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 Hybrid Judaism
Irving Greenberg, Encounter, and the
Changing Nature of American Jewish Identity
Copyright © 2016. Academic Studies Press. All rights reserved.

Kleinberg, Darren. Hybrid Judaism : Irving Greenberg, Encounter, and the Changing Nature of American Jewish Identity, Academic
 Studies in Orthodox Judaism

Series Editor: Marc B. Shapiro (University of Scranton, Scranton,

Pennsylvania)

Editorial Board
Alan Brill (Seton Hall University, South Orange, New Jersey)
Benjamin Brown (Hebrew University, Jerusalem)
David Ellenson (Hebrew Union College, New York)
Adam S. Ferziger (Bar-Ilan University, Ramat Gan)
Miri Freud-Kandel (University of Oxford, Oxford)
Jeffrey Gurock (Yeshiva University, New York)
Shlomo Tikoshinski (Jerusalem Institute for Israel Studies, Jerusalem)
Copyright © 2016. Academic Studies Press. All rights reserved.

Kleinberg, Darren. Hybrid Judaism : Irving Greenberg, Encounter, and the Changing Nature of American Jewish Identity, Academic
 Hybrid Judaism
Irving Greenberg, Encounter, and the
Changing Nature of American
Jewish Identity

DARREN KLEINBERG
Copyright © 2016. Academic Studies Press. All rights reserved.

Boston
2016

Kleinberg, Darren. Hybrid Judaism : Irving Greenberg, Encounter, and the Changing Nature of American Jewish Identity, Academic
 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Kleinberg, Darren, 1976-author.

Title: Hybrid Judaism: Irving Greenberg, encounter, and the changing
nature of American Jewish identity / Darren Kleinberg.
Description: Boston: Academic Studies Press, 2016.
Series: Studies in Orthodox Judaism series | Includes bibliographical
references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2016037875 (print) | LCCN 2016040741 (ebook) |
ISBN 9781618115454 (hardcover) | ISBN 9781618115461 (e-book)
Subjects: LCSH: Greenberg, Irving, 1933- | Rabbis—United States—­
Biography. | Multiculturalism—Religious aspects—Judaism. |
Multiculturalism—United States. | Orthodox Judaism—United States—
History—20th century. | Orthodox Judaism—United States—
History—21st century. | Judaism—20th century. | Judaism—
21st century. | Judaism—Essence, genius, nature.
Classification: LCC BM755.G74 K54 2016 (print) | LCC BM755.G74
(ebook) | DDC 296.8/32092 [B]—dc23 LC record available at https://
lccn.loc.gov/2016037875

ISBN 978-1-61811-545-4 (hardback)

ISBN 978-1-61811-546-1 (electronic)
©Academic Studies Press, 2016

Book design by Kryon Publishing

Copyright © 2016. Academic Studies Press. All rights reserved.

www.kryonpublishing.com
Cover design by Ivan Grave

Published by Academic Studies Press

28 Montfern Avenue
Brighton, MA 02135, USA
[email protected]
www.academicstudiespress.com

Kleinberg, Darren. Hybrid Judaism : Irving Greenberg, Encounter, and the Changing Nature of American Jewish Identity, Academic
 For Rav Yitz
Copyright © 2016. Academic Studies Press. All rights reserved.

Kleinberg, Darren. Hybrid Judaism : Irving Greenberg, Encounter, and the Changing Nature of American Jewish Identity, Academic
 Contents

Acknowledgments vii
Preface xi
Introduction xv

PARTI

CHAPTER 1 Irving Greenberg and the Changing

American Jewish Landscape 01
CHAPTER 2 The Study and Reality of Religion in America 20
CHAPTER 3 The Arc, Part 1: From Melting Pot to
Triple Melting Pot 32
CHAPTER 4 The Arc, Part 2: From Multiculturalism
to Postethnicity 50

P A R T II

CHAPTER 5 Greenberg Encounters the Holocaust 63

Copyright © 2016. Academic Studies Press. All rights reserved.

