jewish people. The awareness of the presence of God is connected to the issue that is so central for the Sephardic sages: society and the Jewish people.

How can a person make God's presence meaningful and concrete when He has no physical or material expression? Among the many possible religious answers to this question, one particular approach stands out for the Sephardic sages: God's presence is expressed through the obligations we have towards the Jewish people and through the obligations we have towards one another. In this context, how can we walk in the path of God? By adopting His traits: "Just as God is merciful and compassionate, so should you be merciful and compassionate" (Shabbat 133b). That is, one's ability to behave in the right way expresses one’s obligation to God. This rule does not apply only to the private domain (and here is a decisive point compared with the sages who emphasized ethics and interpersonal relationships in the private domain), but rather it is expanded and broadened to have the public and social meaning that is found in almost every aspect of life that the Sephardic Sages preached about. Even if something was a private or personal issue, or an issue that appeared to deal only with miztvot between God and man, the hakhamim found ways to apply the issue to the general public.

This is not only in regards to spiritual commentary and literature. Also in the realm of action, the Sephardic sages were conspicuous in their concern for the community and the public; their concern for society was expressed also in their halakhic rulings and was taken into consideration under different social circumstances. This inclination does not come from weakness or compromise but rather from the spiritual strength that sees this as the Hakham's commitment to God and the Jewish people. We can see in this the complexity of the rabbi's activities: on the one hand his broad concern with the social life, economic status and spiritual level of the community, and at the same time his desire to preserve the uniqueness of each member of the community. In accordance with this task, the Sages were careful to maintain the unity of the community, also in the religious sphere, in spite of the different levels of observance of the members of the community, the different occupations of the members of the community, and the cultural and intellectual differences among them.

Concern for the public is expressed in the most basic issues of mutual responsibility: communal obligation towards the weak and acts of tzedek against the various sources of injustice. For these purposes the sages enacted takanot for the sake of the poor, via internal-communal taxes and through education.

This is also expressed in regard to the human attributes – midot – that the sages taught: paths of pleasantness, love of fellow human beings, generosity, kindness, and humility... The paths of pleasantness constituted the foundation for the various aspects of the wisdom of life. First, they relate to human interaction, second they relate to the halakha (the balance and adaptation between various Torah values and between them and other people) and third, they connect to the conceptual spiritual realm (in a harmonious view that is warm and loving towards society, the opposite of a suspicious, estranged, or arrogant stance). From this attitude the Sephardic sages were able to observe the changes throughout the world in the last two hundred years: science, politics, and culture. Their spiritual inclusion allowed the Sages to successfully adopt a complex stance of positive values in relation to scientific, technological, and social advances, and with it also to recognize the changes in religious and traditional lifestyle that affected community members. Preserving the attachment of the community to tradition was an overriding goal for the Hakhamim and this brought them to great heights in their writings, which often times proved courageous. They did this in order to maintain Torah values while being open to modernity. This approach is not limited to protecting and preserving the Torah in a world that threatens it – an approach that turns inward with the goal of surviving in a new world. Rather it is the opposite: an outlook that comes from the classic Jewish sources about the world as a whole, the problems of modern society, universal questions. It provides a special, original, often surprising response.[8] Behind the language and concepts of Jewish tradition there is a living Torah whose revitalized light illuminates the universal questions that stir us to a life of faith in the modern era.

(This article is excerpted from Marc D. Angel, Remnant of Israel: A Portrait of America’s First Jewish Congregation—Shearith Israel, Riverside Books, New York, 2004.)

The 1880s ushered in a period of mass immigration, with many hundreds of thousands of Jews among those seeking a new life in America. Some immigrants were fleeing oppression, and some were simply seeking a better life for themselves and their families. The image of America as a promised land with streets paved of gold attracted the poor and downtrodden of Europe. Between 1880 and 1900, the United States population surged 50 percent, from 50 million to 75 million.

Among the throngs of Jewish immigrants were many who were fleeing the pogroms and persecutions in Tsarist Russia. Most entered the country though the port of New York, and a large majority remained in New York City and environs. To Americanized Jews, their incoming coreligionists posed new challenges. The newcomers, for the most part, were poor, unfamiliar with English, and unskilled by American standards. They were very much “old country” in their garb, language, religious outlook, and manners. They needed places to live, jobs, schools for their children, and medical care. In short, they needed help in adapting to American life.

