Editing Mordecai Kaplan

{{short description|Lithuanian American rabbi (1881–1983)}}
{{Infobox Jewish leader
|honorific-prefix =[[Rabbi]]
|name        = Mordecai Menahem Kaplan
|honorific-suffix =
|image       = Mordecai Kaplan.jpg
|caption     = Kaplan {{circa}} 1915
|began       = 
|ended       = 
|organization = [[Jewish Theological Seminary of America]], [[Society for the Advancement of Judaism]], [[Reconstructionist Rabbinical College]]
|predecessor = 
|successor   = 
|semicha     = [[Jewish Theological Seminary of America]]
|rank        = 
|other_post  = 
|birth_name  = Mottel Kaplan
|birth_date  = {{birth date|1881|6|11}}
|birth_place = [[Švenčionys|Sventiany]], [[Russian Empire]]{{efn|Present-day [[Švenčionys]], Lithuania}}
|death_date  = {{death date and age|1983|11|8|1881|6|11}}
|death_place = New York City, U.S.
|buried      = [[Glendale, Queens|Glendale, New York]], U.S.
|denomination= [[Orthodox Judaism]]<br>[[Conservative Judaism]]<br>[[Reconstructionist Judaism]]
|residence   = 
|spouse      = Lena Rubin (1908–1958)<br />Rivka Rieger (1959–1983)
|children    = [[Judith Eisenstein]], Hadassah Musher, Naomi Wenner, and Selma Jaffe-Goldman
|occupation  = 
|profession  = 
|employer    = 
|alma_mater  = 
|signature   = 
|website     = 
}}

'''Mordecai Menahem Kaplan''' (June 11, 1881 – November 8, 1983) was an American [[Conservative Judaism|Conservative]] [[rabbi]], [[writer]], [[Jewish]] [[educator]], [[professor]], [[theologian]], [[philosopher]], [[activist]], and [[religious leader]] who founded the [[Reconstructionist Judaism|Reconstructionist movement of Judaism]] along with his son-in-law [[Ira Eisenstein]].<ref name="Scult2002"/><ref name="Britannica">{{Britannica|311762}}</ref><ref name="Times Obituary">{{cite news |last1=Waggoner |first1=Walter H. |title=RABBI MORDECAI KAPLAN DIES; LEADER OF RECONSTRUCTIONISTS |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1983/11/09/obituaries/rabbi-mordecai-kaplan-dies-leader-of-reconstructionists.html |work=The New York Times |date=9 November 1983}}</ref><ref name=JVL>{{cite encyclopedia |title=Mordecai Menahem Kaplan |encyclopedia=Encyclopaedia Judaica |url=https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/kaplan-mordecai-menahem}}
</ref> He has been described as a "towering figure" in the recent history of Judaism for his influential work in adapting it to modern society, contending that Judaism should be a unifying and creative force by stressing the cultural and historical character of the religion as well as theological doctrine.<ref name="Times Obituary"/>

==Life and work==
Mordecai Menahem Kaplan was born '''Mottel Kaplan''' in Sventiany in the [[Russian Empire]] (present-day [[Švenčionys]] in Lithuania) on June 11, 1881,<ref name="Britannica"/><ref name="Scult2020">{{cite book |last1=Scult |first1=Mel |title=Communings of the Spirit, Volume III: The Journals of Mordecai M. Kaplan, 1942-1951 |date=October 2020 |publisher=Wayne State University Press |isbn=978-0-8143-4768-3 |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=WXvTDwAAQBAJ&pg=PT374 |chapter=Timeline of Kaplan's Life}}</ref> the son of Haya (née Anna) and Rabbi Israel Kaplan.<ref name="JVL"/> His father, ordained by the leading [[Lithuanian Jews|Lithuanian Jewish]] luminaries, went to serve as a [[Dayan (rabbinic judge)|dayan]] in the court of Chief Rabbi [[Jacob Joseph]] in New York City in 1888.<ref name="Scult2002">{{cite book |last1=Scult |first1=Mel |title=Communings of the Spirit: The Journals of Mordecai M. Kaplan, 1913-1934 |date=May 2002 |publisher=Wayne State University Press |isbn=978-0-8143-3116-3 |pages=45–55 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=RY5EHLth6TQC&pg=PA45}}</ref><ref name="Kraut1998">{{cite journal |last1=Kraut |first1=Benny |title=Review of A Modern Heretic and a Traditional Community: Mordecai M. Kaplan, Orthodoxy, and American Judaism |journal=American Jewish History |date=1998 |volume=86 |issue=3 |pages=357–363 |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/23886287 |publisher=Johns Hopkins University Press |jstor=23886287 |issn=0164-0178}}</ref> Mordecai was brought over to New York in 1889, at the age of nine.<ref name="Britannica"/><ref name="Times Obituary"/><ref name="Scult2020"/>