CHAPTER 6 Dialogue: Greenberg’s Christian Influences 77

CHAPTER 7 Klal Yisrael 92
CHAPTER 8 The Open Society 102
CHAPTER 9 The Image of God and Hybrid Judaism 114

Conclusion 125
Bibliography 127
Index 138

Kleinberg, Darren. Hybrid Judaism : Irving Greenberg, Encounter, and the Changing Nature of American Jewish Identity, Academic
 Acknowledgments

Although I was not aware of it at the time, this book had its genesis
on the evening of May 8, 2003. That was the date on which I first met
Irving Greenberg.1 Toward the end of my second year as a rabbinical
student at the fledgling Yeshivat Chovevei Torah in New York City,
three optional after-hours sessions were scheduled with Greenberg
on the subject of Judaism and Sexuality. I was not familiar with
Greenberg, but the fact that these sessions were not part of the regu-
larly scheduled program alerted me to the possibility that he was a
controversial figure in the Orthodox world. It was during these
sessions that I was exposed to aspects of Greenberg’s theology and
how he applied it, in this case with regard to intimate relations.
At the end of the first session, I shared a taxi back to Riverdale, where
Greenberg and I both lived, and began to develop a profoundly
important relationship with him. Of the many rabbinic mentors
I have had, it is Greenberg alone who has unfailingly embodied his
own teachings and values. A man of extraordinary compassion and
empathy, matched only by his penetrating intellect, Greenberg
Copyright © 2016. Academic Studies Press. All rights reserved.

remains the most influential mentor in my life to this day. Even as

I left Orthodoxy, Greenberg remained an ally and a friend. Thirteen
years after that first encounter, I acknowledge the many gifts I have
received from Irving Greenberg during that time, not least of all the
inspiration to complete this project.
There are a great many others who deserve recognition, without
whom this project would never have come to fruition. First and

1 Greenberg is known almost universally simply as “Yitz”; however, I have chosen to

use his formal name throughout the book.

Kleinberg, Darren. Hybrid Judaism : Irving Greenberg, Encounter, and the Changing Nature of American Jewish Identity, Academic
 Acknowledgments

foremost, I want to thank the good people at Academic Studies

Press, who made a dream come true when they invited me to publish
with them. Specifically, my thanks go to the Jewish Studies Acquisition
Editor, Gregg Stern, and to the editor of the Studies in Orthodox
Judaism series, Marc B. Shapiro.
This book is a reworking of my doctoral thesis, which was
submitted and defended at the end of 2014. Singular thanks go to
my doctoral advisor, Joel Gereboff. In 2009, when Joel was still the
Chair of the Religious Studies Department at Arizona State University,
he encouraged me to consider applying to graduate school. Despite
my lack of an undergraduate degree, Dr. Gereboff worked with me
to produce a portfolio and make the case to the graduate admissions
department. My sincere thanks go to Arizona State University (Go
Devils!) for considering my application and making the highly
unorthodox decision to enroll me in the doctoral program in the
Religious Studies department.
During my time at ASU, and in addition to Dr. Gereboff, I worked
closest with Tracy Fessenden and Moses Moore. My courses with each
of them broadened and deepened my understanding of religion in
America, and sharpened my focus around questions of pluralism and
postethnicity. They ultimately agreed to serve as members of my
doctoral committee. I will forever be in their debt for the time and
energy they invested in my growth as a student and scholar.
After the completion of my doctorate, I considered the possi-
bility of turning my thesis into a book. I have been blessed with
Copyright © 2016. Academic Studies Press. All rights reserved.

extraordinary friends, colleagues, and mentors who willingly gave of

their time to review my thesis and make recommendations. Marc
Dollinger and David Ellenson readily agreed to read the entire thesis,
providing copious feedback and direction for how to transform my
thesis into a book. Their honesty and clarity helped me quickly
realize how much work I had ahead of me. In addition, Jack
Wertheimer read the thesis chapter that surveyed American Jewish
history and saved me from what would have been some rather embar-
rassing errors. Ari Kelman also took time to read an edited version of
the manuscript in toto and presented me with characteristically

viii

Kleinberg, Darren. Hybrid Judaism : Irving Greenberg, Encounter, and the Changing Nature of American Jewish Identity, Academic
 Acknowledgments

