Who Rules the Synagogue? Religious Authority and the Formation of American Judaism

Who Rules the Synagogue? explores how American Jewry in the nineteenth century transformed from a lay dominated community to one whose leading religious authorities were rabbis. Previously, scholars have chartered the religious history of American Judaism during this era, but Zev Eleff reinterprets this history through the lens of religious authority. Early in the century, American Jews consciously excluded rabbinic forces from playing a role in their community's development. By the final decades of the 1800s, ordained rabbis were in full control of America's leading synagogues and large sectors of American Jewish life, most notably in the commotion caused by the Pittsburgh rabbinic conference of 1885. Eleff weaves together the significant episodes and debates that shaped American Judaism during this formative period, and places this story into the larger context of American religious history and modern Jewish history.

Zev Eleff is Chief Academic Officer of Hebrew Theological College in Skokie, IL. He earned his PhD in the field of American Jewish history at Brandeis University. Eleff is the author or editor of six books and more than thirty scholarly articles, and his most recent publication is Modern Orthodox Judaism: A Documentary History.