Although affiliated with the most traditional Orthodox institutions and personalities in the [[Lower East Side]], his father persisted in non-conformist openness to trends he had already exhibited in Russia: He hosted discussions in his home with maverick [[Hebrew Bible|Bible]] critic [[Arnold Ehrlich]],<ref name="Scult2002"/> withdrew his son from the [[Etz Chaim Yeshiva (Manhattan)|Etz Chaim Yeshiva]], enrolled him in public school, and later sent him to JTS to pursue studies to become a modern Orthodox rabbi. Although not the norm amongst first-generation immigrants, who tended to be very conservative and traditional, his father was not alone in this kind of religious broad-mindedness.<ref name="Kraut1998"/> Kaplan's early education was strictly Orthodox, but, by the time he reached secondary school, he had been attracted to heterodox opinions (particularly regarding the critical approach to the Bible).<ref name="JVL"/> To counter this, his father hired a tutor to study [[Maimonides|Maimonides’s]] ''[[Guide for the Perplexed]]'' with Mordecai.<ref name="Scult2002"/>

In 1893, Kaplan began studying for ordination at the [[Jewish Theological Seminary of America|Jewish Theological Seminary]] (JTS),<ref name="Scult2020"/> which, at that time, was a [[Modern Orthodox]] institution founded to strengthen Orthodoxy and combat the hegemony of the Reform movement. In 1895, he also began studies at the [[City College of New York]] (CCNY),<ref name="Scult2020"/> which he attended in the morning, while going to JTS in the evening.<ref name="Scult2002" /> After graduating from CCNY in 1900, he went to [[Columbia University]] to study philosophy, sociology, and education, and received a master's degree and doctorate. Majoring in philosophy, he wrote his master's thesis on the ethical philosophy of [[Henry Sidgwick]].<ref name="Scult2020"/> His lecturers included the philosopher of [[Ethical movement|ethical culture]] [[Felix Adler (professor)|Felix Adler]] and the sociologist [[Franklin Henry Giddings|Franklin Giddings]].<ref>For a biography of Kaplan's life consult, Mel Scult Judaism Faces the Twentieth Century- A Biography of Mordecai M. Kaplan, Wayne State University Press, 1993 {{ISBN|0-8143-2279-4}}</ref><ref name="Scult2002"/>

In 1902, he was ordained at the JTS.<ref name="Britannica"/><ref name="Times Obituary"/><ref name="Scult2020"/> Although Kaplan's conception of the nature of Judaism diverged from that of the seminary, he maintained a long association with the institution, teaching there for over fifty years; including becoming principal of its teachers’ institute in 1909, dean in 1931, and retiring in 1963.<ref name="Britannica"/> In 1903 he was appointed as administrator of the religious school at [[Congregation Kehilath Jeshurun]] (KJ), a gradually modernizing Orthodox synagogue in New York's [[Yorkville, Manhattan|Yorkville]] district consisting of newly affluent and acculturating East European Jews who had migrated north from the Lower East Side. By April 1904, he was appointed as rabbi of the congregation.<ref name="Kraut1998"/>

