Ohio History Journal
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AMY HILL SHEVITZ
"Bull Moose" Rabbi: Judaism and
Progressivism in the Life of a
Reform Rabbi
"When he spoke," Mrs. R. told
me, "it was just like the voice of God."
This is how one of his congregants
described Rabbi Isador Philo almost
fifty years after his death. His
successor in the pulpit of Reform temple
Rodef Sholom in Youngstown, Ohio,
eulogized Philo in 1948 with similar
words: "He was blessed with a rich,
resonant voice and a keen analytical
mind...his entire dignified physical appearance
and spiritual bearing were
those of one who walks with God."
Philo himself would have been most
pleased with another turn of phrase from
his successor, who praised the late
rabbi's "prophet-like restlessness
as a soldier of the Almighty."l
What was it that made this man so
impressive that though he had only a
regional career, he is remembered by
many in his local community as such a
source of Jewish pride? Certainly
dramatic flair was part of his appeal-and
his slight British accent could not have
hurt.2 But when we peel away the
layers surrounding the local myth of
Isador Philo, we encounter the fascinat-
ing story of an immigrant boy who
literally created his persona out of an am-
bition to become the perfect American
Jew. Isador Philo's life and career
provide an excellent case study of the
complex interplay of personality, op-
portunity, social mores, and Jewish
values which comprise the process of
"Americanization." Especially
compelling is the fact that Philo, adapting
himself in a way specific to his era and
its values, shaped for himself an intel-
lectual synthesis which illumines a
critical aspect of the intersection of
Judaism and Americanism in the early
twentieth century.
Little can be verified about Philo's
family, childhood, and education. He
was born on July 24, 1873, in Cardiff,
Wales. His family had immigrated to
Great Britain from Breslau, Germany, not
much before Isador's birth, in the
Amy Hill Shevitz is Instructor in
American Jewish History at California State University,
Northridge, and the University of
Judaism (Los Angeles). A doctoral candidate in American
history at the University of Oklahoma,
she is writing her dissertation on the small Jewish com-
munities of the Ohio River Valley.
1. Obituary of Isador Philo by Sidney
Berkowitz, Central Conference of American Rabbis
[CCAR] Yearbook, 59 (1949), 251.
2. Irving Ozer, et al., These are the
Names: The History of the Jews of Greater Youngstown,
Ohio, 1865 to 1990 (Youngstown, 1994), 91.
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"Bull Moose" Rabbi 7 |
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process Hellenizing the original family name of Lieb.3 Isador's father, Solomon, was born in Breslau in 1850.4 The Breslau Jewish community was the site of major communal struggles over religious reform beginning in the mid-1830s,5 so almost certainly Solomon was exposed to reforming ideas, whether or not he agreed with them. Most likely, Solomon, a fifth- generation rabbi trained in an Orthodox yeshiva, did not.6 Around 1880, the Philo family emigrated to North America, living in British Columbia and then in San Francisco.7 From this time until the be-
3. Jonathan P. Kendall, "Philo: A Biography" (Rabbinic thesis, Hebrew Union College, 1974), 1. Kendall is Philo's grandson. His work is useful, though it contains errors. Wherever possible, I have verified his data in reference or archival sources; otherwise, I have double- checked with other family members. 4. Cyrus Adler, ed., American Jewish Year Book 5664 (1903-04) (Philadelphia, 1903), 87. 5. Michael Meyer, Response to Modernity: A History of the Reform Movement in Judaism (Detroit, 1990), 97. 6. Kendall, "Philo: A Biography," 3; American Jewish Year Book 5664 , 87. On the other hand, why Hellenize rather than Anglicize the name? 7. Kendall, "Philo: A Biography," 2. |
8 OHIO
HISTORY
ginning of his career, Isador Philo's
life is a mystery. A biographical entry
for him in the 1903 American Jewish
Yearbook lists a B.A. from the City
College of New York and a Ph.D. from the
University of Illinois.8 Neither
of these claims is true.
According to Philo's grandsons, he
graduated from Columbia University in
1897 and took his rabbinical studies at
the Temple Emanu-El Seminary.9
Unfortunately, there is no documentary
evidence for these statements either.
Columbia University has no record of
him, and certain inconsistencies on his
diploma, which is extant, render it
questionable.l0 The Seminary at Temple
Emanu-El, organized as a radical Reform alternative
to the Hebrew Union
College, was not a functioning
institution after the mid- 1870s. It did provide
preparatory studies to students who then
continued at HUC or in Europe, but
there is no record that Philo was a
sponsored student. 11 Even
during Philo's
lifetime, questions were raised about
his ordination. In the 1903 American
Jewish Year Book biography, Philo claimed he was ordained by the Rev.
Dr.
Falk Vidaver of San Francisco.12 Vidaver was rabbi of Congregation
Shearith Israel during its transition to
Reform and may well have influenced
the young Philo's ideas in that
direction. Later in his career, many people in
Youngstown were skeptical of Philo's
ordination altogether.13
Whatever credentials he presented, Philo
took his first pulpit at Temple
Israel of Akron, Ohio, where he arrived
in the fall of 1897 at age twenty-
four.14 A local newspaper
reported that he had come to Akron from Altoona,
Pennsylvania, which was near the
hometown (Huntingdon, Pa.) of the
woman he had married just that summer.
In his earliest efforts, he impressed
people with his oratory. "He is
very pleasant in his address," the local paper
opined, "a deep thinker, a scholar,
and is sure to meet with success in
Akron."15
After ten years in the Akron pulpit,
Philo briefly left the rabbinate. For
several years, he had been reading law,
and in June 1907 he was admitted to
the Ohio bar.16 He kept a law
practice open in Akron until 1912, but in
8. American Jewish Year Book 5664 , 86.
9. Kendall, "Philo: A
Biography," 3.
10. Philo Wasburn, letter to author,
March 28, 1996; author's telephone conversation with
Holly Haswell of the Columbiana
Archives, Columbia University, April 2, 1996.
11. Bertram Korn, "The Temple
Emanu-El Theological Seminary of New York City," in
Essays in American Jewish History, ed. Jacob R. Marcus (Cincinnati, 1958), 367.
12. American Jewish Year Book 5664,
86.
13. Biography of Isador Philo,
Collection #92, Youngstown Area Jewish Federation-Jewish
Archives, Mahoning Valley Historical
Society, Youngstown, Ohio.
14. Kendall, "Philo: A
Biography," 5.
15. "Rabbi Philo's Successful
Beginning," clipping of article from unnamed newspaper,
reprinted from Akron Evening Journal,
March 6, [1898?] (Isador Philo-Nearprint Collection,
American Jewish Archives [AJA],
Cincinnati, Ohio).
16. Author's telephone conversation with
Attorney Registration Office, Supreme Court of
Ohio, March 29, 1996. Kendall mistakenly
says 1910.
