Rabbi Leo Jung was one of the major architects of American Orthodox Judaism

Orthodox Judaism

Orthodox Judaism , is the approach to Judaism which adheres to the traditional interpretation and application of the laws and ethics of the Torah as legislated in the Talmudic texts by the Sanhedrin and subsequently developed and applied by the later authorities known as the Gaonim, Rishonim, and...

.

Background and education

His father, Rabbi Dr. Meir Tzvi Jung held rabbinic post in Mannheim

Mannheim

Mannheim is a city in southwestern Germany. With about 315,000 inhabitants, Mannheim is the second-largest city in the Bundesland of Baden-Württemberg, following the capital city of Stuttgart....

 then was elected Rabbi of Uherský Brod

Uherský Brod

Uherský Brod is a town in the Zlín Region of the Czech Republic. It is situated in the south-east of Moravia . It lies in the Vizovice Highlands and near the White Carpathian Mountains ....

 in 1890. Rabbi Meir Tzvi Jung believed in the Torah im Derekh Eretz (Torah combined with worldly activity) philosophy of Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch

Samson Raphael Hirsch

Samson Raphael Hirsch was a German rabbi best known as the intellectual founder of the Torah im Derech Eretz school of contemporary Orthodox Judaism...

. Later he moved to London. Rabbi Leo Jung's father founded schools in Uherský Brod, Cracow and London

London

London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...

, where both religious and secular learning took place. In London, Rabbi Meir Tzvi Jung was a leader in Agudat Israel

Agudat Israel

Agudat Yisrael began as the original political party representing the ultra-Orthodox population of Israel. It was the umbrella party for almost all ultra-Orthodox Jews in Israel, and before that in the British Mandate of Palestine...

, and the Sinai Movement. The Sinai Movement was a movement in which young men would meet for the purpose of studying Talmud and socializing. At his death, in June 1921, Rabbi Jung was the Chief Minister of the Federation of Synagogues in England, an appointment he had held since 1912.

In 1916, Rabbi Leo Jung became the director general of the Sinai League of which his father was founder and president. Rabbi Meir Tsevi founded the journal, "The Sinaist", based on the Torah im derekh eretz philosophy. Leo Jung became the editor of this bi-monthly journal, which he claimed expressed his father’s philosophy, "study is great, for it leads to (right) action".

Rabbi Jung, like his father, received a secular and Talmudic education. He attended Cambridge University and he received his doctorate from the University of London

University of London

-20th century:Shortly after 6 Burlington Gardens was vacated, the University went through a period of rapid expansion. Bedford College, Royal Holloway and the London School of Economics all joined in 1900, Regent's Park College, which had affiliated in 1841 became an official divinity school of the...

. In 1910 he attended the Yeshiva

Yeshiva

Yeshiva is a Jewish educational institution that focuses on the study of traditional religious texts, primarily the Talmud and Torah study. Study is usually done through daily shiurim and in study pairs called chavrutas...

of Eperies and in 1911 he went to study in Galanta

Galanta

Galanta is a small town in Slovakia. It is situated 50 km due east from the Slovak capital Bratislava.-Geography:Galanta lies in the Danubian Lowland , the warm southern part of Slovakia...

, Hungary. He also attended the Hildesheimer Rabbinical Seminary

Hildesheimer Rabbinical Seminary

The Hildesheimer Rabbinical Seminary was founded in Berlin on 22 October 1873 by Rabbi Dr. Azriel Hildesheimer for the training of rabbis in the tradition of Orthodox Judaism.-History:...

 in Berlin. Jung claimed that he received three rabbinic ordinations, from Rabbi Mordechai Zevi Schwartz, Rabbi Abraham Isaac Kook

Abraham Isaac Kook

Abraham Isaac Kook was the first Ashkenazi chief rabbi of the British Mandate for Palestine, the founder of the Religious Zionist Yeshiva Merkaz HaRav, Jewish thinker, Halachist, Kabbalist and a renowned Torah scholar...

 and Rabbi David Zvi Hoffmann of Berlin. He regarded his semikhah from David Hoffman as, "his last and most cherished semikhah"

Early career

Rabbi Jung’s first American pulpit was in Cleveland, where he arrived on January, 1920. In Cleveland he was an, "utterly novel phenomenon, the first English speaking Orthodox rabbi, bearded and a Ph.D." After serving in Cleveland, at the Knesset Israel congregation, for two and a half years, he was asked, in 1922, to be the rabbi at the prestigious Jewish Center Synagogue, in New York, together with his wife, Irma Rothschild.

