but impossible for most Jews to keep the Sabbath because they could not afford to remain idle on Saturday—payday and the busiest workday of the week. In such an environment, the problem for these western European Jews who had begun to enjoy emancipation was no longer how to be accepted by their Christian neighbors, but how to remain Jewish.
In the pre-modern Europe from which these immigrants came, Jewish communities were ruled by a chief rabbi appointed by and answerable to the civic government. Unless a Jew dared to break tradition, every aspect of his or her life was regulated by the local rabbi’s interpretation of Talmudic law. With the beginning of emancipation in western and central Europe in the late eighteenth century, attempted reforms—including modern interpretations of the law—began to loosen the rabbinic stranglehold for many Jews. Most of them were only too happy to interpret those rules for themselves upon arrival in the “Jewish wilderness” of America. This absence of control along with fluctuations of the economy resulted in significant instability, affecting both the congregations and the rabbis who served them. Also there were hardly any Jewish educational institutions in America, none as yet for the training of rabbis. The situation invited charlatans and fly-by-nights as well as true exponents of Jewish learning.
Jacob Rader Marcus, the godfather of American Jewish history, dismissed the majority of nineteenth century American rabbis as being “of little learning and less character.” Almost entirely foreign born, most were loners who emigrated as individuals seeking job opportunities and freedom from government control. They tried to establish their own choice of reforms in order to sustain Judaism in America with its relatively open society, but with few amenities to facilitate maintaining Jewish tradition. Lay leaders, often with the same goals in mind, but also at times with an additional personal agenda, frequently disagreed with the paths favored by their rabbis. Tempers were volatile, synagogue membership fluid and financial support inadequate. As a result, historian Jonathan Sarna reminds us, “Most rabbis were quick to find jobs and equally quick to lose them.”1
Such a rabbi was “Alphabet” Browne. He did not fit the characterization described by Marcus, however, for he was unquestionably learned and of strong character. He was a maverick in a time and place of many mavericks. They came mostly from central Europe, where governments and their own religious hierarchies were grappling with the effect of the Enlightenment, tightening their grip on independent thought in order to preserve the status quo. America beckoned to individualists, especially the intellectuals among them.
In 1845, the year of Browne’s birth, the Austro-Hungarian Empire had for decades dealt with political turmoil, regional insurrections, and the movement of Jews from one province to another due to economic conditions and post-rebellion reprisals against those who had fought with the insurgents. At that time relatively few Jews had settled in Browne’s home town of Eperies, in Slovakia, barely enough to have recently built a synagogue within the town. They came largely from the west and north, from German states or the neighboring Austro-Hungarian provinces of Croatia and Bohemia, seeking better opportunity in less developed regions of the empire. Slovakia attracted them primarily because Jews there, having remained neutral during provincial revolts, escaped the backlash of reprisals against communities where Jews largely joined the insurgents.2
Later, during Browne’s youth, the Jewish population of Eperies increased due to heavy migrations of Hasidic Jews from Transylvania crossing the mountains westward into Slovakia to escape persecution and poverty in Rumania. As a child, however, Browne had encountered Jewish neighbors who were much like his own family, German speaking settlers imbued with the spirit of emancipation and Enlightenment, open to secular education and in some cases to religious reform.
Western European Jews, having been freed from the ghetto and given citizenship beginning with Napoleonic edicts at the close of the previous century, tended to embrace the intellectual questioning prevalent among their fellow citizens. Some even dared to interpret the Bible in the light of new scientific studies, which drew strong opposition from the Orthodox rabbinic establishment who viewed it as heresy and feared that it would lead to the breakdown of Jewish community structure and eventual assimilation. Believing the Talmud to be perfect, its laws immutable, they feared secular education as an invitation for scholars to challenge that precept. One rabbi notably declared that anyone who studied at a university was unfit for the rabbinate.3
Proponents of mild change often remained under the umbrella of Orthodoxy. Describing themselves as “modern Orthodox,” they sought to make peace with modernity, as historian Michael Meyer writes, while “attempting to establish the fully observant Jewish life within it.” They were willing to alter practices that were merely traditions, not rooted in Talmudic law. More radical reformers sought to change not only the liturgy and outward manifestations of their belief, but the very structure of the Jewish community itself. They became known as “Neologs.”4
By the 1840s, the call for decorum in the synagogue and a more intellectual approach to worship could be heard in many places. While notable controversy took place in the Germanic states, reforms occurred more quietly in the Austro-Hungarian empire, especially in the north and west. In Eperies where Browne lived, for example, the congregation held confirmation services for boys and girls together as early as 1846. This nod to gender equality was one of the earliest innovations of Reform.5
Only in the capital city did tensions rise to a boiling point. There a group of young people had established a service with mild modernization, similar to one being used in Vienna. For a while they were allowed to practice as they wished. In 1847 a brilliant young rabbinic candidate, Ignaz Einhorn, became their leader and took them speedily into the more radical reforms being carried out in a few synagogues in Germany, mainly in Hamburg and Berlin. Einhorn and his followers formed the Central Association of Hungarian Israelites, hoping to create a league of like minded congregations. This failed, but they continued locally, renaming their group the Pesth Israelite Reform Association. Emboldened by the revolution of 1848, they went even further, holding worship services on Sunday, abandoning the wearing of hats, instituting the use of an organ and choir in their synagogue, and preaching in the vernacular, even reciting some of the prayers in Hungarian. When this also failed, Ignaz Einhorn fled to Germany.6
Whereas the revolution inspired Magyarization (Hungarianization) among Jews, its failure brought a fierce backlash against them. This caused the Orthodox leaders to become ever more nervous about Jewish radicalism and increasingly harsh in suppressing it. In 1852, they persuaded the government to close the synagogue of the Pesth Reform Association. This sent an unmistakable message to Hungarian Jews that changes would not be tolerated. The winds of change continued to blow, however, and more strongly in some outlying communities than in the capital city. Initial movements of reform were felt in Eperies in 1845, the very year that Moshe ben (son of) M’hader Yaakov–subsequently Rabbi “Alphabet” Browne—was born.7
Moritz and Katje Sonnenschein Braun (pronounced “brown”) enjoyed high standing in their community. Moritz was a judge and president of the synagogue, a man of means and influence. Katje came from a family able to provide her with lasting indications of affluence, one of which was a set of huge, intricately carved ivory cufflinks bearing the monogram of her father, probably later worn by her husband and their son. Their home displayed such elegant accouterments as tall monogrammed silver candlesticks, fine linen damask towels, and oil on canvas portraits of themselves as bride and groom.8
As customary in the German speaking social stratum to which the Brauns belonged, Moshe and his two sisters, Teresa and Ilona, were initially educated at home by private tutors. They were taught French as well as high German, in addition to which Moshe studied Hebrew as every Jewish boy was required to do. He later learned Yiddish and Magyar (Hungarian), the languages spoken on the streets of Eperies.
The boy could read Talmud—the books of exegesis and commentary on the Torah—at a very early age. This was an astonishing feat because, while custom demanded that all Jewish boys learn Hebrew initially by memorizing the Torah, then by memorizing the entire Hebrew Bible, they were rarely permitted even to begin the complicated study of Talmud
