CU_Supp_SHJ_History

=Supplement: History of Humanistic Judaism by Michael Prival=

ORIGINS OF THE SOCIETY FOR HUMANISTIC JUDAISM

I. ESTABLISHMENT OF THE BIRMINGHAM TEMPLE In 1963, a disaffected group from Temple Beth El, a Reform congregation in Detroit, contacted Rabbi Sherwin Wine about starting a new congregation in the northwestern suburbs of Detroit. Rabbi Wine, who was then working as a rabbi at a Reform temple, also named Beth El, in Windsor, Ontario had been an assistant rabbi at Temple Beth El in Detroit for about six months in 1956. He began leading services for the new group, initially eight families, in September 1963 in Farmington Hills, Michigan. Rabbi Wine and this small group decided that they wanted something quite different from the standard liturgy of Reform Judaism. They wanted services that used language which reflected their true beliefs. As a result, Rabbi Wine eventually made the decision to eliminate the word "God" altogether from the services and instead to use new liturgy that emphasized Jewish history and culture. This decision was to lay the foundation for the development of Humanistic Judaism as separate from Reform Judaism or any other existing Jewish movement. Ultimately, the group agreed on the name “Humanistic Judaism” to describe what they were doing. Within two years, the congregation, which was initially located in Birmingham, Michigan and called the Birmingham Temple, had grown from 8 to 140 families. A storm of controversy arose in 1964 when it became known that Rabbi Wine was leading a congregation in the Detroit area that did not recognize God. The Detroit Free Press ran an article in December 1964 with the headline "Suburban Rabbi: 'I Am an Atheist.'" Rabbi Wine was denounced by the Detroit Council of Orthodox Rabbis. The Birmingham Temple purchased land in Farmington Hills, Michigan and moved into a newly-constructed building in 1971. The Torah scroll was placed in the library rather than at the usual place in the sanctuary. Instead, the sanctuary was adorned with a large sculpture spelling out in Hebrew the word Adam, meaning "man" or "people." [The next two paragraphs are just FYI. Probably not needed for curriculum.] Criticism of Rabbi Wine and the Birmingham Temple continued for some time. In 1979, the Rabbinic Commission of Metropolitan Detroit, representing the Orthodox, Conservative, and Reform rabbinate, issued a scathing denunciation when I. F. Stone spoke at the Birmingham Temple. Of course, I.F. Stone espoused such radical views as the necessity of talking with the Palestinian Liberation Organization, that settlements in the West Bank would make peace more difficult to achieve, and that there should be a two-state solution including and independent Palestinian state. (Humanistic Judaism. Vol VII, Number III, Autumn 1979; pp. 24-25). Rabbi Wine’s powerful response, demanding that the rabbis apologize to I.F. Stone and the Birmingham Temple, is a testament to his courage. Since I.F. Stone had recently, at that time, spoken without incident at a large Reform Temple in Philadelphia, many thought that the Detroit Rabbinical Commission’s attack was really more directed at Sherwin Wine than at I.F. Stone – that the rabbis, even after 16 years, were still looking for excuses to denounce Humanistic Judaism. Under Rabbi Wine’s leadership, the Birmingham Temple grew and prospered. It never deviated from the original vision of Humanistic Judaism despite Sherwin’s mother’s plea: “But Sherwin, if you only believed in God, think how much larger your congregation would be.” (Festschrift p.6).

II. ORGANIZATION OF THE SOCIETY FOR HUMANISTIC JUDAISM In 1969, the Society for Humanistic Judaism was formed by the Birmingham Temple; a previously Reform congregation, Beth Or, in Illinois headed by Rabbi Daniel Friedman (who had led the congregation from Reform to Humanistic Judaism after learning about Wine's work in Michigan); and a congregation in Westport, Connecticut which had been organized by a member of the Birmingham Temple who had moved to Connecticut. The Society for Humanistic Judaism now has about 30 constituent congregations and communities in the United States and Canada as well as individual members unaffiliated with any of these congregations.

III. THE INTERNATIONAL INSTITUTE FOR SECULAR HUMANISTIC JUDAISM To fulfill the need of the Humanistic Judaism movement for trained leaders, Rabbi Wine founded the International Institute for Secular Humanistic Judaism in 1985. This educational institution was sponsored jointly by the Society for Humanistic Judaism and the Congress of Secular Jewish Organizations (CSJO) – an umbrella organization which had been formed by Yiddish language oriented schools and communities. Initially, the Institute established a training program for Leaders who are not trained to the extent that rabbis are. These Leaders are called madrikhim or madrikhot in Hebrew or vegvayzer in Yiddish. In 1990, a rabbinic training program was established in Michigan by the Institute. One rabbi it trained and ordained, Sivan Maas from Israel, went back to Israel and, with her father, Yaakov Malkin, who has been a leader in the Humanistic Judaism movement for decades, set up an institute in Jerusalem called Tmura, to train Humanistic rabbis.