Rabbi Jung hired as principal of the newly founded afternoon school Dr. Joseph Kaminetsky

Joseph Kaminetsky

Joseph Kaminetsky was an American Orthodox rabbi who became the pioneering first director of Torah Umesorah - National Society for Hebrew Day Schools of North America, based in New York City...

, who became later became executive director of Manhattan Day School

Manhattan Day School

Manhattan Day School, often called MDS, is a Modern Orthodox Jewish yeshiva elementary school located on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. It was founded in 1943. The school has an early childhood department in addition to serving students grades K-8...

, which evolved from The Jewish Center Day School. Dr. Kaminetsky later became the director of the Torah Umesorah school system.

Since Orthodoxy was not well represented in the Jewish-American publication world, Jung's Jewish Library Series and his other works played an important role in creating books for and about Orthodox Judaism. The multi-volumed series helped promote traditional rabbinic biography and literature among the American public.

In 1926, Rabbi Jung as head of the editorial board of the Jewish Forum recommended that all Jewish organizations have Sabbath observance

Shabbat

Shabbat is the seventh day of the Jewish week and a day of rest in Judaism. Shabbat is observed from a few minutes before sunset on Friday evening until a few minutes after when one would expect to be able to see three stars in the sky on Saturday night. The exact times, therefore, differ from...

 as a fundamental purpose. The UOJCA

Orthodox Union

The Union of Orthodox Jewish Congregations of America , more popularly known as the Orthodox Union , is one of the oldest Orthodox Jewish organizations in the United States. It is best known for its kosher food preparation supervision service...

 instituted a Sabbath Committee, which included Rabbi Jung. The committee's goal was to educate, to rally loyalty to the Sabbath and facilitate employment opportunities for Sabbath observers.

Rabbi Jung was vice president of the UOJCA

Orthodox Union

The Union of Orthodox Jewish Congregations of America , more popularly known as the Orthodox Union , is one of the oldest Orthodox Jewish organizations in the United States. It is best known for its kosher food preparation supervision service...

, from 1926 to 1934. In 1926 Jung organized The Rabbinic Council of the UOJCA and was its president for the following eight years. The Rabbinic Council was to assume the rabbinic functions of the Union, including kashrut supervision; the "OU" became its organizational symbol and trademark. developed the kashrut certificate department As vice president of the UOJCA and organizer of its Rabbinic Council, Jung and others began a crusade to fight the corrupt "kashrut jungle" and replace it with a reliable system under the OU imprint.

He built new mikvehs

Mikvah

Mikveh is a bath used for the purpose of ritual immersion in Judaism...

, "hygienically and aesthetically on the heights of Judaism". He was responsible for some fifteen aesthetic and modern mikvehs in America. He stated in Rhythm of Life, p. 44

"I can remember a number of loathsome places… and I cannot criticize too sharply the carelessness, which made such conditions possible. Coupled with the inability of the rabbis to discuss this all-important subject and with a lack of informed rebellion among women (who should have refused to get married before the community established decent mikvaoth) the situation prevailed which rendered such hostility on the part of the half informed and uninformed young women more intelligible."

Rabbi Jung was involved in raising standards by actively creating commissions to improve observance of most aspects of Jewish ritual life including circumcision, conversion

Conversion to Judaism

Conversion to Judaism is a formal act undertaken by a non-Jewish person who wishes to be recognised as a full member of the Jewish community. A Jewish conversion is both a religious act and an expression of association with the Jewish people...

, kashrus, shabbos, burial, and mikveh.

