1. Mordecai Menahem Kaplan was an American Modern Orthodox rabbi, writer, Jewish educator, professor, theologian, philosopher, activist, and religious leader who founded the Reconstructionist movement of Judaism along with his son-in-law Ira Eisenstein.
Mordecai Kaplan has been described as a "towering figure" in the recent history of Judaism for his influential work in adapting it to modern society, contending that Judaism should be a unifying and creative force by stressing the cultural and historical character of the religion as well as theological doctrine.
Mordecai Menahem Kaplan was born Mottel Kaplan in Sventiany in the Russian Empire on June 11,1881, the son of Haya and Rabbi Israel Kaplan.
Mordecai Kaplan's father, ordained by the leading Lithuanian Jewish luminaries, went to serve as a dayan in the court of Chief Rabbi Jacob Joseph in New York City in 1888.
In 1893, Mordecai Kaplan began studying for ordination at the Jewish Theological Seminary, which, at that time, was a Modern Orthodox institution founded to strengthen Orthodoxy and combat the hegemony of the Reform movement.
Mordecai Kaplan's lecturers included the philosopher of ethical culture Felix Adler and the sociologist Franklin Giddings.
In 1909, Mordecai Kaplan became principal of the newly formed teacher's institute at JTS, a position he would keep until he retired in 1963.
Mordecai Kaplan was not primarily interested in academic scholarship; but rather in teaching future rabbis and educators to reinterpret Judaism and make Jewish identity meaningful under modern circumstances.
Early in his career, Mordecai Kaplan became a devotee of the scientific and historical study of the Bible.
Mordecai Kaplan was the leading educator to confront rabbis, teachers, and laity with the changes in Jewish thought that had become necessary once the Bible had been exposed to modern techniques of examination and interpretation.
Mordecai Kaplan was a leader in creating the Jewish community center concept.
Mordecai Kaplan held the first public celebration of a bat mitzvah in the United States, for his daughter Judith Kaplan, on March 18,1922, at the Society for the Advancement of Judaism, his synagogue in New York City.
From 1934 until 1970 Mordecai Kaplan wrote a series of books in which he expressed his Reconstructionist ideology, which was an attempt to adapt Judaism to modern-day realities that Mordecai Kaplan believed created the necessity for a new conception of God.
Mordecai Kaplan saw his ideology as a "school of thought" rather than a separate denomination, and in fact resisted pressure to turn it into one, fearing that it might further fragment the American Jewish community, and hoping that his ideas could be applied to all denominations.
Mordecai Kaplan was dissatisfied with traditional rituals and prayer, and sought to find ways to make them more meaningful to modern Jews.
Mordecai Kaplan died in New York City in 1983 at the age of 102.
Mordecai Kaplan was survived by Rivka and his daughters Dr Judith Eisenstein, Hadassah Musher, Dr Naomi Wenner and Selma Jaffe-Goldman; as well as seven grandchildren, and nine great-grandchildren.
Mordecai Kaplan began his career as an Orthodox rabbi at Congregation Kehilath Jeshurun in New York City, assisted in the founding of the Young Israel movement of Modern Orthodox Judaism in 1912, and was the first rabbi hired by the new Jewish Center in Manhattan when it was founded in 1918.
Mordecai Kaplan proved too radical in his religious and political views for the organization and resigned from the Jewish Center in 1921.
Mordecai Kaplan was the subject of a number of polemical articles published by Rabbi Leo Jung in the Orthodox Jewish press.
Mordecai Kaplan then became involved in the Society for the Advancement of Judaism, where on March 18,1922, he held the first public celebration of a bat mitzvah in America, for his daughter Judith.
Mordecai Kaplan's central idea of understanding Judaism as a religious civilization was an easily accepted position within Conservative Judaism, but his naturalistic conception of God was not as acceptable.
In 1941, the faculty illustrated its distaste with Mordecai Kaplan by penning a unanimous letter to the professor of homiletics, expressing complete disgust with Mordecai Kaplan's The New Haggadah for the Passover seder.
Mordecai Kaplan's followers attempted to induce him to formally leave Conservative Judaism, but he stayed with its Jewish Theological Seminary until he retired in 1963.
Mordecai Kaplan wrote a seminal essay "On the Need for a University of Judaism," in which he called for a university setting that could present Judaism as a deep culture and developing civilization.
Mordecai Kaplan's proposal included programs on dramatic and fine arts to stimulate Jewish artistic creativity, a college to train Jews to live fully in American and Jewish culture as contributing citizens, a school to train Jewish educators, and a rabbinical seminary to train creative and visionary rabbis.
Mordecai Kaplan's vision continues to find expression in the graduate, undergraduate, rabbinical, and continuing education programs of the university.