Based on his diary, by around this time (1904, age 23), Kaplan already had serious misgivings about Orthodoxy's ability to satisfy his spiritual needs and its unwillingness to modernize. By 1905, he noted doubt in the divine origin of the Bible and its laws as well as the efficacy of prayers and rituals; by 1907 he had informed his parents of his feelings. As he was already serving as a rabbi at this point, this created a high degree of dissonance resulting in considerable internal turmoil and anguish over the hypocrisy of practicing and preaching that which he no longer believed.<ref name="Kraut1998"/>  His private diaries and papers reveal that he was tortured within because his beliefs about the nature of religion and of Judaism conflicted with his duties as the leader of an Orthodox congregation.<ref name="Scult2002"/>

In 1908, he married Lena Rubin, left KJ, and was [[Semikhah|ordained as a rabbi]] by Rabbi [[Yitzchak Yaacov Reines|Isaac Jacob Reines]] while on his honeymoon in Europe.<ref name="Scult2020"/><ref name="JVL"/><ref name="Scult2002"/>

In 1909, Kaplan became principal of the newly formed teacher's institute at JTS (which was now Conservative), a position he would keep until he retired in 1963.<ref name="Britannica"/><ref name="Times Obituary"/><ref name="Scult2020"/> Kaplan was not primarily interested in academic scholarship; but rather in teaching future rabbis and educators to reinterpret Judaism and make Jewish identity meaningful under modern circumstances.<ref name="JVL"/> As a result, his work during this time contributed greatly to the future of Jewish education in America.<ref name="Scult2002"/>

Even those who disagreed with his views appreciated his direct approach. They were impressed by his emphasis on intellectual honesty in confronting the challenges posed by modern thought to traditional Jewish beliefs and practices. In his approach to [[midrash]] and [[Philosophy of religion|philosophies of religion]], Kaplan combined scientific scholarship with creative application of the texts to contemporary problems. Kaplan's Reconstructionist philosophy influenced not only his own immediate students, but through them, his extensive writings, and public lectures over several decades, the American Jewish community at large. Many of his ideas, such as Judaism as a civilization (and not merely a religion or nationality); [[Bar and bat mitzvah|bat mitzvah]]; egalitarian involvement of women in synagogal and communal life; the synagogue as a Jewish center and not merely a place of worship; and living as Jews in a multicultural society, eventually came to be accepted as commonplace and implemented in all but strictly Orthodox segments of the community.<ref name="JVL"/>

Early in his career, Kaplan became a devotee of the scientific and historical study of the Bible. He was the leading educator to confront rabbis, teachers, and laity with the changes in Jewish thought that had become necessary once the Bible had been exposed to modern techniques of examination and interpretation. But far from denigrating the genius of the biblical text, Kaplan taught his students to regard it as an indispensable source for an understanding of [[Jewish peoplehood]] and Jewish civilization.<ref name="JVL"/>

In 1912, he was an advisor to the creators of the [[Young Israel]] movement of [[Modern Orthodox Judaism]], together with Rabbi [[Israel Friedlander]].<ref name=KaplanYoungIsrael>For Kaplan founding Young Israel, see:
*S. Daniel Breslauer (1994). ''Mordecai Kaplan's Thought In a Postmodern Age''. Scholars Press. p. 25.
*[[Daniel J. Elazar|Daniel Judah Elazar]] (1995). ''Community and Polity: The Organizational Dynamics of American Jewry''. [[Jewish Publication Society]]. p. 133.
*[[Daniel J. Elazar|Daniel Judah Elazar]], Rela M. Geffen (2000). ''The Conservative Movement in Judaism: Dilemmas and Opportunities''. [[State University of New York Press]]. p. 24.
*Bernard Melvin Lazerwitz (1998). ''Jewish Choices: American Jewish Denominationalism''. [[State University of New York Press]]. p. 19.
*Benny Kraut, "Jewish Survival in Protestant American", in [[Jonathan D. Sarna]] (ed.) (1998). ''Minority Faiths and the American Protestant Mainstream''. [[University of Illinois Press]]. p. 33.
*{{cite EJ|first=Jeanette|last=Freidman|title=Young Israel|volume=21|page=402}}</ref>{{refn| According to Kraut (1998), Kaplan "worked for the Young Israel initiative that in conception was nondenominational..."<ref name="Kraut1998"/>}}

