User:Henrymichaels/sandbox

I am a student in 3,000 Years of Jewish History

Early Modern Period
In Poland came the rise of Hasidism.

There is a difference between Hasidism and Misnagdim.

Origin
After being ridiculed by Orthodox pundits for his focus on issues in the community and the sociopolitical environment, Kaplan and a group of followers founded the Society for the Advancement of Judaism (SAJ) in 1922. Its goal was to give rabbis the opportunity to form new outlooks on Judaism in a more progressive manner. Kaplan was the leader of the SAJ until 1945, when Eisenstein took over. In 1935, Kaplan published his book, Judaism as a Civilization: Toward a Reconstruction of American Jewish Life. It was this book that Kaplan claimed was the beginning of the Reconstructionist movement. Judaism as a Civilization suggested that historical Judaism be given a "revaluation...in terms of present-day thought." Reconstructionism was able to spread with several other forms of literature, most notably the New Haggadah (1941) which for the first time blended Kaplan's ideologies in Jewish ceremonial literature.

Kaplan did not want for Reconstructionism to branch into another Jewish denomination. However, it was on the inevitable track of becoming one. At the Montreal conference in 1967, Reconstructionist leaders called for a rabbinical school in which rabbis could be ordained under the Reconstructionist ideology and lead Reconstructionist congregations. By the fall of 1968, the Reconstrucionist Rabbinical College was opened in Philadelphia. Along with the establishment of the college, the Reconstructionist Rabbinical Association formed, which gave rabbis a strong network in the religious leadership of Reconstructionism. These institutions greatly progressed the Reconstructionist movement in its evolution into a denomination of North American Judaism.