"Bull Moose" Rabbi 9
1911 also began serving as occasional
substitute rabbi at Reform congrega-
tion Rodef Sholom in the steel city of
Youngstown, fifty miles from Akron.
When the ailing senior rabbi retired the
following year, Philo took his
place.17 He stayed in the
Youngstown pulpit until he retired in 1942. He
died six years later.
Both as a Jew and as an American, Philo
was quite literally a self-made
man. He seems to have emerged full-blown
into his career. Though his in-
tellectual and spiritual development
before 1897 are obscured, what is notable
is the persona which emerged. When he
came of age in the 1890s, progres-
sivism in politics and Reform Judaism in
religion were the hallmarks of
modernity.18 These two
movements presented themselves as mechanisms for
enlightenment and progress, as sure
roads to a better future. Philo had created
his American persona from the raw
materials of the ambient culture, includ-
ing, in a rising "culture of
professionalism," the appropriate-and appropri-
ated-academic credentials. He would be
no pathetic Orthodox "Reverend,"
eking out a living at the bottom of the
Jewish social scale.
The central characteristic of Philo' s
career was his attempt to merge Reform
Judaism with progressivism in the search
for true Americanism. Melvin
Urofsky has said of Rabbi Stephen S.
Wise (with whom Philo shared many
personal and intellectual characteristics),
"One can only understand his
Americanism through his passionate
Judaism, and his Judaism through his
fervent Americanism."19 For
Wise, "politics was but an extension of reli-
gion."20 For Philo,
progressive politics and liberal religion were one and the
same; one's religious duties and one's
civic duties were equivalent. Through
the years, he maintained his faith that
a synthesis of progressivism and
Reform Judaism was possible. In reality,
he was pulled between these two
attractive forces, and in the long run,
the effort failed.
The major activities of Philo's
rabbinate exemplify this effort. In the late
nineteenth and early twentieth
centuries, American Reform Judaism reached
its classical peak. Inspired by the
Protestant Social Gospel movement, Jews
began to involve themselves in
progressive social and political reform. "For
the Reform rabbinate as a whole,"
observes one scholar, "the transition from
17. Ozer, et al., These are the
Names, 87.
18. The Reform movement in Judaism arose
as a "response to modernity" in the wake of
Jewish emancipation in Western Europe.
Classically, the movement was characterized by ra-
tionalism, a universalized messianism,
an emphasis on ethical monotheism and the Prophets,
and the replacement of traditional Jewish
law with personal autonomy. Reform dispensed with
many traditional ritual practices and
(especially in America) acquired a pronounced Protestant
style. See Michael Meyer, Response to
Modernity, and Leon Jick, The Americanization of the
Synagogue (Hanover, N.H., 1976).
19. Melvin Urofsky, A Voice that
Spoke for Justice; The Life and Times of Stephen S. Wise
(Albany, 1982), viii. There are many
similarities and coincidences in the ideas and careers of
Wise and Philo. It is certainly possible
that Philo modeled himself after Wise.
20. Urofsky, A Voice that Spoke for
Justice, 106.
10 OHIO
HISTORY
a prophetic Judaism that spoke only of
individual conduct to one that ad-
dressed specific social issues is
ascribable to two outside influences:
the
American Progressive movement and the
Christian Social Gospel."21 As an-
other historian describes it, "Led
by a younger generation of rabbis, the
Reform movement then began to march to
the distinctively evangelical ca-
dences of the Progressive movement...."22
In Akron, Ohio, Isador Philo marched
right along with the others. His ear-
liest published remarks are replete with
the language of progressive reform.
Akron was a company town, the rubber
capital of the world, and Philo took a
special interest in labor issues. He
gave pro-union sermons, for instance, in
1904 when he announced,
"Organization on the part of the laboring class is a
moral, intellectual and physical
necessity. It is only by association that the
individual can render his best products
and receive the highest reward for his
work...."23 Unionism's moral quality was
socially transformative.
"Socialism will not solve the
problem," he argued in a 1903 speech at local
Labor Day festivities. "What will?
Laborers must become their own capital-
ist[s]. By combining their savings the
laboring men will be able to employ
themselves."24
Thus, in Philo's rhetoric, the cause of
labor took on religious overtones.
In a speech to an Akron men's club, he
called on the members to fight-as
Christians-injustices perpetrated by the
rubber companies.25 He wrote that
Akron needed a "People's
Church," referring to the People's Church estab-
lished in New York City in 1899, which
its founder called a "creedless church
for creedless people."26 Such
a church would bring workers back to religion,
providing, in Philo's opinion, far more
moral uplift to the workingman than
would liquor regulation.27
In the rhetorical extreme, Philo's
religious and social ideologies fused:
"...organized labor created the
world. God Almighty was the first union la-
borer. He brought harmony out of chaos
and order out of confusion by apply-
ing the principle of organized creation
to the unorganized and inert forces of
nature...."28 Likewise, his role as
rabbi fused with that of labor arbitrator.
21. Meyer, Response to Modernity, 287.
22. Jerold S. Auerbach, Rabbis and
Lawyers: The Journey from Torah to Constitution
(Bloomington, Ind., 1990), 82.
23. "The Unions," sermon given
March 1904, Temple Israel of Akron, quoted in Kendall,
"Philo: A Biography," 7.
24. "'Unionism Must Grow in Power
by the Nature of the Men it Produces,"' clipping from
unknown newspaper [Akron?, early
September 1903] (AJA).
25. "Sunday Talk," manuscript
dated May 4, 1901, quoted in Kendall, "Philo: A Biography,"
8-9.
26. Egal Feldman, Dual Destinies: The
Jewish Encounter with Protestant America (Urbana,
Ill., 1990), 127.
27. "A Few Things Tha[t] Akron
Needs," Akron Beacon-Journal, December 19, 1903
(AJA).
28. Address before the Central Labor
Union of Akron, June 30, 1904, quoted in Kendall,
"Bull Moose" Rabbi
11
As the idea of clergy serving as labor
mediators spread through American in-
dustry, Philo was one of the first
rabbis to assume this role.29 In 1902, he
mediated a strike at an Akron rubber
plant. Although he was not ultimately
successful in reaching an agreement
entirely on the union's terms, the work-
ers still awarded him a certificate of
appreciation.30
Other political views he also infused
and expressed with religious fervor.
