Judaism In The 19th Century

In the Postbellum and Industrial nineteenth century, many religions adapted their beliefs and practices to the environment around them. Catholicism, as it was worshiped by Greek and Italian immigrants, looked vastly different from the ways in which the Americanized Roman Catholics worshiped. Judaism experienced this acclimatization as well, with Orthodox Jews and Reformed Jews sharing more differences than they did similarities. As time progressed gender norms began to evolve in American society, thus religions were forced to evolve as well in order to maintain parishioners. As society as a whole began to change, religions began to assimilate to its surrounding environment. Americanized Catholicism displayed notable differences when compared to its Greek and Italian counterparts. American Roman Catholics emphasized the significance of the institutional church asserting that salvation was not obtainable outside of the
The most Americanized sect of Judaism was Reform Judaism. Reformed Jews adapted to modern America by lessening their dietary restrictions and permitting the religious calendar to allow for working on the Sabbath, but sought to preserve the moral importance of Judaism. Though the majority of Jewish immigrants joined Orthodox synagogues, many welcomed the opportunity to loosen the traditionally restrictive practices of Orthodox Judaism (Goff & Harvey, 2004, pp. 24, 119). Orthodox Judaism maintained many of the elements of “an earth-bound religious system: food laws, ritual bathing, strict community structure, and tradition based law” (Goff & Harvey, 2004, p. 119). Like Greek and Italian Catholics, this religious structure had protected Jews from a hostile environment, mainly in Germany and eastern Europe. As with Catholicism, Judaism saw a fracture between the Americanized factions and the newly immigrating factions due to differences developed in differing