Mordecai Menahem Kaplan

Mordecai Menahem Kaplan , 1881-1983, American rabbi, educator, and philosopher, b. Lithuania, grad. College of the City of New York, 1900, M.A. Columbia Univ., 1902. He came to the United States when he was eight years old. In 1909 he became principal and in 1931 dean of the Teachers Institute of the Jewish Theological Seminary of America. In 1922 he founded the Society for the Advancement of Judaism. He is best known, however, as the originator and leader of the Reconstructionist movement (see Judaism ). Among his many books are Judaism as a Civilization (1934, rev. ed. 1957), The Meaning of God in Modern Jewish Religion (1937), Judaism without Supernaturalism (1958), And If Not Now, When? Toward a Reconstitution of the Jewish People (1973).

Bibliography: See I. Eisenstein and E. Kohn, ed., Mordecai M. Kaplan (1952); R. Libowitz, Mordechai M. Kaplan and the Development of Reconstructionism (1984); E. S. Goldsmith et al., ed., The American Judaism of Mordecai M. Kaplan (1992).

Kaplan, Mordecai Menachem (1881–1983). Founder of the Jewish Reconstructionist movement. He was born in Lithuania, but was taken to the USA when he was 9. He studied at the Jewish Theological Seminary, and was appointed rabbi to an Orthodox congregation. But the erosive power of so many ideas around him (Durkheim, Darwin, Freud, Marx, and Wellhausen in particular) led him to leave his congregation and work as a teacher at the JTS. His radical views led to a further break with Conservative Jews, and in 1922, he initiated the Jewish Reconstructionist movement, although at that stage not wishing it to be a separate organization. The laws remained important, but as a means to an end. He thought that Jewish élitism was a mistake, and argued that all reference to ‘the Chosen People’ should be dropped from the liturgy. He was a profound influence on generations of Conservative rabbis, although some extreme Orthodox repudiated him, excommunicating (ḥerem) him and burning his revised Prayer Book. His views were expressed in his many books, the best known of which is Judaism as a Civilization (1934).