thoughtful feedback. I feel exceedingly lucky to call each of them

colleagues and friends, and am grateful for their time and dedication.
Of course, any errors that have remained in the manuscript are
utterly my own.
I am additionally thankful to David Ellenson for recommending
that I contact Elisheva Urbas to help me reorganize the thesis into a
more readable narrative. Elisheva is a gifted editor, who provided
critical guidance to generate a more workable outline for the book.
Without her input, I am not sure the book would have made it to
this point. I also want to thank Eileen Wolfberg for putting the
finishing touches on the manuscript to prepare it for publication.
During the summer of 2014, I was lucky enough to be invited to
participate in the Oxford Summer Institute in Modern and
Contemporary Judaism. For ten days, some of the most respected
scholars of Judaism gathered in the idyllic location of Yarnton
Manor to consider “Modern Orthodoxy and the Road Not Taken:
A Critical Exploration of Questions Arising from the Thought of
Rabbi Dr. Irving ‘Yitz’ Greenberg.” The conference presented a
unique opportunity to discuss many of the ideas presented in this
book and consider many others besides. My thanks go to the conve-
ners, Adam Ferziger and Miri Freud-Kandel, for extending the
invitation to participate in the conference. Thanks also go to the
other participants: Sylvia Barack Fishman, Steven Bayme, Alan Brill,
Arye Edrei, Zev Farber, Michael Fishbane, Martin Goodman, Blu
Greenberg, Irving Greenberg, Samuel Heilman, Alan Jotkowitz,
Copyright © 2016. Academic Studies Press. All rights reserved.

Steven Katz, James Kugel, Melissa Raphael, Tamar Ross, Marc

Shapiro, Margie Tolstoy, and Jack Wertheimer.
It was at the Oxford gathering that I was lucky enough to meet
Aryeh Rubin, a former student of Greenberg’s. I am gratified to
acknowledge the support of Targum Shlishi, a Raquel and Aryeh
Rubin Foundation, for their generous contribution toward the
publication of this book.
In many cases, writing a doctoral thesis is a solitary act. For me,
I was lucky that a rabbinical school classmate and dear friend was
also working toward a PhD, with Greenberg as a research focus. I am

ix

Kleinberg, Darren. Hybrid Judaism : Irving Greenberg, Encounter, and the Changing Nature of American Jewish Identity, Academic
 Acknowledgments

thankful to Josh Feigelson for his friendship and his willingness to

share ideas freely on a subject about which we both care deeply.
There have also been close friends who have taken an interest
in my work and have read drafts of the manuscript and provided
valuable feedback. In particular, I want to thank my dear friends Mari
Chernow, Aaron Hahn Tapper, Sander Nassan, and Elana Storch for
their thoughtful reactions to my work.
Most important of all has been my family. Despite a great many
missed Sundays and a few missed vacations, my wife, Debra, and
our daughters, Laila and Talia, have supported my efforts without
question. Without their willingness to make space for me to do this
work, it would never have come to completion. I am not sure it is a
debt that can be repaid, but I will certainly try.
I used to think that I was writing this book to explain my world
to our daughters. I have recently come to the realization that, in fact,
I have been writing it to explain their world to us.
Copyright © 2016. Academic Studies Press. All rights reserved.

Kleinberg, Darren. Hybrid Judaism : Irving Greenberg, Encounter, and the Changing Nature of American Jewish Identity, Academic
 Preface

It’s a challenge to navigate identity. What Israel Zangwill offered as a

rather simplistic melting pot metaphor describing how peoples and
their cultures integrated into a new composite America developed some
years later into Horace Kallen’s orchestra, a pluralist approach that
celebrated each sound in a way that strengthened the nation for its
cultural differences. In contemporary America, neither of those
approaches to describing identity pass muster. The melting pot
demands the end of distinctiveness since everyone must give up the
Old World to become part of the amalgamated new nation. The
orchestra, while celebrated in theory, favors the cultural mores of
the dominant group at the expense of minorities. To dramatize the
point: which ethnic group gets to be the culture-defining tuba in the
orchestra and which must be relegated to status as a lowly flute,
struggling to have its contribution recognized?
In recent years, scholars have advanced a variety of new models
to better understand the contours of identity. “Postethnicity,” for
example, asks us to look beyond the timetables of the early theorists
Copyright © 2016. Academic Studies Press. All rights reserved.

