Samuel Adler (rabbi)

Samuel Adler (December 3, 1809 – June 9, 1891) was a leading German-American Reform rabbi, Talmudist, and author.

Early life

Samuel Adler was born on December 3, 1809, in

Adler assumed his first official appointment as a preacher and assistant rabbi in Worms.[2] In 1842, he was elected rabbi of the Jewish congregations in Alzey and remained in this position until 1857.^[1]

In 1856 Adler removed to United States at New York City,^[1] and at the beginning of 1857, he received an offer from Temple Emanu-El, New York to succeed Leo Merzbacher, recently deceased, as the head rabbi of the leading Reform congregation in the United States. Adler accepted the call and moved to New York in March 1857. He remained active as the spiritual head of Emanu-El until 1874, when he was made rabbi emeritus and relieved from active work for the rest of his life. He was succeeded by Gustav Gottheil. During his tenure, Adler continued the practice of conducting Temple services in German, in preference to the traditional Hebrew, for the congregation that consisted mostly of prosperous German immigrant families. Adler also revised the German prayer book introduced by Merzbacher. He also authored the bi-lingual A Guide to the Instruction in the Israelitish Religion (Leitfaden für den israelitischen Religionsunterricht)^[3] for use in Emanu El's Hebrew Sunday school.^[4]

Samuel Adler was not merely a thorough Talmudic scholar, but also had a considerable command of the knowledge of various issues concerning the Jews, including their history, religion, and literature. Adler was committed to translating his scholarship into social action.

During the twenty-one years of his career in Germany, he campaigned energetically for the

Adler gave special attention to the improvement of the religious instruction of the young, both in the city and in the rural schools he supervised. He made it his aim to enhance the order, the solemnity, and the dignity of the public worship. He was instrumental in founding a number of new charitable institutions. Above all, with patience and zeal, he persuaded his congregations to let go of the deadening influence of religious literalism. In this endeavor he frequently drew upon the storehouse of his great Talmudic learning for the arguments which he used in his struggle for progress, seeking always to rest the reformation of manners upon a basis of inward conviction, and favoring a gradual transformation rather than an abrupt transition from the old to the new.

He belonged to what may be called the

• His son
  Society for Ethical Culture.^[5]
• His son Isaac Adler was a physician and educator.
• His daughter Sarah Adler Goldman, married to Julius Goldman (1852–1909), German Jew of the Goldman–Sachs family.
• His grand-daughter Hetty Goldman (1881–1972), was one of the first female archaeologists to undertake excavations in Greece and the Middle East.^[6]

Notes

Sources

• Adler, Samuel (1860). A Guide to the Instruction in the Israelitish Religion - Leitfaden für den israelitischen Religionsunterricht. Thalmessinger, Cahn and Benedicks. New York.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
• Cohen, Getzel M.; Joukowsky, Martha Sharp (2006). Breaking Ground: Pioneering Women Archaeologists. University of Michigan Press. p. 299.
  ISBN 0472031740
  .
• Krone, Kerstin von der (2020). "Samuel Adler in New York. Nineteenth-Century Jewish Education in Transatlantic and Translational Perspective". In Isensee, Fanny; Oberdorf, Andreas; Töpper, Daniel (eds.). Transatlantic Encounters in History of Education: Translations and Trajectories from a German-American Perspective. New York: Routledge. pp. 135–150.
  S2CID 241263144
  . Retrieved December 1, 2020.

•  This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Johnson, Rossiter, ed. (1906). "Adler, Samuel". The Biographical Dictionary of America. Vol. 1. Boston: American Biographical Society. p. 59.
•  This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Singer, Isidore; et al., eds. (1901). "Adler, Samuel". The Jewish Encyclopedia. Vol. 1. New York: Funk & Wagnalls. p. 194. Retrieved November 2, 2020. An article about his son.
•  This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Singer, Isidore; et al., eds. (1906). "Adler, Samuel". The Jewish Encyclopedia. Vol. 1. New York: Funk & Wagnalls. p. 199. Retrieved November 2, 2020.