Rabbis Who have Previously Served Sinai

Through its history, Sinai's commitment to providing a responsive and welcoming spiritual home to its members and to the ideals of equality, outreach, community involvement and advancement of Classical Reform Judaism have found their voice in distinguished Rabbis. Among them:

• The Temple's first Rabbi was Dr. Bernhard Felsenthal, a German-born Talmudic scholar who, three years earlier, had been a driving force in the formation of the Jewish Reform Society in Chicago. That group had set the tone for Sinai's tradition of independent thought. It called on Judaism to distinguish between the "treasures of eternal truth which are deposited in (the Holy Scriptures) from that which is merely the result of primitive conceptions of the time and of faulty views of the world and life, and also from that which was meant as law for transitory conditions which have long since become obsolete."



• Sinai's second Rabbi, Isaac Chronic, was among the first to advocate one of the defining features of Sinai's particular interpretation of Classical Reform Judaism -- supplementing Sabbath services with Sunday services in order to accommodate the demands on working men and women in modern American life.



• Four years after Chronic left Sinai, his successor, Kaufmann Kohler, in 1874 introduced our tradition of holding Weekly Worship Services on Sundays. Kohler went on to become President of Hebrew Union College, educating generations of Reform Rabbis.



• Emil G. Hirsch, who served for 42 years, was prominent in Chicago and national civic endeavors, and founder of the national newspaper, The Reform Advocate. A professor of Rabbinicl Philosophy and Literature at the University of Chicago, Hirsch was an outspoken proponent of the social-religious ideal that "the world to come should be made here." He insisted: "If present conditions are not as they should be, a kingdom of God, these conditions are an accusation against us and they ought to be answered by us."



• Louis L. Mann, Sinai's senior Rabbi for 39 years, defined the role of Rabbi as that of a social and moral advocate - "the mouthpiece of the inarticulate, the uprooted, the poor, the Negro (sic), the deserted, the oppressed and the hungry." He condemned slums as a "mockery of our claim to civilization," challenged McCarthyism, and railed against poverty.


• Samuel E. Karff led the Congregation's response to the Holocaust and a renewed interest in Jewish history and traditions by reinstituting Sabbath morning services. Under his leadership, Sinai also became one of the first sponsors of "death and dying" seminars.



• Rabbi Emeritus Howard Berman has served the Congregation since 1982, became Rabbi Emeritus in 1998. He initiated the Sinai Outreach program for interfaith couples. He also led the Congregation in its move from Chicago's South Side to its current location on Delaware Street.