Background
Abba Hillel Silver was born in Sirvintus, Lithuania, the son of Moses Silver and Dina Seamon. His father, a rabbi and Hebrew teacher, brought the family to New York City in 1902.
(A prominent American religious leader and renowned Hebrew...)
A prominent American religious leader and renowned Hebrew scholar traces seventeen centuries of Messianic dreams and pretenders among Jewish People. A new preface to the Beacon edition brings up to date his views since the original publication of the book, and includes his comments on the creation of the state of Israel, seen by many as the fulfillment of the Messianic dream.
https://www.amazon.com/Messianic-Speculation-Israel-seventeenth-centuries/dp/B0019HIUKK?SubscriptionId=AKIAJRRWTH346WSPOAFQ&tag=prabook-20&linkCode=sp1&camp=2025&creative=165953&creativeASIN=B0019HIUKK
(MACMILLAN (1961)Hardcover w dust jacket-price clipped,-ed...)
MACMILLAN (1961)Hardcover w dust jacket-price clipped,-edge tears-spine sunned; orange boards w black lettering on spine;188 pages clean tan. (b3)
https://www.amazon.com/Moses-original-Torah-Hillel-Silver/dp/B0006AXAPG?SubscriptionId=AKIAJRRWTH346WSPOAFQ&tag=prabook-20&linkCode=sp1&camp=2025&creative=165953&creativeASIN=B0006AXAPG
(Additional Contributor Is Sulamith Schwartz.)
Additional Contributor Is Sulamith Schwartz.
https://www.amazon.com/Vision-Victory-Collection-Addresses-1942-1948/dp/1258420546?SubscriptionId=AKIAJRRWTH346WSPOAFQ&tag=prabook-20&linkCode=sp1&camp=2025&creative=165953&creativeASIN=1258420546
(This scarce antiquarian book is a facsimile reprint of th...)
This scarce antiquarian book is a facsimile reprint of the original. Due to its age, it may contain imperfections such as marks, notations, marginalia and flawed pages. Because we believe this work is culturally important, we have made it available as part of our commitment for protecting, preserving, and promoting the world's literature in affordable, high quality, modern editions that are true to the original work.
https://www.amazon.com/History-Messianic-Speculation-Israel/dp/1162584270?SubscriptionId=AKIAJRRWTH346WSPOAFQ&tag=prabook-20&linkCode=sp1&camp=2025&creative=165953&creativeASIN=1162584270
Abba Hillel Silver was born in Sirvintus, Lithuania, the son of Moses Silver and Dina Seamon. His father, a rabbi and Hebrew teacher, brought the family to New York City in 1902.
After attending public school, Silver studied simultaneously at the University of Cincinnati and the Hebrew Union College, where he was ordained in 1915, the fifth generation of his family to serve in the rabbinate.
He occupied his first pulpit, Congregation L'Shem Shamayim, in Wheeling, West Virginia, for two years before being called to Tifereth Israel in Cleveland, Ohio, one of the largest Reform congregations in the country. Silver led "The Temple, " as it was called, from 1917 until his death.
As a rabbi, Silver was known as a scholar, a brilliant orator, and a compassionate, if somewhat authoritarian, pastor. He wrote several books on Jewish subjects, including A History of Messianic Speculation in Israel (1927), The Democratic Impulse in Jewish History (1928), Religion in a Changing World (1930), The World Crisis and Jewish Survival (1941), Where Judaism Differed (1956), and Moses and the Original Torah (1961).
A collection of his Zionist speeches, Vision and Victory, appeared in 1949. Silver made a striking appearance in the pulpit, always dressed in striped cutaway trousers, starched collar, and black tie. His resonant baritone mesmerized audiences, but not with style alone.
He carefully constructed his sermons, often alluding to traditional Jewish sources in history and theology.
In his forty-six years at The Temple, Silver gained a reputation as a hard taskmaster, one who dominated officers and laymen and always got his own way. That he had a strong personality is certainly true; and once convinced that he was right, he fought hard to impose his own views.
He also took great pains with details; he often knew more about the subject than anyone else, and he abhorred shoddiness. If The Temple was frequently described as a smoothly running machine with Silver at the controls, few of his congregants objected. Moreover, he was an extremely devoted and concerned pastor who went out of his way to help his people.
No matter how busy he was, he always returned to Cleveland every weekend to teach his confirmation class. Starting in the 1930's, Silver spent more and more time out of the city involved in Zionist affairs. He had first become interested in Jewish nationalism as a boy, founding and leading the Herzl Zion Club on New York's Lower East Side. His natural abilities made him part of the faction aligned with Justice Louis D. Brandeis, which directed American Zionist affairs during World War I, and he walked out with the Brandeis group in the great schism of 1921.
Silver and the Americans wanted a Zionist program emphasizing practical work in Palestine, but were defeated by Chaim Weizmann and other European leaders of a politico-religious Zionism.
In the 1930's, he gradually began to assume more and important roles in American Zionist and Jewish fund-raising activities. In 1943 Silver was elected cochairman of the American Zionist Emergency Council with Rabbi Stephen S. Wise.
The two men differed significantly over policy. Wise believed that Zionists should trust President Franklin D. Roosevelt and work with his administration, that in the midst of war Jews could not push for special measures. Silver, a Republican, did not share Wise's faith in Roosevelt and often quoted from the Bible: "Put not your trust in princes. " He wanted Zionists to pursue a more aggressive policy, calling upon the United States and Great Britain to implement the Balfour Declaration's promise of a Jewish homeland in Palestine.
The fight between the Silver and Wise factions nearly split American Zionism, and Silver resigned from the Emergency Council in December 1944. But growing knowledge of the extent of the Holocaust and of the Roosevelt administration's failure to help persecuted Jews created a groundswell that brought Silver back to power less than a year later. Beginning in 1945, Silver led a militant American Zionism pressing the Truman administration for action on alleviating the plight of displaced persons and creating a Jewish state. Together with David Ben-Gurion, the leader of Palestinian Jewry, Silver forced the moderate, pro-British Chaim Weizmann out of the presidency of the World Zionist Organization.
From 1945 to 1948 American Zionism, under Silver's leadership, orchestrated a complex and effective public relations campaign to convince the American government and people to support Zionist demands for a Jewish state. At the United Nations sessions in the fall of 1947, Silver spoke forcefully as part of the Zionist delegation in presenting the Jewish case to the world body. Shortly after the establishment of Israel in May 1948, anti-Silver groups forced him out of the Zionist leadership.
He had made many enemies by his blunt and often harsh criticisms of colleagues, who were just as tough and unforgiving as he. Moreover, Israeli leaders feared that Silver at the head of a powerful American Zionism would attempt to interfere with policies of the new state. In the last decade of his life, Silver devoted himself to his congregation, his scholarly studies, and his involvement in numerous civic as well as Jewish activities.
He died in Cleveland.
(A prominent American religious leader and renowned Hebrew...)
(MACMILLAN (1961)Hardcover w dust jacket-price clipped,-ed...)
(This scarce antiquarian book is a facsimile reprint of th...)
(Additional Contributor Is Sulamith Schwartz.)
book
He did not believe that religion should be easy, and he expected his congregants to be as devoted in their services as he was in his.
Yet he also believed that religion should be joyful, and he conducted services with kavvanah, a state of intense concentration, devotion, and elevation of spirit.
On January 2, 1923, he married Virginia Horkheimer, the daughter of a Wheeling merchant; they had two sons.