In speeches and articles in 1912 and 1916 he chided American Orthodox Judaism for not adequately embracing modernity.<ref name="Kraut1998"/>

He was a leader in creating the [[Jewish Community Center|Jewish community center]] concept. Around 1916-1918 he organized the [[Jewish Center (Manhattan)|Jewish Center in New York]], a community organization with a Modern Orthodox synagogue as its nucleus, the first of its kind in the United States, and was its rabbi until 1922.<ref name="Britannica"/><ref name="Scult2020"/><ref name="Scult2002"/><ref name="JVL"/>

Kaplan's ideology and rhetoric had been evolving, over the decade, but it was not until 1920 that he finally took a clear and irrevocable stand, criticizing "the fundamental doctrine of Orthodoxy, which is that tradition is infallible... The doctrine of infallibility rules out of court all research and criticism and demands implicit faith in the truth of whatever has come down from the past. It precludes all conscious development in thought and practice..."<ref name="Goldsmith1992">{{cite book |last1=Goldsmith |first1=Emanuel |last2=Scult |first2=Mel |last3=Seltzer |first3=Robert M. |title=The American Judaism of Mordecai M. Kaplan |date=October 1992 |publisher=NYU Press |isbn=978-0-8147-3052-2 |page=83 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=_2sVCgAAQBAJ&pg=PA83}}</ref><ref name="Scult2002"/> However, he was even more critical of Reform, saying that Reform was worse due to what he called Reform's "absolute break with the Judaism of the past".<ref>{{cite book |last1=Mendes-Flohr |first1=Paul R. |last2=Reinharz |first2=Jehuda |title=The Jew in the Modern World: A Documentary History |date=1995 |publisher=Oxford University Press |isbn=978-0-19-507453-6 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=0Bu5GnLZCw0C&pg=PA499}}</ref>

Yet he still remained the Rabbi of the center until around 1922, when he resigned due to these ideological conflicts with the some of lay leadership. He, along with a sizeable group of congregants, then established the Society for the Advancement of Judaism, which later became the core of the Reconstructionist movement.<ref name="Britannica"/><ref name="Scult2020"/><ref name="Scult2002"/><ref name="JVL"/>

He held the first public celebration of a [[bat mitzvah]] in the United States, for his daughter [[Judith Kaplan Eisenstein|Judith Kaplan]], on March 18, 1922, at the [[Society for the Advancement of Judaism]], his synagogue in New York City.<ref name=autogenerated1>{{cite web|url=https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Judaism/firstbat.html |title=The First American Bat Mitvah |publisher=Jewishvirtuallibrary.org |date=1922-03-18 |access-date=2013-04-13}}
</ref><ref name="Scult2020"/><ref name="Times Obituary"/><ref name="BatMitvah">
* {{cite book |last1=Golinkin |first1=David |editor-last1=Helman |editor-first1=Anat |title=No Small Matter: Features of Jewish Childhood |date=2021 |publisher=Oxford University Press |isbn=978-0-19-757732-5 |page=198 |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=o-MmEAAAQBAJ&pg=PA198 |chapter=The Transformation of the Bar Mitzvah Ceremony, 1800–2020 |doi=10.1093/oso/9780197577301.003.0012}}
* {{cite encyclopedia |last1=Hyman |first1=Paula E. |last2=Balin |first2=Carole B. |encyclopedia=Jewish Women: A Comprehensive Historical Encyclopedia |title=Bat Mitzvah: American Jewish Women |year=2021 |publisher=Jewish Women's Archive |url=https://jwa.org/encyclopedia/article/bat-mitzvah-american-jewish-women}}
* {{cite web |last1=Waskow |first1=Arthur O. |title=History of Bat Mitzvah |url=https://www.myjewishlearning.com/article/history-of-bat-mitzvah/ |website=My Jewish Learning}}
</ref> Judith [[Torah reading|read from the Torah]] at this ceremony, a role that had traditionally been reserved for males.<ref name=autogenerated1 /><ref name="Greenspahn2009">
{{cite book |last1=Greenspahn |first1=Frederick E. |title=Women and Judaism: New Insights and Scholarship |date=November 2009 |publisher=New York University Press |isbn=978-0-8147-3218-2 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=YWlS9iomfAMC&pg=PA158}}
</ref>

