Reform Unreformed?

For U. S. Reform Judaism, a 63-year-old modernizing and "Americanizing" movement to which some 1,000,000 U. S. Jews adhere, there exist two mouthpieces neither of which claims to be more authoritative than the other: the Central Conference of American Rabbis and the Union of American Hebrew Congregations. Year and a half ago the Rabbis surprisingly reversed one "Americanizing" principle of Reform, by withdrawing old objections to Zionism (TIME, July 8, 1935).

Last week in New Orleans gathered the 35th Council of the Union of American Hebrew Congregations, plus its affiliated lay organizations, the National Federations of Temple Brotherhoods and Sisterhoods. Like the Rabbis, the Union seemed no longer sure of the virtues of modernism and Americanism. It was aware that enemies, in and out of Jewry, use the word "assimilation" as an insult, an accusation that Reform seeks to un-Jew the Jew. So the Union in the most notable of the resolutions it passed last week voiced its faith in Jewishness. In an unmistakable trend back toward Orthodoxy, the delegates urged that all Reform synagogs employ cantors and all-Jewish choirs, singing Jewish music only, and resume use of the ancient Kiddush, a blessing before the evening meal to proclaim the holiness of the Sabbath. The Union, too, voted its faith in the Jewish homeland, praising the Jewish Agency--to which Zionists and non-Zionists subscribe--for its activities: "We see the hand of Providence in the opening of the gates of Palestine for the Jewish people at a time when a large portion of Jewry is so desperately in need of a friendly shelter and a home where a spiritual, cultural centre may be developed in accordance with Jewish ideals." For a decade the Union of American Hebrew Congregations has had no president, the duties of that office having been capably handled by an executive board chairman. But with an increased sense of work to be done, perhaps even of Reform to be unReformed so that Jews may keep together, the Union last week chose a man of calibre to be its president: Robert Phillips Goldman, 46-year-old Cincinnati lawyer. Although he is a devout worshipper at the Cincinnati Temple named for the founder of U. S. Reform, Isaac Mayer Wise, Lawyer Goldman has devoted his career to Reform of another kind. An authority on proportional representation, he did much backstage work in the Charter movement which ousted Cincinnati's machine government in 1925, helped draft the city charter which was subsequently adopted. When not busy with Judaism and civic betterment, Lawyer Goldman golfs, delves into Ohio history.

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