By Judith Maas, Library Assistant
“I have to thank you for the copy you have been so kind as to send me of your discourse before the reformed society of Israelites. I am little acquainted with the liturgy of the Jews or their mode of worship but the reformation proposed and explained in the discourse appears entirely reasonable. Nothing is wiser than that all our institutions should keep pace with the advance of time and be improved with improvement of the human mind.”
Thomas Jefferson, Monticello, 6 January 1826
“The honour of a letter from Mr. Jefferson was beyond my most pleasing anticipations….You, Sir, stand as a pillar of light directing the march of our country through the darkness of political bondage, into the cheerful, the tropical morn of political emancipation. To you, therefore, the theme on which I have presumed to touch, possesses its full interest.”
Isaac Harby, Charleston, South Carolina, 14 January 1826[2]
This exchange of letters took place at the dawn of what would become the largest denomination of Judaism in America, the Reform movement. The occasion was the publication of a speech delivered by Harby, a teacher, playwright, and journalist, before Charleston’s Reformed Society of Israelites in November 1825. The published speech, as well as two plays by Harby, are part of the MHS collections.
The Reformed Society was an outgrowth of a group made up of 47 Jewish men who had first gathered in late 1824, with the mission of adapting the liturgy of the city’s Congregation Beth Elohim to the needs and conditions of modern American life. Among other reforms, the group had called for shorter services, the reading of prayers in Hebrew and English, and a weekly sermon conducted in English that would relate the Scriptures to everyday life.
In December 1824, the group submitted a petition to Beth Elohim’s governing board outlining its proposals–these were promptly rejected. In response, the petitioners established the Reformed Society, whose goal was to align the “prevailing system of worship” with the “enlightened state of society.”[3] Harby’s speech served as the keynote address at the organization’s first anniversary event. Once it was ready in pamphlet form, he proudly distributed copies to newspaper publishers and to well-known figures of the day, including, it appears, Jefferson.
On a trip to Charleston a few years ago, I toured Beth Elohim, which was established in 1749, and I remember the tour guide talking about the battling congregants. Finding Harby’s Discourse in the MHS collections has given me a chance to learn more about the synagogue and its history; the earliest beginnings of Reform Judaism in the United States; and Jewish life in colonial and antebellum America.
Jewish settlers began arriving in Charleston in large numbers in the 1740s, many from England or English colonies. During the Revolutionary era, the Jewish population supported the cause of independence, having found greater liberties in their new home than they had experienced in England. In 1790, South Carolina’s constitution formally granted the Jews “the free exercise and enjoyment of religious profession and worship, without discrimination or preference.”[4] By the early nineteenth century, many of Charleston’s Jews were employed as retailers, brokers, and auctioneers. Harby’s father, Solomon, migrated to the city in 1781, from England by way of Jamaica, and worked as an auctioneer.
Born in Charleston in 1788, Harby grew up at a time when the city was a flourishing, cosmopolitan center of trade and a home to theaters, clubs, and learned societies. Harby enjoyed a liberal education, studying Greek, Latin, and French literature at a private academy. His devotion to literature shaped his career choices. After a stint as a legal apprentice, he became an itinerant man of letters, trying his hand at teaching, journalism, criticism, and playwriting. As both an editorial writer and a literary critic, he celebrated the promise of America, viewing the new nation as a beacon of freedom, and promoting the work of American authors; this optimistic view of the country would be echoed in his Discourse.
By the 1810s and 1820s, Charleston’s preeminence as a port city was on the decline. For Harby, engaging in intellectual pursuits and earning a living came into increasing conflict. It was at this low point that he found a new calling as a reformer of the Jewish liturgy, though his devotion to the cause is puzzling, as he had previously taken little part in the Charleston’s Jewish affairs. Harby and his colleagues were aware of the Jewish reform movements taking place in Europe, but their commitment seems to have been inspired mainly by local circumstances.