In 1925, the American Zionist Organization sent Kaplan to Jerusalem as its official representative for the opening of [[Hebrew University]].<ref name="Scult2020"/>

From 1934 until 1970 Kaplan wrote a series of books in which he expressed his Reconstructionist ideology, which was an attempt to adapt Judaism to modern-day realities that Kaplan believed created the necessity for a new conception of God. His basic ideology was first defined in his 1934 work ''Judaism as a Civilization: Toward the Reconstruction of American-Jewish Life''. In 1935 a biweekly periodical (''[[The Reconstructionist Journal|The Reconstructionist]]'') was started under Kaplan's editorship, which adopted the following credo: “Dedicated to the advancement of Judaism as a religious civilization, to the upbuilding of Eretz Yisrael [the Land of Israel] as the spiritual center of the Jewish People, and to the furtherance of universal freedom, justice, and peace.” Kaplan further refined the goals of his ideology in subsequent books including: ''The Meaning of God in Modern Jewish Religion'' (1937), ''Judaism Without Supernaturalism'' (1958), and ''The Religion of Ethical Nationhood'' (1970).<ref name="Britannica"/>

Kaplan saw his ideology as a "school of thought" rather than a separate denomination, and in fact resisted pressure to turn it into one, fearing that it might further fragment the American Jewish community, and hoping that his ideas could be applied to all denominations.<ref name="JVL"/><ref name="Scult2002"/>

Kaplan was dissatisfied with traditional rituals and prayer, and sought to find ways to make them more meaningful to modern Jews. In, 1941 he wrote a controversial Reconstructionist [[Haggadah]], for which he received criticism from colleagues at JTS.<ref name="Scult2002"/> However, he this did not stop him from publishing the Reconstructionist Sabbath Prayer Book 1945, in which, among other unorthodoxies, he denied the literal accuracy of the biblical text.<ref name="Britannica"/><ref name="Scult2002"/> As a result, he was excommunicated by the [[Union of Orthodox Rabbis of the United States and Canada]],<ref name="Britannica"/><ref name="Scult2020"/> who held a herem ceremony at which his prayer book was burned.<ref name="Scult2002"/><ref name="Greenspahn2009"/><ref name="silver"/>

Although Kaplan preferred Reconstructionism remain a non-denominational school of thought rather than a separate denomination, in the late 40s to early 50s a number of laymen in synagogues throughout the United States decided to organize an independent federation of Reconstructionist synagogues,<ref name="JVL"/> and by 1954 the [[Jewish Reconstructionist Federation|Federation of Reconstructionist Congregations and Havurot]] was organized. As the years passed, the number of affiliates grew, but it was not until the late 1960s, that the movement actually became a separate denomination, when the [[Reconstructionist Rabbinical College]] opened its doors in 1968.<ref name="Scult2002"/> By the beginning of the 21st century it would include over 100 congregations and havurot.<ref name="JVL"/>

Kaplan was a prolific writer. In addition to his published works, he kept a journal from 1913 until the late 1970s, with 27 volumes, each with 350 - 400 handwritten pages. The journal is certainly the largest by a Jew, and may even be one of the most extensive on record.<ref name="Scult2002"/>

After the death of his wife in 1958, he married Rivka Rieger, an Israeli artist, in 1959.<ref name="Scult2020"/> He died in New York City in 1983 at the age of 102.<ref name="Times Obituary"/> He was survived by Rivka and his daughters Dr. [[Judith Kaplan Eisenstein|Judith Eisenstein]], [[Hadassah Musher]], Dr. [[Naomi Wenner]] and [[Selma Jaffe-Goldman]]; as well as seven grandchildren, and nine great-grandchildren.<ref name="Times Obituary"/>

==Relationship with Orthodox Judaism==
Kaplan began his career as an [[Orthodox Judaism|Orthodox]] rabbi at [[Congregation Kehilath Jeshurun]] in New York City, assisted in the founding of the [[Young Israel]] movement of [[Modern Orthodox Judaism]] in 1912,<ref name=KaplanYoungIsrael/> and was the first rabbi hired by the new (Orthodox) [[Jewish Center (Manhattan, New York)|Jewish Center]] in Manhattan when it was founded in 1918. He proved too radical in his religious and political views for the organization and resigned from the Jewish Center in 1921. He was the subject of a number of polemical articles published by Rabbi [[Leo Jung]] (who became the rabbi of the Jewish Center in 1922) in the Orthodox Jewish press.

