Solomon Schechter

Solomon Schechter studying documents from the Cairo Geniza, c. 1895.

Solomon Schechter שניאור זלמן שכטר (December 7, 1847- November 191915) was a Moldavian-born Romanian and English rabbi, academic scholar, and educator, most famous for his roles as founder and President of the United Synagogue of America, President of the Jewish Theological Seminary of America, and architect of the American Conservative Jewish movement.

Early life

Schechter was born in Focşani to a Jewish Romanian family adhering to the Chabad branch of Hasidic Judaism. Schechter received his early education from his father who was a shochet ("ritual slaughterer"). Reportedly, he learned to read Hebrew by age three, and by five mastered Chumash, the classic commentaries of the Hebrew Bible. He went to a yeshiva in Piatra Neamţ at age ten and 13 studied with one of the major Talmudic scholars, Rabbi Joseph Saul Nathanson of Lemberg.

In his twenties he went to the rabbinical college in Vienna, where he studied under the more modern Talmudic scholar Meir Friedmann. (WEISS) He also attended lectures on philosophy and other secular branches of learning in the University of Vienna. After receiving his rabbinical diploma, he moved on to undertake further studies at the Berlin Hochschule für die Wissenschaft des Judentums and at the University of Berlin in 1879. Three years later he was invited to England to be tutor of rabbinics to Claude Montefiore in London.

In 1885, his essay, "The Study of the Talmud," appeared in the Westminster Review. In 1887 he published his edition of Abot de-Rabbi Natan, and went on to wrote various essays and lectures in the Jewish Chronicle, Jewish Quarterly Review, Revue des Etudes Juives, and Monatsschrift. Some of these lectures and essays were afterward collected and published under the title Studies in Judaism (1896). In 1890 Schechter was elected lecturer in Talmud at the University of Cambridge, and in 1891 the horary degree of M.A. was conferred upon him.

In 1892 Schechter was elected reader in rabbinics, and in the following year he obtained the Worth shcolarship for the purpose of going to Italy to examine the Hebrew manuscripts in the great Italian libraries. He later made an exhaustive report on his research to the vice-chancellor of Cambridge University. In 1894 he delivered a series of theological lectures in University Hall, London; in 1895 he was appointed the first Gratz lecturer in Philadelphia. A series of his lectures were afterward published in J. Q. R. as "Some Aspects of Rabbinic Theology."

The Cairo Geniza

He won his greatest academic fame from his exposition of the papers of the Cairo Geniza, a repository of old and unused Hebrew documents stored in a Cairo synagogue. His work on this extraordinary collection of over 100,000 pages of rare Hebrew religious manuscripts and medieval Jewish texts revolutionized the study of medieval Judaism.

Initially, in 1896, Schechter forwarded collection of Geniza documents unopened to the Bodleian Library at Oxford University. Later, two Scottish sisters showed him some leaves from the collection that contained the Hebrew text of Ecclesiasticus, which had for centuries only been known in Greek and Latin translation. He quickly found support for a new expedition to Cairo, where he carefully selected for the University Library a trove three times the size of any other collection.

A string of prestigious academic appointments soon followed. In 1898 he was appointed external examiner in Victoria University, Manchester, England; in 1899, professor of Hebrew at University College, London; in 1900, curator of the Oriental Department of Cambridge University Library. He was also a member of the Board of Oriental Studies and the Board of Theological Studies, London University, England.

American Jewish community

In 1902, traditional Jews reacting against the progress of the American Reform Judaism movement, which was trying to establish an authoritative "synod" of American rabbis, recruited Schechter to become President of the Jewish Theological Seminary (JTS).

Schechter served as the second President of the seminary, from 1902 to 1915, during which time he founded the United Synagogue of America, later renamed as the United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism.

Under his leadership the Seminary obtained a distinguished faculty, and a dynamic momentum.

Religious and cultural beliefs

Schechter emphasized the centrality of Jewish law (Halakha) in Jewish life in a speech in his inaugural address as President of the Jewish Theological Seminary in 1902:

"Judaism is not a religion which does not oppose itself to anything in particular. Judaism is opposed to any number of things and says distinctly "thou shalt not." It permeates the whole of your life. It demands control over all of your actions, and interferes even with your menu. It sanctifies the seasons, and regulates your history, both in the past and in the future. Above all, it teaches that disobedience is the strength of sin. It insists upon the observance of both the spirit and of the letter; spirit without letter belongs to the species known to the mystics as "nude souls" nishmatim artilain, wandering about in the universe without balance and without consistency...In a word, Judaism is absolutely incompatible with the abandonment of the Torah."

Schechter, on the other hand, believed in what he termed Catholic Israel. The basic idea being that Jewish law, Halacha, is formed and evolves based on the behavior of the people. This concept of modifying the law based on national consensus is an untraditional viewpoint.

It is alleged that Shechter openly violated the prohibitions associated with traditional Shabbat observance..

Schechter was an early advocate of Zionism. He was the chairman of the committee that edited the Jewish Publication Society of America Version of the Hebrew Bible.

Legacy

Schechter's name is synonymous with the findings of the Cairo Geniza. He placed the Jewish Theological Seminary on an institutional footing strong enough to endure for over a century. He became identified as the foremost personality of Conservative Judaism and is regarded as its founder. A network of Conservative Jewish day schools is named in his honor. There are several dozen Solomon Schechter Day Schools across the United States and Canada. The average cost per school is 10,000 dollars per year.

References

ISBN links support NWE through referral fees

• Conservative Judaism: The New Century, Neil Gillman, Behrman House
• Studies in Judaism, Solomon Schechter
• Some Aspects of Rabbinic Theology, Solomon Schechter
• Solomon Schechter and the Ambivalence of Jewish Wissenschaft, David J. Fine, Judaism p. 4-24, 1997

External links

• Solomon Schechter, from Neil Gillman's book on Conservative Judaism
• Biography at the Jewish Virtual Library
• Louis Jacobs, From Cairo to Catholic Israel: Solomon Schechter, in The Jewish Religion: A Companion, OUP, 1995.
• Solomon Schechter Collection at the Jewish Theological Seminary
• Works by or about Solomon Schechter in libraries (WorldCat catalog)
  
• Solomon Schechter School of Greater Boston

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