Reform Judaism in America Fighting for Freedom of the Mind

Group Website Emily Touchet, Rebecca Resnic

When entering the project, we both wanted to explore a topic we were connected to personally. As we are both Jewish, Conservative and Reform, the topic of Jewish Reform is very pertinent in our lives. Learning the reforms began with the Enlightenment in Europe, which we learned about last year in school encouraged us, but we were skeptical that the subject of Reform Judaism in America would be too broad. Upon further research, we found that one person, Isaac Mayer Wise, was connected with most major events in Reform Judaism and focused our project on him. As well as borrowing books from the Minuteman Public Library system, we searched the internet for Google books and databases that had clear information on our topic so we could get a basic overview of the topic. We encountered our first problem when we wanted a specific article of the Israelite that we found cited in a book but it was not in the American Jewish Archives, where many other of the digital copies of the Israelite were found. We emailed an archivist and they scanned a picture of that article and emailed it to us. After a long period of research, we decided we needed to explore the subject more, and started to email rabbis and researched historians with questions. We ended up interviewing many rabbis, including the first woman Rabbi in America, Sally Priesand. We also decided to go to Brandeis University, which is known for its in-depth Judaica section. We talked to their Judaica expert, Jim Rosenbloom. He directed us to useful primary sources, such as microfiches which we had not seen before. We also got some ideas for the formatting from the Holocaust Museum in Washington. Both of us preferred the website category because it encompasses aspects of each NHD category. There could be video, interactive multimedia as well as a very visual aspect, as the website must be neat and organized. Furthermore, websites can be accessed from anywhere, and creating websites has real-life applications. Rabbi Todd Markely, after seeing our website, told us he would like to take parts of it to educate on Jewish history at his temple. We consulted a variety of teachers on formatting our website after the

initial creation on the Weebly web site creator. We chose the basic color scheme for our project, white and blue, as they are the colors of the Israeli flag. The revolution aspect is not a literal revolution, such as an overthrow of a leader, but a revolution in ideas especially in the Enlightenment period in Europe. The reform of Judaism exemplifies the changing and evolving aspect of the project. Finally, the reaction is seen in the split into Orthodox and Conservative and Reform branches of Judaism as well as in the people who opposed and supported Wises work throughout America. (474)