David Einhorn

David Einhorn , 1809-79, Jewish theological writer and leader of the Reform movement in Judaism in the United States. Born in Bavaria, he studied philosophy at Munich and was influenced by the ideas of Friedrich Schelling. After a stormy career as rabbi of several Reform congregations in central Europe, he accepted (1855) a position as rabbi in Baltimore. He was forced to flee (1861) when his vigorous antislavery campaign aroused the anger of Southern sympathizers. He then accepted positions in Philadelphia and in New York City (1866). Einhorn was a staunch supporter of Abraham Geiger's liberal views on the practice of Judaism. Some of his ideas found expression in the Pittsburgh Platform (adopted by a rabbinical conference in Pittsburgh, 1855), which remained the basis of American Reform Judaism for a generation, and in the original Union Prayer Book, which was modeled in part after his own prayer book, Olat Tamid (1856).

Einhorn, David (1809–79). Reform Jewish theologian. Because he could not find rabbinical employment in Europe on account of his radical views, he emigrated to the United States in 1855 and became rabbi of Congregation Adath Israel, New York, in 1866. He strongly believed in introducing vernacular prayers and rejected the divine origin of the Talmud. In his view, ‘the doctrinal and moral law of Scripture’ is ‘the imperishable spirit of Judaism’; other laws are marks of the covenant, which can change with the times if necessary.