American Jewish Archives Journal

Four years before the herem, Kaplan had written his first liturgical document,
The New Haggadah. 7 That publication led the entire JTS faculty to issue
a unanimous letter to Kaplan, condemning him for liturgical blasphemy. 8 In
1945, Kaplan’s siddur, a book that took the same “heretical” liberties as the haggadah,
sent tidal waves through the Seminary. 9 JTS President Louis Finkelstein
had attempted to foster dialogue in the wider community of world Judaism and
religion. 10 Agudat HaRabbanim, by contrast, rejected any attempt to reconcile
religious and secular life, and it offered only a sectarian sociology, a movement
of self-segregation in New York City.
Even though Kaplan had already been a pariah on the faculty for much of
his career at the Seminary, and the letter of condemnation about the haggadah
had served as a warning bell concerning his liturgical license while employed
at the institution, Agudat HaRabbanim all but forced Finkelstein to defend
Kaplan against outside attack. 11 Finkelstein’s response to the herem tangibly
marked the Seminary as an institution that would mandate the representation
of a plurality of beliefs, a fundamental principle in the Conservative movement’s
emerging place of leadership in American Jewish life during the 1950s.
Ancient Ritual in the Big Apple
Although the decision to issue a herem grew from Agudat HaRabbanim’s
very traditional religious principles, the way in which it executed the herem was
antithetical to the very fabric of the organization. While fighting to seclude
itself from secular society during the first half of the twentieth century, Agudat
HaRabbanim nevertheless used modern tools to shape the public scope of the
event in 1945. Notably, rather than hold the ceremony at a synagogue, it was
held in one of New York’s largest hotels, located at 34 th Street and Broadway,
in the center of downtown. 12
The Hotel McAlpin served a double purpose for Agudat HaRabbanim. On
the one hand, the sheer size of the hotel and its prominent position compelled
attention— when the hotel was built in 1912, it was the largest hotel in the
world. 13 But the location also held particular resonance for the Yiddish-speaking
press and public, Agudat HaRabbanim’s principal constituents: From 1932 to
1938 the hotel hosted the Yiddish radio station, WEVD, before the station later
moved up to 46 th Street. 14
Using a dash of its own irony, the Reconstructionist Foundation also hosted
its annual meeting in October 1945 at the Hotel McAlpin. While the topics
for the conference—“Unity and Diversity in Jewish Life “ and “Necessary
Changes in Jewish Religious Beliefs”—could have served the needs of any Jewish
organization that sought to integrate Judaism and modernity, these choices for
topics particularly resonated in the very location where a group of rabbis had
burned a siddur only four months before. 15
22 • American Jewish Archives Journal