He then became involved in the [[Society for the Advancement of Judaism]], where on March 18, 1922, he held (possibly) the first public celebration of a [[Bat Mitzvah|bat mitzvah]] in America, for his daughter Judith.<ref name="Scult2020"/><ref name="Times Obituary"/><ref name="BatMitvah"/> This led to considerable criticism of Kaplan in the Orthodox Jewish press.

Kaplan's central idea of understanding Judaism as a religious civilization was an easily accepted position within [[Conservative Judaism]], but his [[Humanistic naturalism|naturalistic]] conception of [[God]] was not as acceptable. Even at the Conservative movement's JTS, as [[The Forward]] writes, "He was an outsider, and often privately considered leaving the institution. In 1941, the faculty illustrated its distaste with Kaplan by penning a unanimous letter to the professor of [[homiletics]], expressing complete disgust with Kaplan's ''The New Haggadah'' for the Passover seder. Four years later, seminary professors [[Alexander Marx]], [[Louis Ginzberg]] and [[Saul Lieberman]] went public with their rebuke by writing a letter to the Hebrew newspaper ''Hadoar'', lambasting Kaplan's prayer book and his entire career as a rabbi."<ref name="silver">Zachary Silver, "[https://forward.com/culture/3610/a-look-back-at-a-different-book-burning/ A look back at a different book burning]," ''The Forward'', June 3, 2005</ref> In 1945 the [[Union of Orthodox Rabbis]] "formally assembled to excommunicate from [[Judaism]] what it deemed to be the community's most heretical voice: Rabbi Mordecai Kaplan, the man who eventually would become the founder of [[Reconstructionist Judaism]]. Kaplan, a critic of both Orthodox and Reform Judaism, believed that Jewish practice should be reconciled with modern thought, a philosophy reflected in his ''Sabbath Prayer Book''..."<ref name="silver" />

Due to Kaplan's evolving position on [[Jewish philosophy|Jewish theology]] and the liturgy, he was also condemned as a heretic by members of [[Young Israel]], which he had assisted in founding. His followers attempted to induce him to formally leave Conservative Judaism, but he stayed with its Jewish Theological Seminary until he retired in 1963. Finally, in 1968, his closest disciple and son-in-law [[Ira Eisenstein]] founded a separate school, the [[Reconstructionist Rabbinical College]], in which Kaplan's philosophy, Reconstructionist Judaism, would be promoted as a separate religious movement.

==University establishment==
Kaplan wrote a seminal essay "On the Need for a University of Judaism," in which he called for a university setting that could present Judaism as a deep culture and developing civilization. His proposal included programs on dramatic and fine arts to stimulate Jewish artistic creativity, a college to train Jews to live fully in American and Jewish culture as contributing citizens, a school to train Jewish educators, and a rabbinical seminary to train creative and visionary rabbis. In 1947, with the participation of Rabbi [[Simon Greenberg]], his efforts culminated in the establishment of the [[American Jewish University]], then known as the [[University of Judaism]]. His vision continues to find expression in the graduate, undergraduate, rabbinical, and continuing education programs of the university.