In 1901, after a brief trip to Cuba,
Philo told the Akron Beacon-Journal that
"the historical argument for the
existence of a God predicates the finger in the
new condition of affairs.... I recognize
a divinity which has surely shaped the
end for our new possessions. Cuba is
ours, I hope, forever." After all, the
United States was the Moses that
liberated Cuba from the tyranny of Pharaoh
Spain.31 His
progressive passion for municipal reform also echoed the work
of the Social Gospel movement. Asked in
1903 by a Cleveland newspaper
for his views on the upcoming mayoral
race in Akron, Philo declared, "We
have plenty of politics in morals, but
no morals in politics. We have had
many political puppets, but few
political patriarchs. Morals and politics are
deadly enemies.... We need a man for mayor...who understands
that
American citizenship must be at the
highest service of all the people all the
time."32
The "highest service of all the
people all the time" was also the essence of
his universalist religious creed. Early
in his Akron years, Philo publicly ar-
ticulated religious universalism. Almost
as soon as he arrived in the city,33
he participated in pulpit exchanges, a
popular feature of liberal religion in the
1890s.34 " [L]et us
forget our disagreements," he told his Christian and
Jewish hearers, "...let us
accentuate our agreements."35
In 1902, he openly approved of rabbinic
officiation at intermarriages, under
certain circumstances, in language more
usually associated with Christianity:
"It is the spiritual aim of Judaism
to unite all the children of man in peace
and love and to bring them to the Father
of all.... When a Jewish man or
woman has reached that pass where marriage
with a Christian is inevitable...
I would marry them on the broad
principle that it is not the aim of
religion to
"Philo: A Biography," 7.
29. Leonard Mervis, "The Social
Justice Movement of the American Rabbis, 1890-1940"
(Ph.D. diss., University of Pittsburgh,
1951), 122.
30. "He Throws Up His Hands,"
undated clipping from unknown newspaper [Akron? 1902]
(AJA) and "Rabbi Philo's Effort to
Settle a Strike Fails," American Israelite, October 9, 1902,
6. See also Mervis, 123. Kendall
("Philo: A Biography," 7-8) mistakenly says 1905.
31. "Ours For All Time," Akron
Beacon-Journal [sometime after mid-July 1901] (AJA).
32. "Our Mayor Should Be a
Man," Cleveland Press, January 22, 1903 (AJA).
33. "A Sign of the Times," Akron
Beacon-Journal, May 26, 1898 (AJA).
34. Naomi Cohen, Encounter with
Emancipation: The German Jews in the United States,
1830-1914 (Philadelphia, 1984), 202.
35. "Since You Asked," Akron
Beacon-Journal, May 29, 1901 [?], quoted in Kendall,
"Philo: A Biography," 9.
12 OHIO HISTORY
separate those who truly love each
other.... God is love. Religion is love.
The basic principle of marriage is
love." What circumstances would qualify
for rabbinic officiation? Philo was
clear: it would be "a marriage between
Jew and Christian of equal social and
moral position...where no serious reli-
gious discrepancy exists" [emphasis added]. After all, he continued, Judaism
"as a sublime truth is destined to
become the common heritage of all
mankind. Intermarriage can in no way
impede or weaken its purpose."36
Philo exhibited a stubborn, even
defiant, pride as he asserted his understand-
ing of Judaism in the world. In a 1906
sermon on antisemitism, he pro-
claimed to his congregation, "We
can go to the sour cream of society and tell
them that when their ancestors were
groveling like swine in the filth of ani-
malism, the Jews were kings and princes,
the prosecuers [sic-precursors?]
and prophets of the world."37 Remarkably
enough, this sermon was pub-
lished in a local newspaper.
This statement was not, however, an
assertion of particularism, and "the
highest service of all the people all
the time," the essence of his universalist
religious creed, led Philo into his
brief legal career. His motivation for tak-
ing up law, which he articulated in his
resignation from Temple Israel, was
similar to the goal of his rabbinate: to
work for "peace, harmony, brother-
hood and social commitment,"
without sacrificing the needs of his congrega-
tion.38
In fact, there was no striking change in
the tone of his public activism. In
1907 he gave another Labor Day oration.
Expounding on the virtues of
unionism and the eight-hour day, he
averred, "The world's greatest benefactors
have been strikers. Jesus, Roosevelt,
Moses, Isaiah, Galileo, Lincoln and
Washington are a few of the greatest
strikers the world has known."39 In this
remarkable set of examples, Philo
identified himself formally with political
progressivism, and Theodore Roosevelt
with the authentic heritage of both
America and true religion.
Through his brief, but intense, career
in the law, Philo bound together his
Judaism and his Americanism even more
tightly. Jerold Auerbach has shown
how American rabbis and Jewish lawyers
at the turn of the century created a
powerful synthesis of Judaism and
Americanism by merging the two legal
traditions to which they were heirs. The
legal profession promised an espe-
cially powerful link to the new country:
"Law, quite uniquely, could link
Jewish history to American destiny....
Jews could claim fidelity to the spirit
of their own sacred-law tradition
precisely as they replaced it with the rule of
36. "The Intermarriage
Question," American Israelite, September 18, 1902, 3.
37. "Jews Did Not Crucify
Christ," clipping from unknown newspaper, [Akron?], April 2,
1906 (AJA).
38. Kendall, "Philo: A
Biography," 12.
39. "Dr. Philo Delivers Sensational
Speech," [Akron Times ?, September 3, 1907?] (AJA).
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"Bull Moose" Rabbi 13 |
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American law."40 If, as Auerbach argues, lawyers replaced rabbis as the community's arbiters of power, then what could have been a more impressive path of leadership than to be both a rabbi and a lawyer! Philo practiced law in Akron for five years, but he was disappointed with the realities of his new career. Rather than advocating the rights of the worker and fighting oppression of the poor, he found himself preparing wills and handling real estate transfers.41 Attracted by the moral aspects of the law, he was disillusioned that the routine of a lawyer's professional obligations might conflict with his personal morals. In 1910, they did so conflict, with great force, when Philo discovered that the man he had successfully defended against a charge of murder was in fact guilty. In his diary he agonized, "I cannot reconcile this event with my conscience or my God. And who is to say that it will not happen again?"42 Though the practice of law disappointed him, Philo remained optimistic about political progressivism. Northern Ohio was a hotbed of progressivism; progressives in Cleveland and Toledo were nationally-known leaders in mu-
40. Auerbach, Rabbis and Lawyers, xix. 41. Kendall, "Philo: A Biography," 14. 42. Philo's diary for 1910, quoted in Kendall, "Philo: A Biography," 17. |
14 OHIO
HISTORY
nicipal reform. Philo threw himself into
politics in 1912, following his hero
Theodore Roosevelt into the newly-formed
Progressive Party, the so-called
"Bull Moose." The ideals of
the party resonated with Philo's deeply opti-
mistic religio-political faith. In the
words of its national platform, the party
was "[u]nhampered by
tradition" yet also "born of the nation's sense of jus-
tice.... [dedicated] to the fulfillment
of the duty laid upon us by our fathers to
maintain the government of the people,
by the people, and for the peo-
ple...."43
Philo's activism was reinforced by a
personal meeting with Roosevelt in
early 1912, and he attended the national
Bull Moose convention in Chicago in
August of that year (though evidently as
an observer, not an official dele-
gate).44 The Ohio Bull Moose
also held a convention in Columbus the fol-
lowing month. The Chicago convention had
the exuberant and uplifting
spirit of an evangelical revival. At
Columbus, "[t]here was the same spirit of
mission among the rank and file of
delegates. Many of those present had
never attended a state convention before
and thought of themselves as soldiers
on the firing line, battling for the
Progressive party cause. The first session
opened with a blessing pronounced by
Washington Gladden, the reciting of
the Lord's Prayer in unison, and the
singing of 'America.'"45 The participa-
tion of Gladden, the Columbus clergyman
who was a pioneer in the Social
Gospel movement, must have been
particularly inspiring for Philo.46
As one scholar has observed, "For a
new party with an incomplete organi-
zation and a short time for campaigning,
[the Progressives] had made a re-
markable race."47 Despite
some success in the northern part of the state,
however, the Progressive crusade was
ultimately a failure. Under numerous
stresses and (in Ohio) riven by personal
ambitions, by 1916 the Party had
collapsed.48
Disappointed but not discouraged, Philo
devoted himself to the pulpit,
compensating for the failures of law and
politics with a rabbinic career of a
decidedly progressive tone. The 1915
dedication of Temple Rodef Sholom's
new building expressed his progressive
program. The goal of building was to
43. Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr., ed., History
of U.S. Political Parties, Vol. III (New York,
1973), 2584.