and imagine identity along a much longer chronology. Others reject

the very constructs of identity, describing it all as “the invention of
ethnicity.” In today’s headlines, we read about intersectionality, the
notion that each of us lives a variety of identities simultaneously.
Sometimes they exist in conflict with one another and at all times
our multi-identified selves force us to imagine new ways of under-
standing and describing who we are, what we believe, and why.
As Darren Kleinberg explains in Hybrid Judaism: Irving Greenberg,
Encounter, and the Changing Nature of American Jewish Identity,
these seemingly secular concepts of identity resonate within the

Kleinberg, Darren. Hybrid Judaism : Irving Greenberg, Encounter, and the Changing Nature of American Jewish Identity, Academic
 Preface

theological and sociological experiences of American Jews. To better

articulate models of ethnicity, he argues, we must examine American
Judaism as a gateway that offers vital new insights into our sense of
individual identity and its impact on larger questions of intergroup
relations. For Kleinberg, this exciting new model of ethnic identity
grew from the thinking and writing of his mentor, Rabbi Irving
Greenberg. “Yitz,” as he is known to all, dove into these questions more
than half a century ago, fashioning novel understandings of identity
that sought to reconcile some of the most challenging identity-based
questions in both American and Jewish life. While his work predates
the term, Yitz lives an intersectional existence. Greenberg, a tradi-
tion-bound Jew with a Ph.D. in history from Harvard University,
wrestles with how these different identities intersect, especially in a
post-Shoah world. What a remarkable journey it has been.
Greenberg embodies what anthropologists call liminality, an
in-between ritual moment during a person’s transition from one
sociological space to another. Applied more broadly, liminality has
also been employed to describe a person who enjoys the rewards of
simultaneous membership in more than one cultural group, yet, as
a consequence, can never enjoy complete access to either. Greenberg’s
life journey, then, proves liminal. A modern Orthodox Jew, he cannot
enjoy modernity to its fullest extent because of his observance of
Jewish law. Complete adherence to traditional Judaism, in a similar
way, remains elusive as long as he chooses to interact in the modern
world. Many of his teachings, as a consequence, brought scrutiny
Copyright © 2016. Academic Studies Press. All rights reserved.

from his rabbinical colleagues fearful that he went too far. His deci-
sion to maintain a primary identity as rabbi precluded an academic
career typical of Harvard doctoral graduates.
In that space between Jewish tradition and modern America, in
that tension and drama, Greenberg got to work. Liminality, it turns
out, offers insights available only to those navigating between cultures.
From his platform, Greenberg opined on the essential theological
relationship between Judaism and Christianity, on the influence of
modern America to the traditional world, on the horrors of the Shoah
and its reframe of the cosmos. He can offer these perspectives in

xii

Kleinberg, Darren. Hybrid Judaism : Irving Greenberg, Encounter, and the Changing Nature of American Jewish Identity, Academic
 Preface

ways his predecessors could not because he trespassed identity

bounds at each and every possible moment.
And so did Kleinberg. A student of Greenberg’s, Kleinberg’s ode
to his mentor grows from his own journey through the spaces
between cultures. Born and raised a secular Jew in London, Kleinberg
rebelled against the culture of his youth, eschewing the university
pathway in favor of a yeshiva experience in Israel that led to a four-
year immersion in the tradition-bound Orthodox world of Eretz
Yisrael. While the ba’al teshuvah pathway is not so unusual, Kleinberg
elevated his with his own, sometimes intense, liminal experience.
Navigating between a secular upbringing that lacked a passion for
Judaism and an adult life in haredi and Modern Orthodox Judaism
that seemed far too rote, Kleinberg eventually landed as a student in
the second-ever graduating class of Yeshivat Chovevei Torah, New
York’s liberal Orthodox rabbinical school. There, seeking a via media
between the cultures that defined his life, Kleinberg met Greenberg,
who would emerge as his most-important teacher, mentor, and
friend. Greenberg helped shape the contours of Kleinberg’s then-
emerging theology, understandings of Judaism, and its application
in American life. In the years that followed, Kleinberg applied his
secular adolescence and impressive understanding of text and tradi-
tion to his Greenberg apprenticeship, wrestling with the most
essential questions about what Jewishness and Americanness mean.
Kleinberg’s journey eventually brought him out of Orthodoxy
and, in a fitting reverse parallel to his mentor’s path, into his own
Copyright © 2016. Academic Studies Press. All rights reserved.

