The American Story in the Responsa: She’eilos from the New World

“Zeh sefer toldos Adam—This is the book of the history of mankind.”

—Ramban to Bereishis 5:1

The history of Jews in America has been recorded in countless books, archives and scholarly journals. Already in 1892, the American Jewish Historical Society was founded to document the Jewish presence in the New World. Yet the Jewish people have always possessed another archive—one far older and often more revealing than formal histories. It sits not in libraries but in the beis midrash: the vast literature of She’eilos U’Teshuvos (rabbinic responsa). These volumes are more than collections of halachic rulings; they offer a window into the condition and character of the Torah Jew across the centuries.

Historically, when one had a Torah question beyond his expertise, it was sent to the Great Sanhedrin. Already in the era of the Geonim, these queries were directed to Mesopotamia. From the period of the Rishonim until today we have studied and preserved dispatches to and from countries including France, Spain, Iraq, China, and all regions in between. Reading through the responsa preserved in halachic literature, one begins to glimpse the struggles, the triumphs and the salvations of our people. Our sefarim have a story to tell.

America is no exception. Long before historians began chronicling American Jewish life, she’eilos from the New World were landing on the desks of Europe’s and the Ottoman Empire’s greatest poskim. Read carefully, and the responsa form an unexpected chronicle: the halachic history of American Jewry.

The She’eilos Begin

“I received a question from a far-off land, the kingdom of Brazil . . . which rests below the equator . . . .”

—She’eilos U’Teshuvos Toras Chaim, vol. 3, siman 3

Remarkably, we are as distant today from America’s founding—two-hundred-and-fifty years—as America’s founders were from the arrival of the first Jews to the New World, who came to South America in the early-to-mid 1500s (Adam Smith, The Wealth of Nations, Book IV, chap. 7). Some eighty years later, around 1630, the first kehillah began to flourish in Recife, Brazil. The unfamiliar environment posed halachic challenges, prompting them to reach out to rabbinic authorities abroad. These Jews may also have been the first to live below the equator, experiencing seasons reversed from the rest of world Jewry. This compelled them to send a letter to the great Rabbi Chaim Shabsei of Salonika (d. 1647), seeking guidance on whether and when to switch to “v’sein tal umatar,” a blessing in the weekday Shemoneh Esrei recited during the winter months to pray for rain.

This early question set the tone for the next four hundred years. Indeed, American Jewry would soon need to question the level of mesorah to ascribe to these early South American and Caribbean kehillos. For example, some seventy years after our country’s founding, in the 1840s, Jews were purchasing esrogim grown in and around the West Indies. The appearance of these esrogim differed somewhat from their European counterparts, and some questioned whether these were halachically viable. Rabbi Yaakov Ettlinger, the great German posek (d. 1871), went so far as to question whether European Jews could rely on any American esrogim. He stressed that the arba minim must be used (held) in the direction in which they grew, derech gedeilasan. From the perspective of one living in Europe, esrogim grown in America could be perceived as growing sideways and below [the equator] and therefore not be acceptable (Bikurei Yaakov, siman 568:13; he ultimately did not maintain this strict approach)!

Rabbi Ettlinger was a strong influence on the first Orthodox-ordained rabbi in America, Rabbi Abraham Rice of Baltimore. Ironically, Rabbi Rice publicly affirmed the kosher status of the Caribbean esrogim, writing in the Occident in April of 1847:

[T]ime is approaching when our yearly communications are made to the West Indies for the supply of Citrons, and I think it therefore my duty to state that these esrogim are kosher, and there cannot be found any word against them in all Rishonim, Acharonim and poskim. All rumors that were set afloat against the kashrus of these esrogim are founded in error and misinformation . . .

Rabbi Yissachar Dov (Bernard) Illowy, another early Orthodox-ordained rabbi in the US and prominent leader of Congregation Shangarai Chasset [also called Shaarei Chesed] in New Orleans from 1861 to 1865, disagreed. His son recounted (in his father’s biography, Milchemes Elokim): “In the year 1861 . . . the Ethrog that grew indigenously was found to be passul. In the emergency, my father decided that it should be used, but without the usual Berakhah, al netilas Lulav.”

Rabbi Illowy soon called upon European rabbanim regarding another matter related to early Caribbean kehillos. In New Orleans, Muscovy duck was a popular dish. The Shulchan Aruch clearly states that any bird without a mesorah must not be consumed (YD, siman 82). However, Rabbi Illowy wrote, the local chazzan explained that its mesorah rested on the practice of Jamaican Jewry, who had been consuming it for years.

Rabbi Illowy shared with his congregation: “Such a ‘mesorah’ does not allow us to permit this doubt. First, these [Caribbean Jewish] communities have never had a true musmach from a known beis din [yeshivah] . . .”