44. "Ohio Bull Moose Hard at
Work," Buffalo Progressive, December 5, 1912; Kendall,
"Philo: A Biography," 28.
45. Hoyt Landon Warner, Progressivism
in Ohio, 1897-1917 (Columbus, 1964), 372.
46. It was reported in one newspaper
that Philo ran for office on the Progressive Party ticket
("Ohio Bull Moose Hard at
Work," Buffalo Progressive, December 5, 1912). This is evidently
erroneous since state records do not
list him as a candidate. Rabbi Gerson Levi of Chicago
was a Progressive Party candidate for
county commissioner in 1914, and Rabbi Samuel
Goldenson refused a Progressive
nomination for mayor of Albany, New York (see Mervis,
"Social Justice Movement,"
118-19).
47. Warner, Progressivism in Ohio, 376.
48. Warner, Progressivism in Ohio, 373.
"Bull Moose" Rabbi
15
"make the new Temple an expression
of the modem idea of the relation of the
church to humanity. Until a few years
ago the church was merely a place of
worship...to be used for services; now
and then for a church supper....
Within the last few years the conception
has changed; the new idea is part of
the renewal-the revitalizing one might
call it-of democracy, that has been
going on in this country. The church,
men are saying, must not keep aloof
from the common life of humanity; she
must take more active part in it than
ever.... In this time of great popular
movements, it must aim to influence
man on all his sides, in order to make
its character properly felt."49
Like many other former Bull-Moosers,
Philo turned to the other progres-
sive alternative, Woodrow Wilson, in
1916 and, like most progressives,
avidly supported United States
participation in the first World War. His 1918
prowar speech at Temple Rodef Sholom of
Pittsburgh was notable in several
respects. For one thing, Philo's
exaggerated protestations of Jewish alle-
giance to the United States suggest the
preposterous lengths to which
American Jews could go to prove their
patriotism: "There was never a time
in the history of the Jewish people,
under even the most unfavorable condi-
tions, when they failed to fill the
measure of devotion to the land of their
birth or adoption.... In Russia, dark
Russia, that until yesterday denied them
the common rights of common men, that
persecuted and pogromed, mal-
treated and maimed them,-their hearts,
though sorely rent, were faithful
still."50 One wonders if
many immigrant Jews from Russia would have
agreed.
Equally notable-and characteristic-is Philo's
fusion of the languages of
Jewish religious messianism and of
Wilsonian progressive messianism, what
has been called Wilson's
"Presbyterian foreign policy."51 The hoped-for
Allied victory had a distinctively
Jewish meaning: "the justification
of
Israel's mission, and the vindication of
his religious ministry. It means the
dawn of Israel's Messianic hope, the
ripening of the fruit of his religious
tree...." Yet the Allied victory
would also redeem in a peculiarly Christian
way: it "means a world redeemed
from its sins, chastened and purified...;"52
"[n]ational sin invites national
suicide. The wage of sin is death."53
Like many progressives, Philo was
disillusioned by World War I. Early in
the war, he began to despair, writing in
his diary, "reconciliation between
peoples and nations might have spared
[the soldiers'] lives and limbs....
49. "Dedication of the Magnificent
New Rodef Sholem Temple," Youngstown Vindicator,
June 6, 1915.
50. "The American Jew and the
War," reprint of lecture given April 21, 1918, Rodef
Shalom Congregation, Pittsburgh, Pa.,
1-2 (AJA).
51. Robert M. Crunden, Ministers of
Reform: The Progressives' Achievement in American
Civilization, 1889-1920 (New York, 1982), 225.
52. "The American Jew and the
War," 7.
53. "The American Jew and the
War," 15.
16 OHIO
HISTORY
nothing can be worth all of this
sorrow...."54 In 1918, he could still write
that "the success of America and
her Allies means the realization of the age-
long dream we have cherished-of humanity
emancipated.... It means the
making over of the old world...."55
In the 1920s, he was far less sanguine
about humanity's ability to force this
change. Commenting on the outlawry
of war movement, Philo agreed that the
movement's goal was noble and de-
sirable. But, he continued, before war
can be outlawed, "we must outlaw fear
from the human mind, hate from the
social heart, jealousy from the interna-
tional soul. And that demands a long and
large and deep education, the very
elements of which we are not yet
equipped to teach."56
But Philo still had his optimistic
religious faith to fall back on. As schol-
ars have pointed out, after the Great
War, American Jews remained more lib-
eral than Christians because the
inevitability of sin was not their intellectual
default.57 For all of Philo's
sin-laden, pseudo-Christian rhetoric, the experi-
ence of the war in fact invigorated his
sense of mission by providing oppor-
tunities, such as chaplaincy activities
at local army camps, for humanitarian
work and public exposure.58
After the war, Philo continued to
further his reputation as one of
Youngstown's preeminent liberal
spokesmen. In the 1920s, he wrote a regu-
lar column in the Youngstown
Vindicator under the pseudonym "Straw Bored
Green." He commented on local and
national events and politics in a light-
hearted tone, always emphasizing liberal
religion, enlightened morality, vir-
tuous government, worker rights, racial
equality, tolerance, and world peace.