War Years

Rabbi Jung was chairman of the American Beth Jacob Committee, founded to support schools for European Orthodox Jewish girls formed in 1927. Run by Agudas Israel, the movement was founded by Sara Schenirer, with the help of some leading Western European Jews to provide an education for girls.

As chairman of the American Beth Jacob Committee, Rabbi Leo Jung was involved with the promulgating in America of the tragic story of story of the 93 Beis Yaakov "Martyrs". He instituted Kaddish at the Jewish Center for them. Some consider the story apocyphal.

As late as 1942, Rabbi Jung was raising money and addressing audiences on the significance of Agudat Israel; however he quit his membership after the State of Israel was founded when Agudat Israel would not co-operate with the Israeli government, even on non-religious affairs.

Rabbi Jung was sent to Palestine by the American Fund for Palestine Institutions, which supported eighty-six institutions from opera to Beth Jacob, from Habimah (the theatre) to Yeshiva Institutions. Jung also went as chair of the JDC Cultural Committee helping in supporting Yeshivas.

As chair of the religious board of JDC, he saw to it that religious needs were met for Jews in other lands. He went to North Africa in February 1955 to inspect JDC’s educational and religious institutions in Tangiers, Morocco, Algiers and Tunis. He also came to the aid of Jews in Iran.

His Israel affiliation was with Poale Agudat Israel

Agudat Israel Workers

Poalei Agudat Yisrael was a political party in Poland, and is a minor political party and settlement movement in Israel. It is also known as PAI or PAGI, its Hebrew acronym .-History:...

, which was called "a fortress of religious Jewry" by some but fiercely opposed by the leading Haredi rabbis of the time. Jung worked for Kibbutz Chofetz Chaim and for its children’s village.

He was involved in the resettlement of Lubavitch to New York and specifically in helping Rabbi Yosef Yitzchok Schneersohn.

In America, he fought for proper employment laws.

Later years

In the 1950s his constant themes were reverence, righteousness and rachmanut, which he referred to as the three "R’s" of kedushah (holiness). Reverence for God and man was essential to ensure righteousness or justice, which includes the assurance of our personal worth and of human dignity. Jung wrote:

"The key to Judaism is “kedushah” (holiness), the endeavor to plant heaven on earth through divine values. Religion as such is co-extensive with life, holding us close to God. It may be neither divorced from life, nor divorced from God. The Hebrew term kedushah appears in connection with every aspect of Jewishness, from marriage to business from dietary laws to the laws of mourning… I would fain say of holiness within the Jewish scheme of life that it is composed of three “R’s”: Reverence, Righteousness and for the moment unexplained rachamanut… The crowning quality is Rahamanut for which there is as yet no word in the English language. Rahamanut is usually translated as “mercy” or “compassion” but etymologically it means “mother’s love”—the unselfish dedicated love of a mother for her little one, her passionate desire to spend herself… for the purpose of raising her baby from helpless infancy towards self sufficient maturity."

Rabbi Jung advocated civil rights, avoiding nuclear disaster, and the fighting of the immorality of communism. His speeches from the 1950s are against segregation, against atomic energy, in favor of the United Nations wanting to bring world peace, racial and economic justice in America. His message is the message of mainline religion. Light will triumph over darkness, good over evil.

During these years, he was on the Executive Committee of the Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch Society, whose goal was to translate works by German Orthodox thinkers into English. These works became the core of the Feldheim publishing house.

Thought and Definition of Orthodoxy

Rabbi Jung presented a platform of “Torah-true” Judaism; in his view, “Orthodoxy was the only legitimate form of Judaism.”

Jung’s book, Living Judaism, from 1922–1923, states that he is the rabbi of the Jewish Center, a synagogue for “Jewish Jews.” Jung begins an article, “Modern Trends in American Judaism,” written in 1936, with the motto for “Jewish Jews.”

Leo Jung wrote an essay: “What is Orthodox Judaism” based on lectures from 1927, that may be summarized as follows.

