Louise Reichert at 100

I went to visit my friend Louise Reichert today. She celebrated her 100th birthday back in September and, happily, remains as sharp and vital as ever. Louise was the wife of Victor Reichert, who began as a rabbi at Rockdale Temple in 1926. I asked Louise to show me the book that the congregation prepared for her birthday and enjoyed seeing so many remembrances of Louise and Victor. But I was completely bummed to see that the piece that I had sent in from Boston wasn’t included in the book! I had wanted to share my sense of Louise’s place in history with her and with others who love and value her. … I’m going to bring it over to her tomorrow. Meanwhile, here it is:

K.K. Bene Israel is a very old congregation, the oldest – as we’ve all heard many times-- west of the Alleghenies. Yet, sometimes, it can be hard to grasp the reach and the meaning of that history. Often we measure the history of a congregation in the pictures of its buildings and its rabbis – in this case synagogues on Broadway, Mound, and Rockdale and illustrious figures like Max Lilienthal, David Philipson, and Victor Reichert. But the true history of a congregation is in those that give it communal life. By that standard, Rockdale possesses a historical treasure who should remind us that, in the end, Plum Street Temple (opened in 1866), is really just a building.

K. K. Bene Israel dedicated its own magnificent temple in the middle of September in 1906, giving (presumably) little thought to the baby girl born into the congregation’s Feibel family during that same week. Yet for all the apparent grandness and solidity of the neoclassical Rockdale Temple on Rockdale Avenue and the many full years of rich congregational life there, Louise Reichert has outlasted that edifice “for the ages” by more than 30 years!

On the occasion of that 1906 dedication, the congregation recalled the recent deaths of the last surviving widow of one of the original founders of the congregation and of Cantor Morris Goldstein whose skilled musicianship and cultured presence had embodied the aspirations to higher culture implicit in Bene Israel’s Reform Judaism. They realized that, having lost these important symbolic ties to the past, it was up to the congregation to continue to honor their community’s rich historical legacy as they moved into the exciting future that the new building represented.

In this sense, Louise offers a unique bridge to the past. She connects us to that downtown congregation that built Rockdale Temple in order to pioneer a new center of Jewish life in Cincinnati on the hilltop suburb of Avondale. She embodies the activism and rich communal life that characterized the congregation on Rockdale Ave. And she stands with her community now as it envisions a new kind of center on the grounds of the Rockdale Temple on Ridge Road.

A community is fortunate if it can be enriched by its past. In this sense Rockdale Temple is truly blessed by the presence of Louise Reichert. And not just because she has lived a long time. And not just because of the many years of energy, devoted service ,and deeds of loving kindness she brought to the community as the wife of its rabbi, Victor Reichert. The pleasure of Louise’s company, her vibrant spirit, keenness of insight, constant curiosity, and devotion to Rockdale are known to all who spend any time with her.

At 100 years old, she can speak with verve of personalities and movements that few others remember. She reminds us that a past world which often seems far away and present only in the pages of books and old newspapers is not so far from our own. She challenges the complacency of those who would look back on pre-World War II Rockdale Judaism with condescension. At 100 years, she stands not only for the past but also for the potential vitality of Rockdale’s future. May we all take advantage of the good fortune we have to be able to learn from her example.

Jewish feminist interpretation, circa 1929!

Here’s one I didn’t expect. In 1929, as part of a series of activities for Cincinnati’s Young Women’s Hebrew Association, Belle Wohl, the wife of the young rabbi of Reading Road Temple led a discussion series focused on “Feminist interpretations of the Bible.”

British Jewess Grace Aguilar had written the popular and valorizing Women of Israel in the 1830s and U.S. woman’s rights activist Elizabeth Cady Stanton had published the controversial Woman’s Bible in the 1890s which highlighted Old Testament denigrations of women. But I wasn’t aware that there was much of a Jewish tradition of feminist biblical reading before the late 20th century. (The Women of Reform Judaism organization is preparing to publish the latest of this genre, The Torah: A Women’s Commentary by the end of 2007).