Not surprisingly, interfaith relations
were high on his agenda. He was a
founder of Youngstown's Inter-Racial
League in 1922.59 He kept a hand in
labor relations, helping negotiate the
Youngstown Steel strike in 193760 and
a construction union contract in 1941.61
The greatest social conflict in
Youngstown during Philo's tenure was
caused by the rise of the Ku Klux Klan
in the early 1920s. The Great Lakes
54. Philo's diary for 1917, quoted in
Kendall, "Philo: A Biography," 29.
55. "The American Jew and the
War," 6-7.
56. Writing as Maftir in "Notes and
Comments," B'nai B'rith Messenger (Los Angeles), late
1925-early 1926 (AJA).
"Maftir" was the pseudonym used by Isidor Choynski, the San
Francisco correspondent of the American
Israelite from 1874 to 1893. Philo's adoption of this
pseudonym suggests his early San
Francisco connection (see above). In synagogue practice,
the maftir is the final section of the
weekly reading from the Torah (Pentateuch). By exten-
sion, it also designates the person who
reads this section -- in effect, the one with the "last
word."
57. Feldman, Dual Destinies, 198-99.
58. Kendall, "Philo: A
Biography," 30.
59. Kendall, "Philo: A
Biography," 34.
60. Obituary by Sidney Berkowitz in CCAR
Yearbook, 251; also, "Rabbi I.E. Philo is Dead at
74," Youngstown Vindicator, July
17, 1948.
61. "Metal Workers Get Pay
Raise," clipping from unknown newspaper, [Youngstown
Vindicator ?, sometime after 1937] (AJA).
"Bull Moose" Rabbi
17
Klan managed to enlist many ministers
with its program for the preservation
of so-called traditional Protestant
values.62 In alliance
with liberal
Protestants and Catholics, Youngstown
Jews, including, of course, Isador
Philo, were actively involved in the
battle to set the terms of social discourse.
Fighting the Klan's rhetoric of 100
percent Americanism, the local B'nai
B'rith charged the Klan itself with
being "un-American."63 Youngstown
Jews believed, in the words of one
liberal (Protestant) writer reprinted in a lo-
cal synagogue bulletin, that
"American liberalism... is and always has been
the true Americanism."64
In the long run, the Klan in industrial
northern Ohio stumbled over the fact
that ethnic diversity was an accepted
part of the social and cultural landscape
of the region. In 1922, the Klan
attempted to co-opt all religious groups
through a proposal that a joint
Protestant, Catholic, and Jewish commission
(consisting of representatives of the
Klan, the Knights of Columbus, and
B'nai B'rith) develop a religious
education curriculum for the Youngstown
public schools.65 This
"unite and conquer" strategy did not convince a suspi-
cious, multiethnic school board.66 A
few years later, "Straw Bored Green"
crowed cheerfully that the Ku Klux Klan
was "dead and buried, awaiting the
Judgment Day."67
But neither the failure of political
progressivism, the disappointments of
the war, nor the domestic intolerance of
the 1920s constituted the greatest
challenge to Philo's optimistic
synthesis of Reform Judaism and progres-
sivism. His religious liberalism had
already undergone considerable stress in
the wake of his suggestion, in his 1923
Rosh Hashanah sermon, that Sunday
be made the primary day for Jewish
communal worskhip.68 The rabbis of
several congregations in nearby cities
had instituted this practice, including
Abba Hillel Silver in Cleveland and J.
Leonard Levy in Pittsburgh, and the
idea was still gaining adherents in the
1920s.69 The response of the local
Orthodox was predictably harsh, but that
was not the reason Philo recanted
his proposal only ten days later in his
Yom Kippur sermon. Philo privately
scorned the Orthodox, though he was
publicly cordial, and their opposition
would, if anything, have hardened his
position.70 (He bragged about being a
62. See William D. Jenkins, Steel
Valley Klan: The Ku Klux Klan in Ohio's Mahoning Valley
(Kent, Ohio, 1990).
63. Youngstown Vindicator, December
6, 1922.
64. William Robinson Pattangall,
"100% Americans?" Anshe Emeth Recorder, 2 (October
1925), 13-14 (Mahoning Valley Historical
Society).
65. Youngstown Vindicator, December
9, 1922.
66. Youngstown Vindicator, December
5, 1922.
67. Writing as Straw Bored Green,
"News and Views," Sunday Vindicator [1929] (AJA).
68. Kendall, "Philo: A
Biography," 36-38.
69. Meyer, Response to Modernity, 290-91,
328.
70. Source for Philo's privately
expressed opinion is his daughter (Kendall's mother), Ann
Philo Kendall. For his public
cordiality, see Ozer, et. al., These are the Names, 74.
18 OHIO HISTORY
rebellious and independent yeshiva
bochur.71) Rather, Philo recanted because
of the positive reaction from many
Christians. Their suggestions that he had
begun to see the light that would
inevitably lead him to Christianity caused
an instinctive, and rapid, withdrawal.
The greatest challenge to his psychic
unity was Zionism. Not surpris-
ingly, early in his career he considered
Zionism a chimera. Both physically
and culturally, America was to be the
salvation of the Jews.72 But as the ap-
peal of Zionism to American Jews grew
under the influence of Louis
Brandeis, the Wilsonian progressive,
Philo was caught up in the rising tide.
In 1916, he wrote a glowing letter to
Brandeis, reporting, "somewhat over-en-
thusiastically," that 90 percent of
Youngstown Jews were confirmed
Zionists.73
What sort of Zionist Philo considered
himself to be is open to debate.
Whether or not he was persuaded by
Brandeis's synthesis of Zionism and
Americanism, he was clearly not
persuaded by his emphasis on the practical
upbuilding of the land. In the 1920s,
Philo described himself in a B'nai
B'rith publication as a non-Zionist, not
an anti-Zionist: "On the whole phi-
losophy of Zionism, I have an open mind.
Only the educational, the spiri-
tual, the cultural sides of the
experiment appeal to me as having value."
Neither the economic development of
Palestine nor its potential role as a
refuge met his criteria for spiritual
goals.74 In a 1929 article, he advocated
the internationalization of the entire
Holy Land. While he based his position
partly on mistrust of the British, he
also thought that a Palestine which was
"a ward of the world" would
more likely achieve a condition appropriate to its
spiritual past as "the land of the
Prophets and Apostles."75
In 1931, Philo went to Vienna as
Youngstown's representative to an inter-
national Rotary convention. On the trip, he also visited Germany and
Palestine. His travel diary reveals
ambivalence about both places. Passing
through Germany, he wrote that he felt
"a cold, uneasy feeling, like hearing a
strange noise in the basement, but not
wanting to go down to look for fear of
what one might find."76 Yet
he changed his travel plans so he could spend
more time there.
71. Writing as Maftir in "Notes and
Comments," B'nai B'rith Messenger (Los Angeles),
[1920's?] (AJA)
72. Kendall, "Philo: A
Biography," 49.
