Solomon Schechter

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Rabbi
Solomon Schechter
Principality of Moldavia
Died19 November 1915(1915-11-19) (aged 67)
New York City, US
ReligionJudaism
NationalityMoldavian (until 1859)
Romanian (after 1881)
British
American
Alma materUniversity of Vienna,
Humboldt University of Berlin

Solomon Schechter (

United Synagogue of America, President of the Jewish Theological Seminary of America, and architect of American Conservative Judaism
.

Early life

He was born in

in London.

Academic career

In 1890, after the death of

Cambridge University, serving as a lecturer in Talmudics and reader in Rabbinics.[2]
The students of the Cambridge University Jewish Society hold an annual Solomon Schechter Memorial Lecture.

Solomon Schechter at work in Cambridge University Library, studying the fragments of the Cairo Geniza, c. 1898

His greatest academic fame came from his excavation in 1896 of the papers of the Cairo Geniza, an extraordinary collection of over 100,000 pages (around 300,000 documents) of rare Hebrew religious manuscripts and medieval Jewish texts that were preserved at an Egyptian synagogue. The find revolutionized the study of Medieval Judaism.

Sirach.[6]

Charles Taylor took a great interest in Solomon Schechter's work in Cairo, and the genizah fragments presented to the University of Cambridge are known as the Taylor-Schechter Collection.[7] He was joint editor with Schechter of The Wisdom of Ben Sira, 1899. He published separately Cairo Genizah Palimpsests, 1900.

He became a Professor of Hebrew at University College London in 1899 and remained until 1902 when he moved to the United States and was replaced by Israel Abrahams.

American Jewish community

In 1902, traditional Jews reacting against the progress of the American Reform Judaism movement, which was trying to establish an authoritative "synod" of American rabbis, recruited Schechter to become President of the Jewish Theological Seminary of America (JTSA).

Schechter served as the second President of the JTSA, from 1902 to 1915, during which time he founded the United Synagogue of America, later renamed as the United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism.

Death

He died in 1915, and was buried at Mount Hebron Cemetery in Flushing, Queens. [8]

Religious and cultural beliefs

Schechter emphasized the centrality of Jewish law (Halakha) in Jewish life in a speech in his inaugural address as President of the JTSA in 1902:

"Judaism is not a religion which does not oppose itself to anything in particular. Judaism is opposed to any number of things and says distinctly "thou shalt not." It permeates the whole of your life. It demands control over all of your actions, and interferes even with your menu. It sanctifies the seasons, and regulates your history, both in the past and in the future. Above all, it teaches that disobedience is the strength of sin. It insists upon the observance of both the spirit and of the letter; spirit without letter belongs to the species known to the mystics as "nude souls" (nishmatim artilain), wandering about in the universe without balance and without consistency...In a word, Judaism is absolutely incompatible with the abandonment of the Torah."

Schechter, on the other hand, believed in what he termed "Catholic Israel." The basic idea being that Jewish law,

Halacha
, is formed and evolves based on the behavior of the people. This concept of modifying the law based on national consensus is an untraditional viewpoint.

Schechter was an early advocate of Zionism. He was the chairman of the committee that edited the Jewish Publication Society of America Version of the Hebrew Bible.

Legacy

The late Solomon Schechter (1912/1913), etching by Hermann Struck

Schechter's name is synonymous with the findings of the Cairo Geniza. He placed the JTSA on an institutional footing strong enough to endure for over a century. He became identified as the foremost personality of Conservative Judaism and is regarded as its founder. A network of

Solomon Schechter Day Schools
across the United States and Canada.

Bibliography

  • Schechter, Solomon (1896) Studies in Judaism. 3 vols. London: A. & C. Black, 1896-1924 (Ser. III published by The Jewish Publication Society of America, Philadelphia PA)
  • Schechter, Solomon (1909) Some Aspects of Rabbinic Theology London: A. and C. Black (Reissued by Schocken Books, New York, 1961; again by Jewish Lights, Woodstock, Vt., 1993: including the original preface of 1909 & the introduction by Louis Finkelstein; new introduction by Neil Gilman [i.e. Gillman])

References

  1. ^ Librarian's Lobby October 2000 Heroes of learning Archived 3 March 2016 at the Wayback Machine at home.earthlink.net
  2. ^ "Schechter, Salomon (SCCR892S)". A Cambridge Alumni Database. University of Cambridge.
  3. ^ Soskice, Janet (2010) Sisters of Sinai. London: Vintage, 239–40
  4. ^ Soskice, Janet (2010). Sisters of Sinai. London: Vintage. pp. 241–2.
  5. ^ Soskice, Janet (2010) Sisters of Sinai. London: Vintage, 246
  6. ^ Soskice, Janet (2010) Sisters of Sinai. London: Vintage, 240–41
  7. ^ "Taylor-Schechter: a Priceless Collection". lib.cam.ac.uk. Archived from the original on 7 July 2009. Retrieved 20 August 2009.
  8. New York Times
    . 20 November 1915. p. 15. Retrieved 18 April 2016.

Further reading

External links