Max Lilienthal
Encyclopedia
Dr. Max Lilienthal was a German-born adviser for the reform of Jewish schools in Russia and later a rabbi and proponent of Reform Judaism
Reform Judaism
Reform Judaism refers to various beliefs, practices and organizations associated with the Reform Jewish movement in North America, the United Kingdom and elsewhere. In general, it maintains that Judaism and Jewish traditions should be modernized and should be compatible with participation in the...

 in the United States.

Work for Russian Government

Max Lilienthal held a doctorate from the University of Munich when Ludwig Philippson
Ludwig Philippson
Ludwig Philippson was a German rabbi and author, the son of Moses Philippson.He was educated at the gymanasium of Halle and at the University of Berlin, and maintained himself by tutoring and by doing literary work...

 recommended him to head a school inspired by the Enlightenment in Riga
Riga
Riga is the capital and largest city of Latvia. With 702,891 inhabitants Riga is the largest city of the Baltic states, one of the largest cities in Northern Europe and home to more than one third of Latvia's population. The city is an important seaport and a major industrial, commercial,...

, then a part of the Russian Empire
Russian Empire
The Russian Empire was a state that existed from 1721 until the Russian Revolution of 1917. It was the successor to the Tsardom of Russia and the predecessor of the Soviet Union...

. He arrived in Riga in 1840. He made a greater impact with the Minister of National Enlightenment, Sergey Uvarov
Sergey Uvarov
Count Sergey Semionovich Uvarov was a Russian classical scholar best remembered as an influential imperial statesman....

, with that he did with the school. The next year, Uvarov summoned Lilienthal to serve as the Ministry of National Enlightenment's "learned Jew." Lilienthal's most important task was to convince the Jews of the importance of enlightened education.

Lilienthal summoned committees from the various Jewish communities in the Pale of Settlement
Pale of Settlement
The Pale of Settlement was the term given to a region of Imperial Russia, in which permanent residency by Jews was allowed, and beyond which Jewish permanent residency was generally prohibited...

 to provide recommendations on the reform of the schools, but the notion of reform was so controversial that many boycotted. Nonetheless, Lillienthal embarked on ambitious plans for the creation of Haskalah
Haskalah
Haskalah , the Jewish Enlightenment, was a movement among European Jews in the 18th–19th centuries that advocated adopting enlightenment values, pressing for better integration into European society, and increasing education in secular studies, Hebrew language, and Jewish history...

 inspired schools in Russia. He invited his peers in Central Europe to come teach at Russian schools. Lilienthal did not understand the degree to which the Russian Jews resented having a foreign-inspired education imposed upon them. They saw Lilienthal as an agent of the tsarist government, which they believed wanted to convert them to Russian Orthodox Christianity.

As Pauline Wengeroff wrote in her memoirs decades later, "Dr. Lilienthal made it a point to gather many of Brest
Brest, Belarus
Brest , formerly also Brest-on-the-Bug and Brest-Litovsk , is a city in Belarus at the border with Poland opposite the city of Terespol, where the Bug River and Mukhavets rivers meet...

's young people around him every day, speaking to them of acquiring West European learning, offering useful bits of advice, sketching out their future as men of culture. He won the hearts of these impressionable young people who, while remaining true to their parents' religion in matters of observance, were branching off into new paths in all other respects, turning even further from the cultural orientation of the older generation."

An 1844 law which ordered the creation of schools in which young Jews would learn secular subjects as well as Jewish religion was a victory for the Lilienthal and the Jewish Haskalah, but Lilienthal left Russia shortly afterward. His motivation for the sudden exit remains a topic of debate among scholars.

In the United States

Lilienthal served as a rabbi for several years after his arrival in New York City in 1845, including at the Anshe Chesed Synagogue. He opened a Jewish school in 1850. In 1855, he moved to Cincinnati to become an editor of The American Israelite
The American Israelite
The American Israelite is a Jewish weekly newspaper published in Cincinnati, Ohio. Founded in 1854 as The Israelite and assuming its present name in 1874, it is the longest-running English-language Jewish newspaper still published in the United States.The paper's founder, Rabbi Isaac Mayer Wise,...

and serve as rabbi of Congregation Bene Israel. As a rabbi in Cincinnati, he promoted Reform Judaism. He wrote for several publications and was an advocate for both Jewish and secular schools, teaching at Hebrew Union College and serving on the Cincinnati board of education.

External links

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