73. Letters of Louis D.
Brandeis. Vol. IV, 1916-1921, ed. Melvin I. Urofsky and David W.
Levy (Albany, N.Y., 1975), 13-14.
74. Writing as Maftir in "Notes and
Comments," B'nai B'rith Messenger (Los Angeles),
[1920's?] (AJA).
75. Writing as Straw Bored Green,
"News and Views," Youngstown Vindicator, September
1, 1929 (AJA).
76. Philo's diary for June-August 1931,
quoted in Kendall, "Philo: A Biography," 47.
"Bull Moose" Rabbi
19
Somewhat to his surprise, he had a
positive personal religious reaction to
Palestine.77 However, he
wrote in his diary, "Someday Palestine will be a
homeland for the Jewish people, but I
have my reservations. If there is ever a
State of Palestine, I doubt seriously
whether there will be peace in the
world."78 Whatever his
reservations, Philo became openly pro-Zionist in the
years following his trip to Palestine,
the years of the rise of Nazism. He
gave sermons and helped organize
"town hall meetings" to promote
Zionism.79 He took a
prominent role in the Youngstown Zionist District.80
His reservations were, if overcome by
activism at one level, sufficiently
obvious to cause problems at another.
People in the Youngstown Jewish
community felt that they received very
mixed messages from him about
Zionism. One local activist said, in
retrospect, that Philo was "of doubtful
value" to the cause, though the
Zionists cultivated him because of his stand-
ing in the community. They had to
maintain a precarious balance. During
World War II, the now-retired Rabbi
Philo was serving a small Reform con-
gregation in Johnstown, Pennsylvania, on
a part-time visiting basis.
Youngstown Zionist activists were so
alarmed by what they perceived to be
Philo's anti-Zionist messages there that
they arranged for Rabbi James Heller
of the Zionist Organization of America
(ZOA) to speak in Youngstown, to
counteract Philo's presumably negative
impact in their own community.
Scoffed a Youngstown Zionist,
"...Philo was very elusive about Zionism.
He was clever with words and had a knack
for avoiding the issues."81 Even in
1994, the writers of a local communal
history (none of whom seem to be
Reform) alleged that throughout the
1930s and 1940s, Philo "continued to
confuse the community with his
inconsistent stand on the Zionist
Movement."82
Others have been more sympathetic,
laying the blame on divisions over
Zionism within Temple Rodef Sholom. One
Youngstown Zionist suggested
that Philo, in deference to, if not in
agreement with, his congregation, was an
anti-Zionist early in his career:
"Toward the middle, he seemed to vacillate,
being quite inconsistent in his public
statements, according to current circum-
stances." This observer felt that
by the end of Philo's full-time career in
1942, as his congregation's mood
changed, Philo had become pro-Zionist.83
77. Kendall, "Philo: A
Biography," 49.
78. Philo's diary for 1931, quoted in
Jonathan Kendall, "An Intellectual Digest of Rev. Dr.
Isador E. Philo, 1873-1946 [sic]"
(paper for History Special Readings course with Dr. Stanley
Chyet, Hebrew Union College, 1972), 8.
79. Kendall, "Philo: A
Biography," 83; Ozer, et al., These are the Names, 68.
80. Ozer, et al., These are the
Names, 68.
81. Biography of Isador Philo,
Youngstown Area Jewish Federation Archives.
82. Ozer, et al., These are the
Names, 163.
83. Ozer, et al., These are the Names,
92.
20 OHIO
HISTORY
Setting these various partisan
statements into the highly charged emotional
context of wartime Zionism sheds light
both on the nature of these confu-
sions and conflicts and on the
increasing tenuousness of Philo's progressivist
religious synthesis. Youngstown's
Zionist activists were largely from the
Orthodox, East European community, a
group not disposed to think well of
Reform rabbis. As evidence of Philo's
duplicitousness, the writers of the
communal history offer the following
quotation from a 1938 speech:
"Millions of Jews love Palestine,
because it is a land they can call their own.
They have transformed swamps into orange
groves.... We are asking our-
selves now if Palestine is destined to
suffer the same fate as Czechoslovakia.
Are treaties to be ruthlessly cast
away? England has juggled with the
[Balfour] declaration in many ways. I cannot understand the attitude of
England, with a great history behind
her. A Jewish homeland does not mean
that the rights of Arabs will be
destroyed, but that the Jews want a country in
which they will have a majority."84
It is hard not to think that on this
occasion, at least, the Zionists "heard"
anti-Zionism because that is what they
expected to hear from this relic of
Classical Reform. As the situation of
European Jewry worsened, American
Zionists became increasingly
"aggressive and nationalistic," especially after
the Biltmore conference of 1942.85
Anything less than national sovereignty
seemed dangerously naive, and Philo
seemed to the Zionists to be-at the
very least-indulging in this naivete.
Undoubtedly Philo was under stress from
the antagonisms he saw in the
Jewish community. He was acquainted or
friendly with Reform rabbis on
both ends of the Zionist spectrum. On
the one hand, he had cordial social
contact with the liberal Zionist Rabbi
Stephen S. Wise and respected him
greatly.86 On the other hand,
one of the speakers at Temple Rodef Sholom's
75th anniversary in 1937 was Rabbi
Samuel Goldenson, a former political
progressive and "close friend of
Dr. Philo," later a prominent anti-Zionist ac-
tivist.87
Likewise, Philo's congregation was
seriously divided. Henry Moyer, one-
time president of the congregation,
emerged in the late 1940s as a significant
lay leader of the anti-Zionist American
Council for Judaism.88 In 1945, the
Rodef Sholom board, facing objections to
Moyer's views, but too mixed to
84. Ozer, et al., These are the
Names, 265.
85. Melvin I. Urofsky, American
Zionism from Herzl to the Holocaust (New York, 1975),
421.
86. Ozer, et al., These are the
Names, 89.
87. Ozer, et al., These are the
Names, 91.
88. Thomas A. Kolsky, Jews Against
Zionism: The American Council for Judaism, 1942-1948
(Philadelphia, 1990), 82. The Council
was founded by a minority of Reform rabbis critical of
their rabbinical association's support
of political Zionism, a position which they considered in-
compatible with true
"prophetic" Judaism and with American citizenship."
"Bull Moose" Rabbi
21
have a unified position, felt compelled
to pass a resolution that a member's
personal position on Zionism would
"in no wise impair his or her standing or
function with the Congregation."89
As his progressive optimism was
increasingly mocked by events, Philo
tried harder and harder to maintain his
synthesis of social progressivism and
universalist Reform Judaism. His
statements about Zionism echoed his con-
fusion. Disliking the anti-religious
stance of many Zionists, Philo tried to
distinguish between a '"pure
Zionism,'" which was nationalistic, and "true
Zionism," which was spiritual. He
tried to synthesize a non-nationalist
Zionism from his universalism and his
progressivism, not in practical
Brandeisian terms, but as somehow a
humanistic idea divorced from mere ge-
ographic considerations.90
So he clung to an impossible dream,
using terminology that could only
confuse his hearers: "Zionism
without Judaism is like theology without reli-
gion...patriotism as a national religion
is desirable when patriotism is more
than the creed of narrow politicians....
