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Article: Reconstructionist Judaism in the Mind of Mordecai Kaplan: The Transformation from a Philosophy into a Religious Denomination.
- Article from:
- American Jewish History
- Article date:
- December 1, 1998
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 1998 American Jewish Historical Society. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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In Judaism as a Civilization (Judaism), the 1934 magnum opus in which he most elaborately defined his program for the reconstruction of the American Jewish people, Mordecai Menachem Kaplan made no mention of developing his philosophy into an autonomous denomination of Judaism. On the contrary, his ardent plea for the reunification of the Jewish people as one civilization, together with his recurring emphasis in later writings on the need to incorporate his reconstructionist program into the already-existing branches of Judaism, intimated an inherent philosophical objection to the denominalization of reconstructionism.(1) Repeatedly in his writings Kaplan warned against the ...