==Kaplan's theology==
Kaplan said: <blockquote>To believe in God means to accept life on the assumption that it harbors conditions in the outer world and drives in the human spirit which together impel man to transcend himself. To believe in God means to take for granted that it is man's destiny to rise above the brute and to eliminate all forms of violence and exploitation from human society. In brief, God is the Power in the cosmos that gives human life the direction that enables the human being to reflect the image of God.<ref>Sonsino, Rifat. ''The Many Faces of God: A Reader of Modern Jewish Theologies''. 2004, page 22–23</ref></blockquote>

Not all of Kaplan's writings on the subject were consistent; his position evolved somewhat over the years, and two distinct theologies can be discerned with careful reading. The view more popularly associated with Kaplan is strict naturalism, à la [[John Dewey|Dewey]], which has been criticized as using religious terminology to mask a [[Nontheism|non-theistic]] (if not outright [[atheism|atheistic]]) position—one JTS colleague in the 1950s, [[Will Herberg]], went so far as to compare it to the position of [[Charles Maurras]] toward the Catholic Church.<ref>Herberg, Judaism and Modern Man, 1951, p. 296</ref> A second strand of Kaplanian theology makes clear that God has [[ontological]] reality, a real and absolute existence independent of human beliefs, while rejecting classical [[theism]] and any belief in miracles.<ref>The Radical American Judaism of Mordecai M. Kaplan (The Modern Jewish Experience) by Mel Scult  - Paperback – March 19, 2015- Publisher: Indiana University Press; Reprint edition (March 19, 2015)- {{ISBN|0253017114}} – Page 117</ref> In 1973 he was one of the signers of the [[Humanist Manifesto II]].<ref>{{cite web | url=http://www.americanhumanist.org/Humanism/Humanist_Manifesto_II | title=Humanist Manifesto II | publisher=American Humanist Association | access-date=October 14, 2012 | archive-date=October 20, 2012 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20121020110719/http://www.americanhumanist.org/humanism/Humanist_Manifesto_II | url-status=dead }}</ref>

== Awards ==
* 1971: [[National Jewish Book Award]] in the Jewish Thought for ''The Religion of Ethical Nationhood''<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.jewishbookcouncil.org/awards/national-jewish-book-awards/past-winners?category=30766|title=Past Winners|website=Jewish Book Council|language=en|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200605122003/https://www.jewishbookcouncil.org/awards/national-jewish-book-awards/past-winners?category=30766|archive-date=2020-06-05|access-date=2020-01-23}}</ref>

==Bibliography==
Kaplan was a prolific writer. His work ''Judaism as a Civilization'' was published in 1934 when Kaplan was 53. A full bibliography of over 400 items can be found in The American Judaism of Mordecai Kaplan, ed. by Emanuel S. Goldsmith, Mel Scult, and Robert Seltzer (1990).<ref name="JVL"/>

===Books===
* ''Family Purity (Taarath Hamishpoco)'' (1924)
* ''[[Judaism as a Civilization]]'' (1934)
* ''Judaism in Transition'' (1936)
* ''[[Mesillat Yesharim]]: The Path of the Upright'', with introduction and a new translation by Kaplan (1936)
* ''The Meaning of God in Modern Jewish Religion'' (1937) <ref>{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=BduN110sCsoC |title=The Meaning of God in Modern Jewish Religion - Mordecai Menahem Kaplan - Google Books |isbn=0814325521 |access-date=October 15, 2012|last1=Kaplan |first1=Mordecai Menahem |year=1994 |publisher=Wayne State University Press }}</ref>
* ''The New Haggadah'' (1941)
* ''The Sabbath Prayer Book'' (1945)
* ''The Future of the American Jew'' (1948)
* ''The Faith of America: Prayers, Readings, and Songs for the Celebration of American Holidays'' (1951)
* ''Ha-emunah ve-hamusar'' (Faith and Ethics) (1954)
* ''A New Zionism'' (1955)
* ''Questions Jews Ask'' (1956)
* ''Judaism Without Supernaturalism'' (1958)
* ''A New Zionism: Second Enlarged Edition'' (1959)
* ''The Greater Judaism in the Making: : A Study of the Modern Evolution of Judaism'' (1960)
* ''The Purpose and Meaning of Jewish Existence: A People in the Image of God'' (1964)
* ''Not So Random Thoughts: Witty and Profound Observations on Society, Religion, and Jewish Life''
* ''The Religion of Ethical Nationhood: Judaism's Contribution to World Peace'' (1970)
* ''If not now, when?: Toward a reconstitution of the Jewish people; conversations between Mordecai M. Kaplan and [[Arthur A. Cohen]]'' (1973)