1. We are Torah true. But:

a. Judaism is not fundamentalist, we are against all forms of fundamentalism.

b. Judaism has many voices. All of them accept God, revelation and the law.

c. Judaism is not out of date. Jewish law is forever adapting to the world, through Responsa.
We fully accept the general cultural world around us. The ghetto conditions of Eastern Europe and the lower East Side of NYC make the true vision of Judaism hard to be heard. True Judaism is up to date and cultural, but the lower East Side blinds people to Judaism.

2. Judaism is about mitzvot, which teach the highest ideals of mankind. Mitzvot embraces all life, eating, sexuality, pleasure, song, and work. Through mitzvot, you learn to give up leading a materialistic immigrant life. Judaism teaches a proper family life. Torah and mitzvot are an education, they train a person to be a perfect gentleman. Judaism is about a whole sentiment of the “life of the spirit”, all Torah study is for practical ends.

Rabbi Jung cites the contemporary philosophies of Havelock Ellis

Havelock Ellis

Henry Havelock Ellis, known as Havelock Ellis , was a British physician and psychologist, writer, and social reformer who studied human sexuality. He was co-author of the first medical textbook in English on homosexuality in 1897, and also published works on a variety of sexual practices and...

, “The Dance of Life” (1923), Hans Driesch, and Henri Bergson

Henri Bergson

Henri-Louis Bergson was a major French philosopher, influential especially in the first half of the 20th century. Bergson convinced many thinkers that immediate experience and intuition are more significant than rationalism and science for understanding reality.He was awarded the 1927 Nobel Prize...

 to prove the vitality of life.

Jung developed a friendship with the Pulitzer Prize

Pulitzer Prize

The Pulitzer Prize is a U.S. award for achievements in newspaper and online journalism, literature and musical composition. It was established by American publisher Joseph Pulitzer and is administered by Columbia University in New York City...

 winning author Herman Wouk

Herman Wouk

Herman Wouk is a Pulitzer Prize-winning American author of novels including The Caine Mutiny, The Winds of War, and War and Remembrance.-Biography:...

 in which they corresponded about Orthodoxy. This dialogue culminated in Wouk publishing This is My God: The Jewish Way of Life

This is My God: The Jewish Way of Life

This is My God is a non-fiction book by Herman Wouk, first published in 1959. The book summarizes many key aspects of Judaism and is intended for both a Jewish and non-Jewish audience...

 in 1959, an introduction to Orthodox Judaism for an American audience.

Rabbi Emanuel Rackman

Emanuel Rackman

Rabbi Emanuel Rackman was an American Modern Orthodox Rabbi, who held pulpits in major congregations and helped draw attention to the plight of Refuseniks in the then-Soviet Union and attempted to resolve the dilemma of the Agunah, a woman who cannot remarry because her husband will not grant a...

 has pointed out that Jung’s approach to religion is called the psychological approach as this approach analyses religion with “peace of mind” and “happy and noble living” as its end.

Grandfather of Modern Orthodoxy

As a follower of the path of German Neo-Orthodoxy, Rabbi Jung was originally able to span the gamut from Haredi Judaism

Haredi Judaism

Haredi or Charedi/Chareidi Judaism is the most conservative form of Orthodox Judaism, often referred to as ultra-Orthodox. A follower of Haredi Judaism is called a Haredi ....

 to the more traditional wing of Conservative Judaism

Conservative Judaism

Conservative Judaism is a modern stream of Judaism that arose out of intellectual currents in Germany in the mid-19th century and took institutional form in the United States in the early 1900s.Conservative Judaism has its roots in the school of thought known as Positive-Historical Judaism,...

. He was bearded and had a doctorate. But as the decades progressed, he found himself defending a specific middle-path. His followers became some of the fathers of Modern Orthodoxy.