Harby’s biographer, Gary Phillip Zola, suggests several reasons for Harby’s involvement, including the emergence in the United States of evangelical societies seeking to convert Jews to Christianity; the appearance in the press of anti-Semitic articles; the fierce debate generated by a bill in Maryland to grant Jews in the state full civil and political equality; and the realization that many Jews in America, himself included, knew little about their religion and were thus unable to withstand attacks on Judaism. Furthermore, in Harby’s view, intolerance and bigotry were vestiges of the old world, with no place in the new.[5]
Written in the florid style characteristic of the era, the Discourse argues for the Society’s desired reforms while affirming its bonds with Jewish beliefs and traditions. Permeating the document is the idea of America’s special destiny as a bastion of freedom and tolerance in contrast with backward Europe: “We, in this free country can worship God in what language and what mode we think proper…. With what pride and pleasure must the happy few who composed our immediate forefathers—the happy few who were sufficiently enlightened to leave oppression, and go in quest of liberty—with what indescribable sensations must these pilgrims of the world have hailed the dawn of freedom as it illumined the western horizon.”[6] I see in the Discourse the desire of an immigrant’s son to achieve a sense of belonging, to be part of a pluralistic America and to honor his Jewish roots.
By 1826, the Society had lost hope in winning over Beth Elohim and made plans to build its own synagogue. In preparation, Harby and two others developed a reform prayer book, the first published in the United States. But within a few years, the Society had dissolved, and many members rejoined Beth Elohim. Harby’s struggles to earn a living continued and, seeking better prospects, he moved to New York, where he died of typhoid fever in 1828.
In the late 1830s, more controversy roiled Beth Elohim. After a fire in 1838 destroyed the synagogue and plans were being made for a new building, a group of congregants asked that “an organ be erected in the synagogue to assist in the vocal part of the service.”[7] The leadership dismissed the idea, arguing that playing the organ during services constituted a violation of the Sabbath. This time, however, the congregation prevailed, and the installation of an organ became the first of a series of reforms, many in keeping with the original proposals of the Reformed Society. The old guard faction went on to found its own congregation, Shearith Israel, or “the Remnant of Israel.”[8] But after enduring the hardships of the Civil War, the two congregations finally decided to merge, and today Beth Elohim describes itself as a “cornerstone of American Reform Jewish practice.”[9]
[1] Isaac Harby, A discourse, delivered in Charleston, (S.C.) on the 21st of Nov. 1825 : before the Reformed Society of Israelites, for promoting true principles of Judaism according to its purity and spirit, on their first anniversary, Charleston, printed by A.E. Miller, 1825, 12.
[2] Quoted in L.C. Moise, Biography of Isaac Harby with an account of the Reformed Society of Israelites of Charleston, S.C., 1824-1833 (Macon: Central Conference of American Rabbis, 1931), 95, 97.
[3] Gary Phillip Zola, Isaac Harby of Charleston, 1788-1828: Jewish Reformer and Intellectual (Tuscaloosa: The University of Alabama Press, 1994), 122.
[4] Ibid., 4.
[5] Ibid., 115-119.
[6] Harby, A discourse, 11, 26-27.
[7] Quoted in Michael Feldberg, “Isaac Harby,” My Jewish Learning, accessed April 3, 2020, https://www.myjewishlearning.com/article/isaac-harby/.
[8] Ibid.
[9] “Our History,” Kahal Kaddosh Beth Elohim, accessed April 3, 2020, https://www.kkbe.org/ourhistory.
Sources:
“Charleston, South Carolina.” Encyclopedia of Southern Jewish Communities. Accessed April 3, 2020. https://www.isjl.org/south-carolina-charleston-encyclopedia.html.
Feldberg, Michael. “Isaac Harby.” My Jewish Learning. Accessed April 3, 2020. https://www.myjewishlearning.com/article/isaac-harby/.
Harby, Isaac, 1788-1828
A discourse, delivered in Charleston, (S.C.) on the 21st of Nov. 1825 : before the Reformed Society of Israelites, for promoting true principles of Judaism according to its purity and spirit, on their first anniversary / by Isaac Harby.
Charleston [S.C.] : Printed by A.E. Miller … 1825.
“Our History.” Kahal Kadosh Beth Elohim. Accessed March 4, 2020. https://www.kkbe.org/.
Moise, L. C. Biography of Isaac Harby with an account of the Reformed Society of Israelites of Charleston, S.C., 1824-1833. Macon: Central Conference of American Rabbis, 1931.
Rosengarten, Theodore, and Dale Rosengarten, eds. Portion of the People: Three Hundred Years of Southern Jewish Life. Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 2002.
Zola, Gary Phillip. Isaac Harby of Charleston, 1788-1828: Jewish Reformer and Intellectual. Tuscaloosa: The University of Alabama Press, 1994.