I’d love to know what Mrs. Wohl had to say. A February 22, 1929 Every Friday report noted only that she "gave a feministic interpretation of women of the Bible." (emphasis added)

Other YWHA activities for the winter of 1929, as reported in Every Friday for January 25, 1929, included dancing classes at the Temple, a bowling team which met downtown at Central Bowling Alleys, and weekly rehearsals for a minstrel show scheduled for March. More on that, or some similar event, anon …

The Jewish Day School: Let Us Think Twice

In July 1951, Rabbi Victor Reichert of Cincinnati’s Rockdale Temple published a sharp rejection of Jewish day schools which were emerging in greater numbers in the post-war years. “The Jewish All-Day School, like Jonah’s gourd, has come up in the night of despair,” he wrote. Reichert attributed their growth to “fears of the total assimilation of Judaism in America,” but confidently predicted that the Jewish school movement, like Jonah’s gourd would “wither in the broad daylight of renewed faith in freedom and the democratic process”

The establishment Jewish position has shifted from that of Reichert’s day. In fact, Jewish day schools which, as he pointed out, began as an outgrowth of Orthodox Jewish life, have now been embraced by the Reform and Conservative movements.

Prevailing opinions may have changed, but Reichert’s strong words should challenge us to consider the cost of “continuity” when it leads to a willingness to withdraw from the broader community as reflected in choices about place of residence, communal life, or education.

"Liberal Judaism gladly accepts the invitation and the challenge of American democracy. We do not conceive of our heritage as a hot-house flower that needs to be rigorously protected from the wholesome give and take of free association and the adventure in shared living provided by our great American system of free public schools.

The All-Day School seeks survival by voluntary withdrawal and segregation from the American public school – the best workshop we have to forge the tools for a more ideal America. It is my contention that any project, however nobly motivated, that subtracts any American child from the wholesome give and take of the public day school, in some measure dwarfs the child’s outlook by depriving him of the vigorous experience and exciting adventure in democratic group living. Where better than in our American public schools is democracy carrying on its fateful battle against narrow prejudices, bigotry and all forms of intellectual and social caste and stratification."

Reichert shared many of today’s concerns about Jewish continuity, but he maintained hope that American Jews should be able to find a strong Jewish identity without sacrificing full engagement in American life:

"In our natural anxiety as liberal religious leaders over the failures, shortcomings and limitation of our homes, temples and synagogues, our Sabbath and Sunday schools and week-day classes thus far, to become really effective instruments for transmitting a robust and self-reliant acceptance of our Jewish heritage, let us think twice about the Jewish All-Day School a euphemism for Jewish parochialism! Are we leaping form the frying pan into the fire?”

Reichert believed public schools were key to the American ability to nurture distinctiveness and to the whole project of democratic equality:

“I want an America where children will respect and appreciate the religious and cultural difference into which they were born apart, because they have shared in the basic human enterprises they have lived together. …. I want America to continue to be the land where the pilgrims and peddlers of one generation can become the patrons of art and the professors of science of the next – where the common man will always have the opportunity to show how uncommon he can become – an America that will spell opportunity for character, integrity, consecration, ability. I want an Am erica where the word ‘minority’ will be nonsense because the barriers based upon the accident of birth will be transformed into bridges – bridges built by Americans who have achieved self-reliance but who have learned to share their spiritual and material possession with others for the larger, universal good.

The Public School is the best instrument we possess for the achievement of such a democracy. If we really believe in democracy, let us think twice before we rob any American child of the robust challenge of this adventure.”

excerpted from Victor Reichert, "The Jewish Day School: Its Fallacy and Dangers," American Israelite, July 19, 1951

Summer Cuties

Let's start with a little summer fun from just 56 years ago when the Cincinnati Jewish community attacked the perennial problem of keeping young Jews interested and engaged by sponsoring a "Summer Cutie Contest" open, it would seem to high school and college students.

"Miss Judy Sunshein, of Alpha Sigma Tau, won the Jewish Community Center's second annual Summer Cutie Contest at the Center pool Thursday, June 19. Miss Sunshein received the trophy at a dance at Le Centerville Gardens, following the contest."
American Israelite, July 19, 1952

The winner had the best possible name for such a summer contest. Jewish beauty contests would have been very appealing in the early 1950s, following up on Bess Myerson's crowning as Miss America in 1945.