An orthodox conspiracy theory: The Travis family, Bernard Revel, and the Jewish theological seminary

Modern Judaism

Volumn 19, Issue 3, 1999, Pages 241-253

  Gurock, Jeffrey S ^a  

^a YESHIVA UNIVERSITY   (United States)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 84864463592     PISSN: 02761114     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1093/mj/19.3.241     Document Type: Article

References (15)

1. Aaron Rothkoff, Bernard Revel, Builder of American Jewish Orthodoxy (Philadelphia, 1972), pp. 40, 41, 59, 70.
2. See also Gilbert Klaperman, The Story of Yeshiva University: The First Jewish University in America (London, 1969), p. 142.
3. For a consideration of the strike years and the role JTS played as a factor in these disputes, see Jeffrey S. Gurock, The Men and Women of Yeshiva: Orthodoxy, Higher Education and American Judaism (New York, 1988), pp. 21-42.
4. Gurock, Men and Women of Yeshiva, pp. 48-52.
5. See also, on the curriculum of the modern Orthodox seminary, Jacob J. Schacter, "Torah U-Madda Revisited: The Editor's Introduction," The Torah U-Madda Journal, Vol. 1 (1989), pp. 1-23.
6. "To the Chairman and the Board of Directors of the Jewish Theological Seminary of America, 1917," April 29, 1917, Library of the Jewish Theological Seminary; Travis to Adler, November 23, 1916, LMP. See also Morris Teller's memoir in B'nai Emunah: Tulsa, Oklahoma 1916-1966 (Tulsa, 1966), p. 28.
7. "To the Chairman and Board of Directors, November 17, 1918," pp. 2-3, Library of the Jewish Theological Seminary.
8. Jeffrey S. Gurock and Jacob J. Schacter, A Modem Heretic and a Traditional Community: Mordecai M. Kaplan, Orthodoxy, and American fudaism (New York, 1997), p. 67.
9. Bernard Revel to Solomon Schechter, September 19, 1907; October 27, 1907; Schechter to Whom It May Concern, January 27, 1908, Library of the Jewish Theological Seminary. 18. Ira Robinson, "Cyrus Adler, Bernard Revel, and the Prehistory of Organized Jewish Scholarship in the United States," American Jewish History (June, 1980), pp. 497-506.
10. On the religious requirements for membership in the proposed Society, see Robinson, "Cyrus Adler, Bernard Revel," pp. 500-501. For a discussion of why Kaplan was invited to join, which suggests that it had much to do with his heretical views not being known or appreciated by Revel and his associates, see Gurock and Schacter, pp. 69-70.
11. Rothkoff, Bernard Revel pp. 57-60.
12. On Revel's return and the founding of Yeshiva College, see Rothkoff, Bernard Revel pp. 71-93
13. Jeffrey S. Gurock, "Another Look at the Proposed Merger. Lay Perspectives on Yeshiva-Jewish Theological Seminary Relations in the 1920s," in Hazon Nahum: Studies in Jewish Law, Thought, and History Presented to Dr. Norman Lamm on the Occasion of His Seventieth Birthday, ed. Yaakov Elman and Jeffrey Gurock (New York, 1997), pp. 729-42.
14. For evidence of the young Revel's preference for an American seminary over a Torah center, see Bernard Revel to David Rackman, March 6, 1908, as quoted in Klaperman, Story of Yeshiva, p. 140.
15. See also the original Hebrew source in David Rackman, Kiryat Charta David, ed. Judah Rubinstein (New York, 1967), pp. 244-46.