The Jewish immigrants crowded into tenements on the Lower East Side of New York, eventually also spreading out to other neighborhoods in uptown Manhattan, Brooklyn, and the Bronx. The native American Jewish community established agencies to help the immigrants, and expended considerable energy and resources to assist them. Certainly, there were sometimes tensions between them culturally, economically, and socially. Yet, to the credit of the New York Jewish community in particular—and American Jewry in general—much good work was done to assist in the absorption of the immigrants into American life.

Emma Lazarus

Emma Lazarus (1849–1887), a descendant of old and distinguished Shearith Israel families, became an ardent spokesperson on behalf of these immigrants. She spent time with Russian-Jewish families in their tenement homes and sought ways to alleviate their misery. A noted poet in her day, she expressed her empathy with the plight of immigrants and gave voice to American idealism at its finest. Her poem, “The New Colossus” was inscribed on a plaque and affixed to the Statue of Liberty in 1903. In it, she wrote her now famous words:

Give me your tired, your poor
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!

Among the millions of Jews who arrived in the United States between 1880 and 1924 were 30,000 to 40,000 Sephardim who were mostly from Turkey, the Balkan countries, Greece, and Syria. The existing Jewish agencies that helped immigrants were geared for Yiddish-speaking Ashkenazic Jews like themselves. They did not easily recognize the Sephardim as Jews because the Sephardim did not have what they thought of as typical “Jewish” names and because they did not speak Yiddish….

The Sisterhood [of Shearith Israel] established an “Oriental Committee,” whose sole task was to work with newly arrived Sephardim. The Sisterhood operated settlement houses on the Lower East Side specifically for the Sephardim. The one at 86 Orchard Street opened in 1913, and a larger one at 133 Eldridge Street opened in 1918. These settlement houses provide social services, advice, meeting places, youth programs, a Hebrew School, and even a synagogue.

Shearith Israel’s spiritual leader, Dr. Henry Pereira Mendes, was very interested in the welfare of the immigrant Sephardim. His assistant, Rabbi Dr. David de Sola Pool, worked most actively with the Sisterhood’s “Oriental Committee” and with the Sephardic immigrants themselves. He represented Sephardic interests at meetings of Jewish social workers and charity agencies, and wrote articles explaining their background and needs to the Jewish community at large….

Shearith Israel’s commitment to the Sephardic immigrants entailed a remarkable expenditure of time, effort, and money. Had Shearith Israel performed no other public service at the time, the congregation would still have reason for pride in its social action work.

However, the social conscience of the congregation found expression in other causes as well. Several members of Shearith Israel made particularly notable contributions to the improvement of life in New York City—and well beyond.

Maud Nathan

Maud Nathan (1862–1946) was a social activist and a strong advocate of women’s rights. She was a leader in the women’s suffrage movement and was appointed by Theodore Roosevelt as the head of the women’s suffrage committee in his National Progressive Party. She became an international figure in the women’s rights movement, addressing conferences on the topic in such places as London, Lucerne, Stockholm, Budapest, the Hague, Canton, and Peking.

Maud Nathan was once confronted by an opponent of women’s rights. The critic asked her derisively: “Would you want your cook to vote?” She answered calmly: “He does!”
A member of the Daughters of the American Revolution, Maud Nathan had deep roots in American life. A member of Shearith Israel, she was imbued with a commitment to public service. She was a founder, and the first President, of Shearith Israel’s Sisterhood, established in 1896.

Throughout the nineteenth century, almost all charity and social action work in New York was conducted on a denominational basis. Protestants, Catholics, and Jews each had their own separate institutions and agencies to meet the needs of their communities.

By the end of the nineteenth century, individuals from the different religious groups began working together. Maud Nathan was one of the first Jewish women in American to be involved on the highest levels in a social action cause that crossed denominational lines.

Josephine Shaw Lowell, a prominent personality in the New York social service world, invited Maud Nathan to become involved in the work of the Consumers’ League of New York, which was founded in 1891. Maud Nathan not only joined this group, but went on to serve as its President from 1897 to 1917. She also served as Vice-President of the National Consumers’ League that developed on the model of the New York Consumers’ League.

In her work for the Consumers’ League, she and her colleagues addressed the terrible working conditions of young women clerks in New York’s department stores and shops. The basic insight of the Consumers’ League was that the problem was caused not just by the callousness of employers but by the thoughtlessness of consumers. If shoppers would demand proper conditions for store workers, the employers would be forced to comply. The Consumers’ League printed a “white list” naming the stores that met at least the minimum standards required by the League. At first, only a few stores earned the right to be included on the list. It soon became clear, though, that consumers were becoming sympathetic to the cause. More and more shoppers were patronizing “white list” stores and many were refusing to shop in stores that exploited their workers.

