Who Rules the Synagogue? explores how American Jewry in the nineteenth century transformed from a lay dominated community to one whose leading religious authorities were rabbis. Previously, scholars have chartered the religious history of American Judaism during this era, but Zev Eleff reinterprets this history through the lens of religious authority. Early in the century, American Jews consciously excluded rabbinic forces from playing a role in their
community's development. By the final decades of the 1800s, ordained rabbis were in full control of America's leading synagogues and large sectors of American Jewish life, most notably in the commotion caused by the Pittsburgh rabbinic conference of 1885. Eleff weaves together the significant episodes and debates
that shaped American Judaism during this formative period, and places this story into the larger context of American religious history and modern Jewish history.
- ISBN10 0190490276
- ISBN13 9780190490270
- Publish Date 4 August 2016 (first published 1 July 2016)
- Publish Status Active
- Publish Country US
- Imprint Oxford University Press Inc
- Format Hardcover
- Pages 344
- Language English