American Jewish Archives Journal, Volume 64, Numbers 1 & 2

ARTICLES
Upheaval, Innovation, and Transformation:
New York City Jews and the Civil War
Howard B. Rock
In late April of 1863, with Lee
poised to invade the North toward
Gettysburg, there seemed no end to
a war that had already taken the lives
of thousands of young men. President
Lincoln called for a national Fast Day
and, as they had on previous occasions,
most of New York’s twenty–seven
synagogues opened for prayers and
psalms. The Jewish Messenger, the city’s
Jewish weekly, noted that attendance
had declined considerably from previous
such occasions, and that there was “less
respect … for the recommendation of
the Executive”—likely a reference to the
Emancipation Proclamation. At B’nai
Jeshurun, the city’s most well-known
synagogue, Rev. Morris Raphall spoke.
An erudite leader with many publications,
Raphall emigrated from Britain
to take the pulpit in 1849, becoming
the most prominent Jewish clergyman
in New York and appearing at nearly
every significant occasion in the Jewish
community. 1
Rabbi Samuel Adler
(Courtesy American Jewish Archives)
In his Fast Day sermon, Raphall
preached that the conflict, the result of
Rev. Morris Raphall
“demagogues, fanatics and a party Press”
(Courtesy American Jewish Archives)
of both North and South, had mired the
United States “in the third year of a destructive but needless sectional war which
has armed brother against brother and consigned hundreds of thousands to an
untimely grave.” While Raphall found “consolation” that the “cause of the union
is the worthiest in the field,” he never mentioned slavery or the Emancipation
Proclamation or searched for any larger meaning to the conflict. The nation
must find its way back to the days of peace and prosperity that preceded the
Upheaval, Innovation, and Transformation: New York City Jews and the Civil War • 1