468 A History of Judaism
of Aaron, nor the restoration of any of the laws concerning the Jewish
state ... We reassert the doctrine of Judaism, that the soul of man is
immortal ... We reject as ideas not rooted in Judaism the belief both in bodily
resurrection and in Gehenna and Eden, as abodes for everlasting punishment
or reward ... We deem it our duty to participate in the great task of modern
times, to solve on the basis of justice and righteousness the problems pre-
sented by the contrasts and evils of the present organization of society.^15
The Pittsburgh Platform was adopted by the Central Conference of
American Rabbis which Wise established in 1889. It is perhaps un -
surprising, in light of these declarations of universality, that the CCAR
denounced Zionism after the First Zionist Congress in Basel in 1897.
But by this time the movement was also starting to be influenced by the
huge numbers of Jews coming to the United States from eastern Europe.
For many of these immigrants Yiddish was the natural language to
express their Jewish identity and the Germanic liberal ethos of earlier
decades was irrelevant. For a while, the Reform movement was some-
what knocked off course, although its leaders were loath to lose its
ideals, as the president of the CCAR observed in 1908:
I hear it said that since the day of the organization of this Conference the face
of the American Jewish universe has greatly changed; that, owing to the
arrival of masses of immigrants during the past twenty years our religious
situation is altogether different from what it was before. Dismay has seized
many. The tide of reactionism has swept them off their feet. The optimistic
note of the leaders of the nineteenth century has changed in many quarters to
a pessimistic wail. The despairers cry that the progressive tendency that this
Conference represents cannot possibly hold its own against the overwhelm-
ing odds that spell reactionism, ghettoism, romanticism, neo- nationalism and
neo- orthodoxy. In spite of many untoward signs I firmly believe that there is
no cause for despair, dismay and disheartenment ... In the process of ameri-
canization all the perverted viewpoints that are now distorting the vision of
many otherwise excellent people will go the way of all the other extravagant
notions wherewith the onward course of civilization has been diverted for a
brief spell. Such fads as the glorifying of Yiddish as the national language of
the Jews, such vain discussions as to whether there is a Jewish art or no, such
empty dreams as the political rehabilitation of the Jewish state ... will all
pass as interesting incidents in the strange medley of this period of transition.
And that which shall remain will be the great fundamental ideal of the mis-
sion of the Jews ... as a people of religion and of Judaism as a religious force
through all the world.^16