biography
| name: |
Kaplan, Mordecai (Menahem)
|
| sex:
| male
|
| lived:
| (1881–1983)
|
| biography:
| Rabbi and educator, born in Swenziany, Lithuania. He went to the USA in 1889, and became dean (1909), and later professor, at the Teacher's Institute of the Jewish Theological Seminary. He founded the Reconstructionist Movement (1935), which holds that Judaism is an entire civilization, not just a religion. He was chairman of the editorial board of the Reconstructionist (1935–59), and in 1922 he initiated the Bat Mitzvah ritual for young Jewish girls. A widely published author, he wrote The Future of the American Jew (1948) and Judaism Without Supernaturalism (1958). |
|
|