Rabbi Illowy turned to two of his European rebbeim, Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch and Chief Rabbi Nathan Adler of London (great-nephew of the more famous Rabbi Nosson Adler, rebbi of the Chasam Sofer¹). They concurred with their student’s pesak. Rabbi Hirsch wrote:

. . . [R]egarding the Muscovy duck . . . whose eggs are round and yellow/green . . . certainly you are correct that such a mesorah is unfounded, and that we would need a mesorah going back to early times . . . and even with a mesorah, since these eggs are round and discolored [this is a sign in and of itself that they are not kosher], and therefore such a mesorah would be an error . . .

Enter Shechitah

Questions pertaining to kashrus went beyond mesorah. Rabbi Yekusiel Yehudah Greenwald, who settled in the United States in 1924, where he served as the rabbi of a shul in New York and subsequently, of Congregation Beth Jacob in Columbus, Ohio, lamented the fragile state of Torah observance in the country in his HaShochet V’HaShechitah B’Sifrus HaRabbanus: “Here in our country, America . . . it is hard to find written recordings of these disagreements from our early [American] history regarding these halachic matters; this is likely due to them not having anyone worthy [local] to ask . . .”

Read carefully, and the responsa form an unexpected chronicle: the halachic history of American Jewry.

Expounding upon the lack of knowledgeable and reliable shochtim in America, he shared a stunning comment from a London rav in 1840 who wrote (Avraham Baharav, Beis Avraham):

I now wish to awaken the hearts of the Chareidim . . . there are people who do not even know more than one law [of shechitah], who can’t speak or understand lashon kodesh. Yet they learn these halachos in English by heart, and then embark for America to become “shochtim.” This [America] is a place where there is no rav, no talmid chacham, and no mashgiach who can watch over them.

Rabbi Greenwald then added: “However, as soon as learned rabbanim arrived here, fights broke out regarding the shochet and shechitah. The first reached all the way to Europe, in the year 1862 . . . .”

Rabbi Greenwald was referring to a controversy surrounding Rabbi Avraham Friedman, author of Chein Tov on shechitah, who arrived in the United States from Poland in 1860. Rabbi Friedman’s appearance was strikingly unfamiliar in America; his distinctive dress, flowing beard, and peyos led many to label him “the Baal Shem.”

One of the founders of the Beth Hamidrash Hagadol on Manhattan’s Lower East Side, Rabbi Abraham Joseph Ash, who arrived in 1851, proclaimed Rabbi Friedman’s shechitah unreliable. However, another prominent member of the shul, Rabbi Yudel Mittelman, stunned by this pesak, wrote to his rav back home, Rabbi Yosef Shaul Nathanson in Galicia, author of the renowned responsa Shoel U’Meishiv. Rabbi Nathanson responded together with his chavrusa, Rabbi Mordechai Zev Ettinger, expressing their support for Rav Yudel and the shochet (their sefer of teshuvos, Sheves Achim, was never published; see the postscript to Divrei Shaul, Shemos, for the tragic reason²). To defend his pesak, Rabbi Ash sent a she’eilah to Chief Rabbi Nathan Adler who confirmed that Rabbi Friedman’s shechitah had already been revoked in Europe.

From there, the controversy only deepened. In 1861, Rabbi Yosef Moshe Aronson arrived in New York. He conducted services at his home on East Broadway and was referred to by some of his followers as the “East Broadvayer Maggid.” In his sefer Mattei Moshe (which has a haskamah from Rabbi Moshe Yehoshua Yehuda Leib Diskin, the Maharil Diskin), he recorded:

. . . [S]oon after my arrival in New York, I discovered that in every city they eat veal from calves whose blood had been let while alive so that the meat would be smooth and white. They do this hours or even days before shechitah . . . in New York they accept it, largely due to Rav Friedman and Rav Mittelman, who seek heterim for all forbidden things . . .

Rabbi Aronson immediately wrote letters about this new practice—bleeding calves before slaughter in order to improve the appearance and marketability of the meat—to gedolim in Europe. Specifically, he wrote to Rabbi Shlomo Kluger (Shu”t Tuv Ta’am Vada’as 3:48), Rabbi Yaakov Tzvi Mecklenburg, known as the Kesav VeHakabbalah (Matteh Moshe 53), Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch, Rabbi Shmuel Salant (see the Mavo [preface] to HaShochet V’HaShechitah B’Sifrus HaRabbanus) and many others, all of whom largely agreed that such bloodletting was forbidden. The other side had their own supporters as well, including a pesak handed down from the Chasam Sofer and others.

