usual, Wise tried to help him. He announced that the young rabbi, being threatened with blindness, proposed to tour the country speaking “upon all popular and Jewish subjects.” In addition to the already acclaimed “Types of Manhood” and “The Talmud, Its Ethics and Literary Beauties,” Browne suggested the following topics: “The Religion of Temperance, or How the Chosen People Keep Sober” a response to the Protestants’ intensifying anti-alcohol campaign which he would soon present successfully in Atlanta; “The Genesis of Christianity;” which he later developed into a popular treatise on the Jewish role in the Crucifixion; “The Talmud on Diseases of the Mind;” “The Devil as Viewed by the Ancient Hebrews;” “The Modern Problem of the Southern People, Social not Political;” “The Young Men of the South and their Present Duties;” “The American Crown;” “Women’s Religious and Social (not political) Emancipation;”“The Education of Mankind;” and “Moses Handling Electricity, or The Science of the Bible and Talmud.”
There is no evidence that he ever spoke on other than the first four of these subjects, and little evidence of contemporary rabbis addressing public audiences on any of them. The one known exception was Wise, who spoke widely on early Christianity as well as on certain aspects of the Talmud. Browne evidently chose to avoid commenting on political issues.33
Lectures became an even more popular form of entertainment with the birth of Chautauqua in 1874. The flourishing institution that began as a summer study course for Christian religious school teachers at a camp site in New York State, quickly burgeoned into a program for cultural improvement emulated in other attractive pastoral settings throughout America. It brought to its stages the greatest speakers, actors, writers and musicians of the day, with the most charismatic orators vigorously promoting their various beliefs.
Chautauqua also added impetus to a mushrooming of evangelical tent assemblies and other religious revival programs among the many Protestant sects competing for predominance.
Because of its emphasis on the Christian religion, this original Chautauqua was not a venue for rabbis, although it is possible that Browne occasionally appeared on its programs because of his lectures geared to Christians. Protestants in America at that time took great interest in learning about Jews and Judaism because the Jewish Bible—the Old Testament for Christians—was at the core of their religious belief. They considered Jews to be current descendants of the classical prophets whom they greatly revered.
In 1893, Rabbi Henry Berkowitz and other Jewish scholars founded a similar organization, the Jewish Chautauqua Society, with the cooperation of the existing Christian institution and along the same lines as the original. In this and other fields of communal service in the nineteenth century, American Jewry developed its outstanding system of social welfare and service institutions from models originally provided by denominations of the Christian Church.
Protestants at that time greatly feared that America would be negatively influenced by the large Catholic immigration from Ireland and Mediterranean countries, working people who were not prohibited as were most Protestants from the use of alcohol. Exploitation of labor was rampant, which led many immigrant workers to dilute their frustrations in saloons and barrooms. This produced still more misery for their families, many of which were abandoned by husbands and fathers unable to cope.34
Church groups responded by organizing a forceful anti-alcohol crusade, establishing mission houses and stepping up efforts to convert those whom the zealous missionaries regarded as non-believers. In such an atmosphere, Browne easily attracted crowds with his most popular subjects, “The Jews and Temperance; or How the Chosen People Keep Sober and Straight,” “The Talmud: Its Ethics and Literary Beauties;” and “The Crucifixion of Christ, or Have the Jews Actually Crucified Jesus of Nazareth?”35
After hearing Browne’s presentation on the Talmud, a reviewer in Chicago noted that it was written for Christians, “and for them the Talmud had an unusual interest.... The Rabbi is a lecturer of no mean attainments, and the subject he has chosen... of unusual interest and beauty... treated with rare judgement and skill, and to this is added a good voice and excellent delivery.” Another Chicago paper reported that Browne’s lecture on the Talmud was considered “one of the finest and more unique ever delivered in this city, the lecturer evincing a knowledge of the ancient literature of the Hebrews possessed by few persons.”36
Later, as a result of similar publicity, Browne was urged to address the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church. In 1885, he delivered the same message at the Methodist Episcopal Conference in New York. Invitations for the Talmud lecture increased, one of them producing a lengthy synopsis that revealed more historic and philosophic perspective than his original version presented in Montgomery eight years earlier. This time he added interesting historic background, noting that the Talmud had been condemned by Christian monarchs until the fifteenth century when the French king ordered that it be taught at the University of Paris; that the Holy Roman Emperor Maximilian had protected it because it embodied the records of Jesus’s “closest relatives;” and that Martin Luther refrained from burning it along with Catholic documents at Wittenberg in1520, coincidentally the same year that it was first published by a Jewish press in Venice.37
Browne also added an anecdote about Rabbi Gamaliel that emphasized the Jews’ regard for education. He recalled that when Emperor Vespasian offered to grant the rabbi one wish before destroying Jerusalem, instead of asking him to spare the Temple, Gamaliel asked the emperor to spare the universities and yeshivas. This, said Browne, taught that “religion is useless unless based on knowledge.” The statement bordered on heresy for many religious people of his day who believed that faith—belief in Jesus as the Messiah—was the sole requirement.38
Concluding his address with an example of “what a liberal creed implies,” Browne used the metaphor of a doctor prescribing the same medication in three different forms for three patients with different preferences and needs but suffering from the same disease. When the doctor himself needed the prescription, he eschewed sweeteners and other means of making the medicine more palatable, swallowing the ingredients in their natural form. “So on with all the denominational recipes,” Browne declared. “When we come to the great physicians of the soul, like Christ and the Rabbi Hillel, we find the creed of love taught in its simple purity, without any denominational trimmings....”39
Thus did Browne seek to bring Judaism and Christianity together by stripping both of their diverse marketable embellishments. This tactic apparently resonated more with Christians than with Jews. A reviewer in Indianapolis wrote of Browne, “In point of brilliant scholarship and fine liberal tone, the most remarkable one heard in this city... he has no prejudices and expresses his views with the earnestness of an apostle and the liberality of a large minded scholar.... In manner the Doctor is vivacious, clear and highly entertaining.”40
A Jewish listener questioned the ecumenical aspect of the speech, objecting to Browne’s conclusion that both Jews and Christians would share equally in the hereafter if each lived up to his own religious beliefs. “Judaism and Christianity,” declared the dissenter, “cannot reasonably be accepted as two corresponding pieces of the same excellent article: if one is true, the other is not true.”
Wise identified the critic as one “who appears to have a distrust of all the present approved forms of religion, and who is classed among the very intelligent and shrewd freethinkers of the city.” This highlighted a tension between the Jewish yearning for acceptance via ecumenism and the inability on the part of many Jews to accept the validity of any other faith than their own or to view their own with its embellishments stripped away. Browne had attacked their conventional approach to ecumenism. Then and in the future, as he continued to speak frankly, he gained approval and admiration from Christians while drawing the disapproval of Jews.41
In November, 1876, Wise notified readers that Browne would leave shortly for a tour through the Southwest (then meaning west of Atlanta and east of Houston.) Noting that Browne “has engagements
