Kohler, Kaufmann b. May 10, 1843; Furth, Bavaria d. January 28, 1926; New York City
German American Reform rabbi and president of Hebrew Union College, Cincinnati, Ohio. Kohler came from a family with a strong rabbinic background and received traditional Jewish education at an early age.
In 1862 he entered a grammar school in Frankfurt am Main. There he was influenced by German neo-Orthodoxy, in particular the thoughts of Samson Raphael Hirsch. Kohler pursued his secular education at the universities of Berlin and Erlangen and received a doctorate in 1867 for the submission of his doctoral thesis “Der Segen Jacobs” (Jacob’s Blessing). By this point, Kohler had moved away from Orthodoxy and toward Reform Judaism. His dissertation reflected a radically liberal viewpoint, which he had developed during his university studies and under the in-
Kaufmann Kohler, German American Reform rabbi and president of Hebrew Union College. (Jacob Rader Marcus Center of the American Jewish Archives, Cincinnati Campus, Hebrew Union College—Jewish Institute of Religion)
creasing influence of Abraham Geiger. His dissertation stressed that he did not perceive Judaism as static law, but as an eternal moral idea, which needed constant adaptation to the changing times, thus expressing a central idea of Reform Judaism. In order to reformulate Judaism, Kohler stressed the importance of critical enquiry and Jewish Wissenschaft (studies).
Due to the radical contents of his dissertation, Kohler could not find a congregation in Germany, so he continued his studies at the University of Leipzig. Upon recommendation of Geiger, Kohler took a position as rabbi of the congregation Beth El in Detroit. In the United States he established a firm personal and intellectual relationship with David Einhorn. He later married one of Einhorn’s daughters, Johanna. In 1871 Kohler became the rabbi for Sinai Congregation in Chicago, where he introduced Sunday services (in order to fit into the Christian environment) in 1874 and fought the growing support of American Jews for Felix Adler’s Ethical Culture Society, a nonreligious, intellectual ethical culture movement for practical social service.
In 1879 Kohler succeeded his father-in-law, David Einhorn, as rabbi of Temple Beth El in New York. After a lengthy debate with Alexander Kohut on how far religious progress in Judaism could go, Kohler summarized his theological thoughts by publishing some of his sermons under the title “Backward or Forward?” in 1885. Kohler, subsequently, initiated a conference of Reform rabbis in Pittsburgh, formulating the ideological credo of the American Reform movement with a radical reform program mainly designed by himself and his brotherin-law, Emil Hirsch. In 1903 Kohler succeeded Isaac M. Wise as president of the Hebrew Union College in Cincinnati, where he soon modernized the curriculum. Upon his retirement in 1921, Kohler returned to New York, but maintained the title of president emeritus.Cornelia Wilhelm
See also Chicago; Einhorn, David; Judaism, Reform (North America); New York City
References and Further Reading
Ariel, Yaakov Shalom. “Christianity through Reform Eyes: Kaufmann Kohler’s Scholarship on Christianity.” American Jewish History 89 (1990): 477—499.
------. “Kaufmann Kohler and His Attitude toward Zionism: A Re-examination.” American Jewish Archives 43 (1991): 207-223.
Southard, Robert F. “The Theologian of the 1885 Pittsburgh Platform: Kaufmann Kohler’s Vision of Progressive Judaism.” In Platforms and Prayer Books: Theological and Liturgical Perspectives on Reform Judaism. Ed. Dana Evan Kaplan. Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield, 2002, pp. 61-79.