Soon, Rabbi Mittelman’s rebbi, the Shoel U’Meishiv, withdrew his heter. In his final letter on the subject (see Chein Tov 48ff), he wrote of his desire not to get involved and pleads with both him and Rabbi Aronson: “[P]erhaps this land (America) cannot withstand both of you. . . .”

Churches and Pews

Still other questions arose. Beth Hamidrash Hagadol was founded in the summer of 1852 at 83 Bayard Street. By 1858, the rav of the shul, Rabbi Ash, had learned of a church for sale that could accommodate the congregation’s growing numbers. Seeking guidance on the halachic implications of converting a church into a shul, he sent a she’eilah to Rabbi Yaakov Ettlinger, the chief rabbi of Altona (Hamburg) at the time. Rabbi Ettlinger responded that while one should generally be machmir, and avoid using such a building for a shul, in cases of pressing need, exceptions could be made (Shu”t Binyan Tzion 63).

By then, many churches had adopted family seating. Purchasing a church meant acquiring its pews, fixtures and seating layout. For some congregations, leaving that setup unchanged was far easier—and far less expensive—than reconstructing a new interior.

This is what had occurred seven years earlier in Albany, New York. In 1851, thirty-two-year-old Isaac Mayer Wise—who would later become a leading voice of American Reform Judaism—purchased a church and introduced the world to a synagogue without a mechitzah. He wrote in his autobiography: “American Judaism is indebted to the Anshe Emeth congregation of Albany for one important reform; viz., family pews. The church building had family pews, and the congregation resolved unanimously to retain them” (Isaac M. Wise, Reminiscences [Cincinnati: Leo Wise and Company, 1901], 212, https://collections.americanjewisharchives.org/wise/attachment/5306/reminiscences.pdf).

Even European Reformers took note of this dramatic break with tradition. Jonathan Sarna, professor emeritus of American Jewish history at Brandeis University, explains that they viewed the move toward mixed seating as “. . . following the ways of the Gentiles!” (“The Debate Over Mixed Seating in the American Synagogue,” in The American Synagogue: A Sanctuary Transformed, ed. Jack Wertheimer [Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988], 363–94; n. 26).

European Gedolim and American Reform

The response of European gedolim to the early American reformations was sharp and swift, best illustrated by Charleston’s Congregation Beth Elohim. Its Reform-minded members founded the Reformed Society of Israelites in 1825, advocating revision of the “Maimonidean [Rambam’s] creed,” “worship without hats,” and even the addition of “instrumental music” on Shabbos.

The traditionalists in the congregation retained influence for several decades, but tensions escalated when a new chazzan had to be hired. During this period, the Reformers gained support from the Hungarian Rabbi Aaron Chorin, a former student of the Noda B’Yehudah who, unfortunately, embraced Reform. Chorin responded: “. . . It is not only permissible, but obligated, to free the worship-rituals from its adhesions . . .”

Traditionalists countered by appealing to European gedolim. In the sefer Eleh Divrei HaBris, published by the beis din of Hamburg, gedolim such as the Chasam Sofer and the Nesivos Hamishpat (Rabbi Yaakov of Lissa) forcefully reject these innovations, decrying the emerging concept of the “Temple.”

Woven into the challenges and difficulties of transplanting Torah to new soil, there was also a deep and abiding sense of appreciation for the blessings and freedoms of life in the New World.

Slavery and Intermarriage

We have presented above but a sampling of the rabbinic literature that emerged from early America. While this account of American halachic history is far from comprehensive, mention must be made of the following other matters of import:

For example, on the issue of slavery, Rabbi Hirsch wrote:

No Jew could make any other human being into a slave. He could only acquire, by purchase, people, who by the then-universally accepted international law, were already slaves. But [for] this transference into the property of a Jew was the one and only salvation for anybody. . . . The terribly sad experiences of the last century, Union, Jamaica 1865, teach us how completely unprotected and liable to the most inhuman treatment was the slave who in accordance with the national law was not emancipated, and even when emancipated, where he was, looked upon as still belonging to the slave class, or as a freed slave . . . . (Shemos 12:43–44, The Hirsch Chumash, 1976 ed.; cf. Rambam, chap. 8, “Hilchos Avadim”)

At the height of America’s slavery tensions, Rabbi Morris Yaakov Raphall, of B’nai Jeshurun on Green Street in lower Manhattan, an ardent Unionist, wrote a treatise on the matter:

The learned sage delved deep into the Hebrew Bible, citing the books of Leviticus, Deuteronomy, Job and even Exodus before concluding that “slaveholding is not only recognized and sanctioned as an integral part of the social structure . . . [but] the property in slaves is placed under the same protection as any other species of lawful property.”

