About Mordecai Kaplan
Mordecai Menahem Kaplan (Hebrew: מֹרְדֳּכַי מְנַחֵם קַפְלַן; June 11, 1881 – November 8, 1983) was an American Conservative rabbi, writer, Jewish educator, professor, theologian-philosopher, activist, and religious leader who founded the Reconstructionist movement of Judaism with his son-in-law, Rabbi Ira Eisenstein. 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. == Early life and education == Mordecai Menahem Kaplan was born Mottel Kaplan in Sventiany in the Russian Empire (present-day Švenčionys in Lithuania) on June 11, 1881, the son of Haya (née Anna) and Rabbi Israel Kaplan. His father, who received semikhah (סְמִיכָה) by leading Lithuanian Jewish scholars, went to serve as a dayan (דַּיָּן, 'judge') in the court of Chief Rabbi Jacob Joseph in New York City in 1888. Mordecai was brought over to New York in 1889, at the age of nine. Although affiliated with the most traditional Orthodox Jewish institutions and personalities on 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 critic Arnold Ehrlich, withdrew his son from Etz Chaim Yeshiva in Manhattan, enrolled him in public school, and later sent him to the Jewish Theological Seminary of America (JTSA) to pursue modern Orthodox semikhah. 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. 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 Hebrew Bible). To counter this, Israel hired a tutor to study Maimonides's Guide for the Perplexed with Mordecai. In 1893, Kaplan began studying for ordination at JTSA, which, at that time, was a Modern Orthodox Jewish institution founded to strengthen Orthodoxy and combat the hegemony of Reform Judaism.
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