He taught ethics and homiletics at Yeshiva University

Yeshiva University

Yeshiva University is a private university in New York City, with six campuses in New York and one in Israel. Founded in 1886, it is a research university ranked as 45th in the US among national universities by U.S. News & World Report in 2012...

 where he influenced the graduates to create an urbane, moral, and dignified Orthodoxy. His successor at the Jewish Center was Norman Lamm

Norman Lamm

Norman Lamm is a major American Modern Orthodox rabbi, scholar, author and Jewish communal leader. He is presently the Chancellor of Yeshiva University....

.

Leo Jung's Books

Jewish Library Series

• Jung Leo. The Jewish Library Series, First series of The Jewish Library Series 1928-1964, Second series began 1968 with revised and new volumes.
  • First Series
• Foundations of Judaism. The Jewish Library Series. 1. N.Y.: Jewish Center, 1923.
• Essentials of Judaism. The Jewish Library . 2. New York: Union of Orthodox Jewish Congregations of America, 1927, 1943, 1953c.
• Woman .The Jewish Library Series.3. New York: N.Y.: Soncino Press , 1934.
• Judaism in a Changing World, Ed. The Jewish Library Series. 4. New York: Oxford University Press, 1939.
• Israel of Tomorrow. The Jewish Library Series. 5. New York: Herald Square Press, 1946.
• Jewish Leaders, 1750-1940. The Jewish Library Series. 6. New York: Bloch Publishing Co.,1953.
• Guardians of Our Heritage, 1724-1953, The Jewish Library Series.7. New York: Bloch Publishing Co., 1958.
• Men of The Spirit. The Jewish Library Series. 8. New York: Kymson Publishing Co., 1964.
  • Second Series
• Faith . The Jewish Library Series. 1. London, New York: Soncino Press, 1968.
• The Folk. The Jewish Library Series. 2. London, New York: Soncino Press, 1968.
• Woman. The Jewish Library Series. 3. New York, London: Soncino Press, 1970.
• Judaism in a Changing World. The Jewish Library Series. 4. London, New York:1971.
• Panorama of Judaism. Part One. The Jewish Library Series. 5. London, New York: Soncino Press,1974.
• Volume 6- Panorama of Judaism. Part Two. The Jewish Library Series.6. London, New York: Soncino Press, 1974.
• Hyman B.Grinstein . A Short History Of The Jews In The United States. The Jewish Library Series. 7. London, New York: Soncino Press,1980.
• The Path of a Pioneer The Autobiography of Leo Jung, The Jewish Library Series. 8. London, New York: Soncino Press, 1980.

Other Works

• Jung, Leo. Business Ethics in Jewish Law. New York: Hebrew Publishing Company in conjunction with Board of Jewish Education of Greater New Yoirk, 1987.
• ---. Crumbs and Characters: Sermons, Addresses, and Essays. New York: Night and Day Press, 5202/1942.
• ---. Fallen Angels in Jewish, Christian, Mohammedan Literature. Dropsie College for Hebrew and Cognate Learning; 1926. N.Y.: Ktav Publishing House, 1974. Originally presented as the author’s thesis, University of London.
• ---. Harvest, Sermons, Addresses, Studies. New York: P. Feldheim Inc., 1956.
• ---. Human Relations in Jewish Law, 1967. Rpt. as Between Man and Man. New York: Jewish Educational Press, 1976.
• ---. Knowledge and Love in Rabbinic Lore. New York: Yeshiva University Press; (Department of Special Publications) 1963.
• ---. Living Judaism. New York: Night and Day Press, 1927.
• ---. Love and Life. New York: Philosophical Library, 1979.
• ---. The Rhythm of Life: Sermons, Studies, Addresses. New York, New York: Pardes Publication House Inc., 5710/1950.
• ---. Sages and Saints. Hoboken, New Jersey: Ktav Press, 1987.
• ---. Towards Sinai: Sermons and Addresses. New York: Pardes Publishing House, 1929.

External links

• History and philosophy of Modern Orthodoxy, Prof. Alan Brill
• On trying to aid in the creation of Hebrew schools in DP camps.
• What is Orthodox Judaism?
• Beis-Yaakov Kaddish
• War-Time responsa as Halakhic advisor to the NATIONAL JEWISH WELFARE BOARD