Nevertheless, Rabbi Raphall also found reason to criticize American slaveholders. “According to the Bible,” he said, “The slave is a person in whom the dignity of human nature is to be respected; he has rights. Whereas, the heathen view of slavery which . . . I am sorry to say, is adopted in the South, reduces the slave to a thing, and a thing can have no rights” (quoted in Adam Goodheart, “The Rabbi and the Rebellion,” New York Times, March 7, 2011).

This same Rabbi Raphall fought valiantly to publicly expose the leaders of the new American Reform movement. In Charleston, South Carolina, he famously challenged his interlocutor to publicly declare his belief in fundamental Jewish principles—the coming of Mashiach and in techias hameisim (he sadly refused to do so).

Congregants in a shul in St. Paul, Missouri, sent him a she’eilah asking if a man married to a Christian woman may be counted in their minyan. In his teshuvah, he stated: “I beg to say that no congregation will receive a member or admit to the sefer [Torah, i.e., an aliyah] or for any devar shebekedushah a man who is married to a non-Israelite . . . .”

Yiddish, Rambam and Hakaras Hatov

Woven into the challenges and difficulties of transplanting Torah to new soil, there was also a deep and abiding sense of appreciation for the blessings and freedoms of life in the New World.

Jonas Phillips (d. 1803), a founder of the famed Mikveh Israel synagogue in Philadelphia, served valiantly in the American Revolutionary War. On July 28, 1776, he sent a letter from Philadelphia to someone in Amsterdam, describing the war—and included the entire Declaration of Independence in Yiddish!

His letter reflected a deep desire to share both the joy of American independence and the freedoms it brought with the Jews remaining in Europe. Centuries later, this spirit of gratitude and observance continues to resonate.

It is therefore fitting to conclude with a rabbinical writing of a different kind. In 1620, the pilgrims on the Mayflower, fleeing persecution in England, arrived safely to the New World, and read Psalm 107. William Bradford, future governor of Plymouth Colony, led the prayer of thanks to G-d, which was recited from a Bible with the annotations of a Puritan scholar Henry Ainsworth (1571–1622).

Bradford and the pilgrims prayed the following text:

And from this Psalme, and this verse of it, the Hebrues have this Canon; Foure must confess (unto G-d): the sick, when he is healed; the prisoner when he is released out of bonds; they that goe down to sea, when they are come up (to land); and wayfaring men, when they are come to the inhabited land. And they must make confession before ten men, and two of them wise men.

The Psalm the pilgrims recited speaks of four individuals who “owe thanks to the Lord” for being saved from dire situations: those who emerge safely from a journey through the desert, those who were imprisoned and released, those who recover from serious illness, and those who sail across the sea and reach dry land. In his commentary, Ainsworth notes that Psalm 107 serves as the basis of the Jewish law requiring a public declaration of thanks to G-d upon being saved from a potentially life-threatening situation—including after safe passage across the ocean. He cites his source by name: Rambam, who incorporated the halachah into his Yad Hachazakah.

Bradford and his fellow passengers took the Jewish law seriously. Once they disembarked, the pilgrims made sure to give public thanks.

America indeed released our nation—and countless others—from bonds and from the sea. May it continue to serve as a Divine agent for good, sustaining both our physical security and spiritual continuity.

Notes

1. Being that Chief Rabbi Nathan Adler’s pedigree is often recorded ambiguously, allow me to share the following excerpt from a speech delivered by his son, Marcus Nathan Adler, on June 6, 1909 (Rabbi Nathan Adler’s other son was the then-serving chief rabbi of the British Empire, Rabbi Hermann Adler).

The title for his lecture was “The Adler Family,” and it was contemporaneously printed:

My father used to tell of a tradition which was current in our family that our ancestors came to Europe from the Isle of Crete, and his revered grand-uncle, the so-called ha’nesher, ha’gadol, ha’chassid, the pious Rabbi Nathan Adler, who was not given to saying or doing things lightly, avowed himself “M’zerah yichusei kehunah, baal Yalkut Shimoni [a descendant of the author of the Yalkut Shimoni, an accredited priest.” (See: https://archive.org/details/adlerfamilyaddre00adleiala/page/6/mode/2up.)

2. For the full details behind their split, and how that machlokes would soon arrive to America, see: https://shulchronicles.com/2025/08/26/the-complete-history-of-machine-matza-matzo/.

Rabbi Moshe Taub is the author of Jews in the New World: History, Halachah, and Hashkafah (Beit Shemesh: Mosaica Press, 2024). He is the rabbi of Young Israel of Holliswood/Holliswood Jewish Center in Queens, New York, and serves as Ami Magazine’s rabbinical editor.