===Articles===
* 'What Judaism Is Not,' ''The Menorah Journal,'' Vol. 1, No. 4, (October 1915),<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.gutenberg.org/files/22300/22300-h/meno-4.html#Page_208 |title=The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Menorah Journal, Vol. 1, No. 4, October 1915, by Various |publisher=Gutenberg.org |access-date=2011-12-10}}</ref>
* 'What Is Judaism,' ''The Menorah Journal,'' Vol. 1, No. 5, (December 1915),<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.gutenberg.org/files/22300/22300-h/meno-5.html#Page_309 |title=The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Menorah Journal, Vol. 1, No. 5, December 1915, by Various |publisher=Gutenberg.org |access-date=2011-12-10}}</ref>
* 'Isaiah 6:1–11,' ''[[Journal of Biblical Literature]],'' Vol. 45, No. 3/4, (1926).
* 'The Effect of Intercultural Contacts upon Judaism,' ''[[The Journal of Religion]],'' (January 1934).
* 'The Evolution of the Idea of God in Jewish Religion,' ''[[The Jewish Quarterly Review]],'' Vol. 57, (1967).

==See also==
*[[American philosophy]]
*[[List of American philosophers]]

==Notes==
{{notelist}}

==References==
{{reflist}}

==Further reading==
*{{cite book|last=Alpert|first=Rebecca T.|author2=Jacob J. Staub|title=Exploring Judaism: A Reconstructionist Approach|year=1985|publisher=Reconstructionist Press|location=Wyncote, Pa.|isbn=0-935457-01-1|url-access=registration|url=https://archive.org/details/exploringjudaism00rebe}}
*{{cite book|last=Kaplan|first=Mordecai M.|title=Judaism as a Civilization: Toward a Reconstruction of American-Jewish Life|year=1981|orig-year=1957|publisher=Jewish Publication Society|location=Philadelphia|isbn=0-8276-0193-X|url-access=registration|url=https://archive.org/details/judaismasaci_kapl_1981_000_10717014}}
*{{cite book|last=Kaplan|first=Mordecai M.|title=The Meaning of God in Modern Jewish Religion|year=1994|orig-year=1962|publisher=Wayne State University Press|location=Detroit|isbn=0-8143-2552-1}}
*{{cite book |title=The American Judaism of Mordecai M. Kaplan |last=Goldsmith |first=Emanuel S. |author2=Mel Scult |author3=Robert M. Seltzer |year=1990 |publisher=New York University Press |location=New York |isbn=0-8147-3024-8}}
*{{cite book |title=Communings of the Spirit - The Journals of Mordecai M. Kaplan Volume 1 1913-1934 |last=Scult |first=Mel|year=2001 |publisher=Wayne State University Press |location=Detroit|isbn=0-8143-2575-0}}
* Sculpt, Mel, (1993)''''Judaism Faces the Twentieth Century- A Biography of Mordecai M. Kaplan,''  Wayne State University Press, Detroit, {{ISBN|0-8143-2279-4}}

==External links==
* {{Internet Archive author |sname=Mordecai Menahem Kaplan}}
*[https://web.archive.org/web/20140328153308/http://www.rrc.edu/resources/mordecai-m-kaplan Audio and Video Resources for Mordecai Kaplan at Reconstructionist Rabbinical College]
*[https://archive.today/20130113233555/http://www.blip.tv/file/1790738 Video: Rabbi Prof. David Hartman lectures about Mordecai Kaplan]
*[http://sylvester.jtsa.edu:8881/R/KUFVD37SUX64976YM4DT8G5EMR3CYLCMCDI3Q94GMPPLCT7GHC-01397?func=collections-result&collection_id=1335 Diaries of Mordecai Kaplan - manuscript]
*Letters of Mordecai Kaplan can be found in the [http://digifindingaids.cjh.org/?pID=333371 Records of the Jewish Reconstructionist Foundation], held at the [[American Jewish Historical Society]] in New York, NY

{{Authority control}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Kaplan, Mordecai}}
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