Abstract - Nicole Lebenson

This paper aims to explore how the social movements and societal changes that took place in the United States during the 1960s influenced the congregational life of Union Temple, a 160-year-old Reform Jewish congregation located in Brooklyn. The 1964 removal of a Rabbi vocally involved in the Civil Rights movement brought all the tensions of the outside world - the generation gap, changing ideas about democratic process and protest, the place of religion in life and its interaction with politics, and the very tenets of Reform Judaism – to a boil within the congregation. The conflict over this Rabbi within the Temple was heavily influenced by the emergence of certain notions of pluralism in American society that molded “back to roots” movements among more self-confident ethnic groups in the 1960s. In short, the issues of Union Temple in the 1960s and the way that they were handled exemplified the larger contemporary currents of American history.

Through a combination of primary documents found within Union Temple, oral interviews conducted with congregants, and contemporary and modern secondary sources, this paper reconstructs the often fractured congregational history of Union Temple in the 1960s. It explores how internal events were a reflection of external historical patterns. Last but not least, this paper examines the history of the congregation as a narrative which often purposely omits historical occurrences for the narrative’s sake, implying that this period of time was more internally traumatic and complicated than most histories of Reform Judaism let on.

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