Nationalism as the religion of, by and
for the people has much to commend it
when it is more than geographical....
Humanism, the civilization of tomorrow,
will be a blend of Zionistic ideal-
ism, patriotic zeal and national
internationalism."91
It is therefore only slightly startling
to discover Philo's association with
the American Council for Judaism. He was
not among the rabbis who signed
the Council's anti-Zionist manifesto
published in the New York Times on
August 31, 1943.92 However, the previous
month he had sent membership
dues to the Council. The acknowledgement
letter from Rabbi Elmer Berger is
addressed to "Mr." Isador
Philo, with no street address.93 Was this because
someone else-perhaps Moyer-had convinced
Philo to join and had for-
warded his dues check? Or was it a
deliberate concealment of his rabbinical
status? Was he ambivalent about public
association with such a controversial
minority opinion?
For Philo, Zionism posed a dilemma with
no resolution. He was torn. He
believed in the Council's commitments to
a universal Jewish mission and to
89. Board meeting minutes for May 13,
1945, courtesy of Congregation Rodef Sholom,
Youngstown, Ohio.
90. Kendall, "Philo: A
Biography," 55.
91. Quoted in Kendall,
"Intellectual Digest," 9.
92. Kolsky, Jews Against Zionism, 207.
There was a strong correlation between political and
social liberalism and anti-Zionism in
the careers of other Reform rabbis. In "The Social Justice
Movement of the American Reform
Rabbis," Leonard Mervis studied forty rabbis, chosen as
exemplars of social justice activism,
with no mention of their positions on Zionism. Of the
twenty-seven identified by Mervis who
were alive in 1943, over one-third were Council mem-
bers, even though the Council
represented a much smaller minority of the Reform rabbinate
overall.
93. Letter from Rabbi Elmer Berger to
Isador E. Philo, July 13, 1943, American Council for
Judaism Papers, State Historical Society
of Wisconsin, Madison, Wisconsin.
22 OHIO HISTORY
liberal democracy. When prominent Reform anti-Zionists, like Julian
Morgenstern, realized that historical
circumstances forced a practical re-evalua-
tion of liberal expansiveness at the
practical expense of Jewish lives, they
cast their lots with Zionism. Philo
failed the test of progressive adaptability.
Through the early 1940s, Philo sank into
a depression. He told his wife
"that what he had accomplished
seemed all for naught, that he...wondered se-
riously if he had accomplished anything
at all."94 He was active in wartime
fundraising and the volunteer
chaplaincy,95 and he was at the peak of his es-
teem in the general Youngstown
community.96 But his religio-political syn-
thesis of progressivism and Judaism had
irretrievably collapsed, and it is
likely that his depression was a belated
recognition of that fact. His discour-
agement was even noted by the Vindicator
in a memorial editorial after
Philo's death in 1948. Despite his
disappointments, the editorial continued,
he was not dismayed, and kept "to
the end the conviction that the good in
human nature outweighs the bad."97
This conviction was by then in serious
disrepute among former progres-
sives. Writing in 1939, the Protestant
theologian Reinhold Niebuhr described
how world events of the previous decade
had provoked him to rethink com-
pletely his liberal theological and
social outlook. He realized, he wrote, that
faith in the goodness of human nature
and "the simple reinterpretation of the
Kingdom of God into the law of
progress" falsified the complexity of the
world. Liberal moralism, Niebuhr
charged, "does not know how to check evil
and historical injustice in politics,
because it would like to operate against in-
justice in terms of perfect moral
purity."98
Niebuhr's struggle would not have been
unfamiliar to the Reform rabbis.
During the 1930s, they were, as a group,
strongly pacifistic; this did not
change until a second World War was
imminent. In 1940, a prominent rabbi
commented, "As a former pacifist, I
have changed my point of view with a
great many others."99
In the 1930s, Philo indulged in exactly
the sort of moralizing attitude to
world affairs that Niebuhr criticized.
"The slogan 'Deutschland Ueber Alles,'
should make way for 'Freundschaft Ueber
Alles,'" he wrote in the Vindicator
in the early 1930s. "There is no
other basis on which to build an enduring
peace." On another occasion,
approving the cancellation of Germany's war
debts, he announced, "To make the
world our moral and spiritual rather than
our material debtor would hasten the day
of peace. The cost is small for so
94. Kendall, "Philo: A Biography,"
61.
95. Kendall, "Philo: A
Biography," 64.
96. "Dr. I.E. Philo Given Citation
for 'Distinguished Living,'" Youngstown Vindicator,
November 26, 1942.
97. Editorial, Youngstown Vindicator,
July 19, 1948.
98. "Ten Years That Shook My
World," Christian Century, 56 (April 26, 1939), 542-6.
99. Meyer, Response to Modernity, 313.
"Bull Moose" Rabbi
23
great a blessing."100 Even
in the late 1930s, in "A Rabbi's Easter Message,"
Philo prescribed moral and spiritual
uplift as the best response to Hitler:
"The only way to rid our world of
these malevolent influences is by more re-
ligion.... Because man is made in the
spiritual image and moral likeness of
God, he is dowered with power to think
God's thought after him, to be God-
like. Together, we of the church and
synagogue must build a human society
which will forever banish from the earth
atheism, paganism, injustice,
hate...."101
True to his Americanism, Philo
wholeheartedly supported the war effort
once the United States entered the
conflict. His Independence Day address in
1942 urged that "[t]he American way
of life must be made the way of life for
all people everywhere."102 But
he was no Niebuhr, grimly facing the appar-
ent fact of human depravity. The
rhetoric of Philo's World War II patriotism
sounded eerily like his rhetoric in
1918, when he declared, "America is in this
war because America is on the side of
God."103 That he had not really
changed is evident in his sympathy for
the American Council for Judaism.
The Council's ideologues feared, above
all, that Jewish nationalism would
eviscerate Judaism's universal spiritual
mission. These inveterate optimists
could not consider the prospect of
compromise with worldly realities for the
sake of Jewish survival. Even in the
short term of human history, they
would not surrender their messianic
faith that "perfect moral purity" could-
and would-save the Jewish people.
