Judaism as a Civilization
New York · 1934
מק
Mordecai Kaplan
Mordecai Kaplan
1881 CE–1983 CE · Modern · Švenčionys
R. Mordecai M. Kaplan (1881–1983) was the founder of Reconstructionist Judaism. Born in Lithuania, raised in New York, and ordained at the Jewish Theological Seminary, he taught at JTS for over fifty years while gradually developing a radically new theology that defined Judaism as 'the evolving religious civilization of the Jewish people.'
Rejecting traditional supernaturalism, Kaplan re-cast Jewish religious life in naturalistic and sociological terms — God as 'the Power that makes for salvation,' Jewish peoplehood as the bedrock category, and ritual as folk art rather than divine command. He founded the Society for the Advancement of Judaism in 1922, the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College in 1968, and introduced innovations such as the Bat Mitzvah (his daughter Judith's in 1922 was the first).
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Stop 1 of 21881–1889Born
ŠvenčionysסווינציאןLithuania
What they did here
Born in Švenčionys, Lithuania.
In the same place & time
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Sages whose lives overlapped with Mordecai Kaplan’s in the same cities, drawn from their recorded journeys.
In the same tradition
Solomon Schechter, Shimon Shkop, Baruch Ber Leibowitz, Meir Don Plotsky, Joseph Hertz, Louis Ginzberg, Meitcheter Illui, Moshe Soloveichik, Chaim Heller, Yosef Yitzchak Schneersohn, Reuven Grozovsky, Avraham Kalmanowitz, Shlomo Heiman, Aharon Kotler, Menachem Mendel Kasher, Moshe Feinstein, Saul Lieberman, Yochanan Perlow
The world in their lifetime
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Thinkers and teachers of other traditions whose lives overlapped with Mordecai Kaplan’s — a glimpse of the wider world they lived in. Drawn purely from recorded birth and death years.
Christian world
Buddhist world
Hindu world
Works(3)
Judaism as a Civilizationהיהדות כתרבות
New York · 1934
Landmark 1934 book defining Judaism not as a religion alone but as the totality of Jewish civilization — language, art, food, history, ritual, and ethics. The founding text of Reconstructionism and a major influence on twentieth-century American Jewish self-understanding.
Full text not yet available in our corpus.
The Meaning of God in Modern Jewish Religionמשמעות האל ביהדות המודרנית
New York · 1937
His systematic 1937 theological statement, recasting traditional Jewish God-language in naturalistic, ethical terms.
Full text not yet available in our corpus.