Through persistent hard work and ongoing negotiations with employers, the Consumers’ League brought about a revolution in working conditions for the store clerks. The success was so monumental that other cities and states copied the New York model, which won adherents internationally as well. Maud Nathan described the history of the Consumers’ League in a book she wrote called The Story of an Epoch-Making Movement.

Through her work for the women’s suffrage movement and in the Consumers’ League, Maud Nathan left an imprint on American history. In eulogizing her at her funeral on December 15, 1946, Rabbi David de Sola Pool referred to “her strong spiritual insight.” She is noteworthy for having been able to translate her spiritual insight and idealism into practical action that helped her fellow human beings.

Maud Nathan was outspoken in her criticism of anti-Semitism and racial prejudice. She felt that group hatred and bigotry were increasing in New York during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. In her autobiography, Once Upon a Time and Today, she reminded her readers:

Prejudice produces humiliation which is not easy to bear. And the sad part is that the nature becomes warped and the spirit of kindliness and friendliness is changed into bitterness and resentment. To live in peace, there must be mutual confidence, trust, cooperation, no antagonism. How often, instead of mutual respect for differing spiritual values, there is suspicion, intolerance. Does not this intolerance find its final expression in the un-American principles of the Ku Klux Klan?

She saw herself as a victim of discrimination, both as a woman and as a Jew. Still, she took pride in the fact that he had “been able to make her protest count, because she persisted.” She devoted her life to advocating the American—and Jewish—ideals of freedom, mutual respect, and social justice.

Alice Davis Menken

A remarkable contemporary of Maud Nathan, also an active leader within the Shearith Israel community, was Alice Davis Menken (1870–1936). She, too, descended from early Shearith Israel families who had served in the American Revolution. Her husband, Mortimer Menken, was a successful New York attorney, and served as Parnas of Shearith Israel from 1922 to 1926. Alice Menken was President of Shearith Israel’s Sisterhood from 1900 to 1929….

Alice Menken’s interest in helping shape a better society went further [than the Sisterhood’s operation of settlement houses on the Lower East Side]. She was troubled by evidence of delinquency and vice among poor young Jewish immigrants. These young people often grew up in horrendous conditions and it is no wonder that some of them fell into anti-social behavior. Alice Menken believed that the way to deal with such individuals was through genuine, kind assistance and not through punishment. The goal was to rehabilitate them, not to harden them. In 1907, she was a prime mover in founding the Jewish Board of Guardians, which created a system of volunteers to look after wayward young people. Volunteers were given responsibility for supervising Jewish youth who had been placed on court-ordered probation.

In 1908, she organized a group of women from the Shearith Israel Sisterhood to work with the probation department of the Women’s Night Court of New York City. The Sisterhood group took responsibility for delinquent women so that they would not have to be incarcerated. In 1911, she helped found the Jewish Big Sister Association, through which women would “adopt” young women who were at risk of leading anti-social lives. Through one-to-one relationships, the “big sisters” could help guide the “little sisters” to constructive and fulfilling lives.

Alice Menken set a personal example for service. In the period from 1919 to 1922, in cooperation with the probation department, 346 probationers were under her own supervision—for as long a period as required by each of them. The average age of these women was 20, and 197 of them were foreign-born. Alice Menken spent time getting to know the young women, and assessing their needs and wants. She sought to find ways of helping them to help themselves. Almost all of the women for who she took responsibility went on to live better lives—returning home, finding jobs, establishing families of their own. In at least one case, Alice Menken took a probationer home to live in her own house, making her part of her own family for several years! The young woman went on to live a good life, and was ever appreciative of this incredible generosity of spirit.

In 1920, Governor Alfred E. Smith appointed Alice Menken to serve as a member of the Board of Managers of the Reformatory. In this capacity, she strove to improve prison conditions and to eliminate solitary confinement. She believed that prisoners needed an environment that offered them the possibility of rehabilitation.

In 1933, she published a book entitled On the Side of Mercy, in which she discussed her philosophy (and her actions) relating to problems in social readjustment. She wrote

We must seek a balanced philosophy of life. We must live to make the world worth living in, with new ideals, less suffering, and more joy….And when the cry of distress is heard from those overtaken by moral disability, organizations and individuals whose creeds are different, but whose ideals are one, respond in full measure. In this way the new generation, maturing during these years of depression, will be cheered to action and taught something of human and spiritual values.