Indeed Philo was an unrepentant
progressive. If religion was love and hu-
man community the highest goal, religion
and community were failing. The
world in which Isador Philo had thrived,
and within which he searched for his
greatest satisfaction, was-beyond
question-gone. But he clung to it stub-
bornly. He still looked at the world
through a progressive's lens. During the
unprecedented challenges of the Great
Depression, he fought the old economic
battles in the old terminology:
"There is no more vicious paternalism in
America today than the Czarism of
private industrial power."104
In the
1930s, he described Judaism as itself
the paragon of progressivism: "Judaism
embodied the principle of evolution in
its prayer book many centuries ago and
the Talmud calls upon man to be a
co-worker with God in the task of bring-
ing to perfection the world He has made.
Human happiness and progress are
by-products of creative labor."105
In 1947, the year before his death, he gave
100. Writing as Straw Bored Green,
"News and Views," Youngstown Vindicator, [1930s]
(AJA).
101. "A Rabbi's Easter
Message," [Youngstown Vindicator?, late 1930's] (AJA).
102. "July Fourth, 1942," [Youngstown
Vindicator?, 1942] (AJA).
103. "The American Jew and the
War," 19.
104. Writing as Straw Bored Green,
"News and Views," Youngstown Vindicator, [1930s]
(AJA).
105. Quoted in Kendall,
"Intellectual Digest," 10.
24 OHIO HISTORY
a sermon on tolerance on the occasion of
his 50th anniversary in the rab-
binate. "Different ideals of life
[are] dependent to a large extent on environ-
ment," he told his audience,
"[and i]t is diversity of ideas that makes the world
progressive...." 106
From the end of World War I on, when he
was already forty-six years old,
Philo's rabbinic career was driven by
the need to find ways to express his
progressivism, to seek out a facsimile
of what Robert Crunden calls the
"climate of creativity" that
had been swept away by other cultural currents.
Philo was, in Crunden's words, a
"minister of Reform." Like
many
Protestant progressives, Philo replaced
revelation with democracy as the in-
strument for searching out truth. Also like many Protestant progressives,
Philo channelled his religious impulses
into secular avenues.107 Was it pos-
sible to be a progressive and a loyal
Jew? To be such, Philo's Judaism took
on the perfectionistic and
moralistic tones of Protestant
evangelicalism.
This he accomplished through a double
process of universalistic identifica-
tions.
When Judaism equals
Christianity, and Christianity equals
Americanism, then the transitive
is-Judaism equals Americanism!
Philo accomplished his ideological
purpose in a single paragraph of his
1918 sermon, "The American Jew and
the War." Like many progressives of
all backgrounds, and in a grand American
tradition, he identified America as
the metaphysical Jewish people. If the
Jews are Israel among the nations,
then, in Philo's words, "America is
the Israel of the nations." The American
spirit, he continued, "the spirit
in which this war was undertaken by America,
[is] the spirit which...speaks the ideal
embodied in the Statue of Liberty and
which is conveyed by the words of
Matthew: 'All ye that labor and are
heavy-laden, come unto me and I will
give you rest.'"108
In Philo's rhetoric, the
all-encompassing Statue of Liberty becomes the
Christ figure, the chosen nation, and
the culmination of humanity's in-
evitable progress. Just as Philo
believed that through Zionism, Judaism
could rescue nationalism, he was convinced that through Judaism and progres-
sivism, America could rescue the world.
His Reform Jewish universalist
faith nourished the messianic fervor of
his progressivism long after the secu-
lar manifestations of that messianism
were discredited.
Philo had a genuine passion for God,
truth, peace, brotherhood, and human
betterment. Just as genuine were his
conflicts, which came from trying to
reconcile an essentially Protestant
progressivism with his deeply-held, if lib-
erally interpreted, Judaism. Creating
himself as an American rabbi and
lawyer, largely with native gifts of
personality and an autodidact's determina-
106. "Tolerance," sermon given
at Temple Rodef Sholom of Youngstown, June 1947, quoted
in Kendall, "Philo: A
Biography," 66.
107. See Crunden, Ministers of
Reform.
108. "The American Jew and the
War," 18.
"Bull Moose" Rabbi 25
tion to prove himself, Isador Philo gave
Youngstown Jews someone to be
proud of for many decades. His
congregants could bask in the aura of his
public success and his acceptance by
Christian leaders. Though Philo's pow-
erful public presence kept his memory
alive for many decades, his message
seemed dated. Philo had constructed an
American Jewish persona which was
destabilized first by the failure of
perfect justice and of progressive politics,
and later by the practical failures of
prophetic, universalist humanism and re-
ligious liberalism. The dilemmas of
being an American Jew had not been
solved.
AMY HILL SHEVITZ
"Bull Moose" Rabbi: Judaism and
Progressivism in the Life of a
Reform Rabbi
"When he spoke," Mrs. R. told
me, "it was just like the voice of God."
This is how one of his congregants
described Rabbi Isador Philo almost
fifty years after his death. His
successor in the pulpit of Reform temple
Rodef Sholom in Youngstown, Ohio,
eulogized Philo in 1948 with similar
words: "He was blessed with a rich,
resonant voice and a keen analytical
mind...his entire dignified physical appearance
and spiritual bearing were
those of one who walks with God."
Philo himself would have been most
pleased with another turn of phrase from
his successor, who praised the late
rabbi's "prophet-like restlessness
as a soldier of the Almighty."l
What was it that made this man so
impressive that though he had only a
regional career, he is remembered by
many in his local community as such a
source of Jewish pride? Certainly
dramatic flair was part of his appeal-and
his slight British accent could not have
hurt.2 But when we peel away the
layers surrounding the local myth of
Isador Philo, we encounter the fascinat-
ing story of an immigrant boy who
literally created his persona out of an am-
bition to become the perfect American
Jew. Isador Philo's life and career
provide an excellent case study of the
complex interplay of personality, op-
portunity, social mores, and Jewish
values which comprise the process of
"Americanization." Especially
compelling is the fact that Philo, adapting
himself in a way specific to his era and
its values, shaped for himself an intel-
lectual synthesis which illumines a
critical aspect of the intersection of
Judaism and Americanism in the early
twentieth century.
Little can be verified about Philo's
family, childhood, and education. He
was born on July 24, 1873, in Cardiff,
Wales. His family had immigrated to
Great Britain from Breslau, Germany, not
much before Isador's birth, in the
Amy Hill Shevitz is Instructor in
American Jewish History at California State University,
Northridge, and the University of
Judaism (Los Angeles). A doctoral candidate in American
history at the University of Oklahoma,
she is writing her dissertation on the small Jewish com-
munities of the Ohio River Valley.
1. Obituary of Isador Philo by Sidney
Berkowitz, Central Conference of American Rabbis
[CCAR] Yearbook, 59 (1949), 251.
2. Irving Ozer, et al., These are the
Names: The History of the Jews of Greater Youngstown,
Ohio, 1865 to 1990 (Youngstown, 1994), 91.
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