Ph.D. program at a secular American university. This book, the

product of those doctoral studies at Arizona State University, details
the life of Yitz Greenberg as it, in its very creation, reflects as well the
pathway of his student, Darren Kleinberg. Hybrid Judaism, then,
when read with an understanding of the story behind its creation,
mirrors itself. It is the story of a teacher, an Orthodox Jew who dove
into secularity, written by his student, a secular Jew who embraced
Jewish tradition.
To read this work, then, is to watch three streams intersect:
the life of Greenberg, the life of Kleinberg, and the overlay of the

xiii

Kleinberg, Darren. Hybrid Judaism : Irving Greenberg, Encounter, and the Changing Nature of American Jewish Identity, Academic
 Preface

last 50 years of American Jewish life and theology. It is a treat and

it offers its readers a deep dive into the most fundamental and
the most complex questions that animate all who think about
ethnicity, about theology, and about what it means to identify as
an American Jew.

Marc Dollinger
San Francisco State University
Copyright © 2016. Academic Studies Press. All rights reserved.

xiv

Kleinberg, Darren. Hybrid Judaism : Irving Greenberg, Encounter, and the Changing Nature of American Jewish Identity, Academic
 Introduction

The American Jewish community is changing. In simple terms,

Judaism today is but one choice among an almost endless list of
available identities. One way of understanding this change is rooted
in the writings of the central personality of this study, Rabbi Dr. Irving
Greenberg. In 1974, Greenberg presented the opening paper at the
International Symposium on the Holocaust, held at the Cathedral
of Saint John the Divine, in New York City. The paper was subse-
quently published in a volume entitled Auschwitz: Beginning of a
New Era? Reflections on the Holocaust (1977). Greenberg’s chapter,
“Cloud of Smoke, Pillar of Fire: Judaism, Christianity, and Modernity
after the Holocaust,” represents his “most important statement on
the subject” of the Holocaust (Katz, “Irving,” 62). In the fourth
section of the essay, addressing “Jewish Theological Responses to the
Holocaust,” Greenberg introduced his original concept of Moment
Faiths. Extending Martin Buber’s notion of “moment gods,”1 Greenberg
wrote that a full realization of the horrors of the Holocaust had to
“end[] the easy dichotomy of atheist/theist . . .,” and that, in a
Copyright © 2016. Academic Studies Press. All rights reserved.

post-Holocaust age, “We now have to speak of ‘moment faiths,’

moments when Redeemer and vision of redemption are present,
interspersed with times when the flames and smoke of the burning
children blot out faith—though it flickers again” (Greenberg, “Cloud
of Smoke,” 27). In a post-Holocaust era, Greenberg declared, faith
in God could only be fleeting.

1 Greenberg explained Buber in this way: “God is known only at the moment when
Presence and awareness are fused in vital life. This knowledge is interspersed with
moments when only natural, self-contained, routine existence is present.”
(Greenberg, “Cloud of Smoke” 27).

Kleinberg, Darren. Hybrid Judaism : Irving Greenberg, Encounter, and the Changing Nature of American Jewish Identity, Academic
 Introduction

Today, more than 40 years after the symposium, and more than
70 years after the end of the Second World War, American Jews are in
a different “moment.” Rather than moment gods or moment faiths,
the twenty-first-century American Jewish reality is one of Moment
Judaisms. In this coinage, the plural form “Judaisms” is intended to
indicate the very real distinctions between the many different expres-
sions of Judaism across the American Jewish landscape.2 The sheer
variety of Jewish behaviors, rituals, and social mores demands an
acknowledgment of the plurality of Jewishness and Judaisms.
Furthermore, the simple fact that some will deny that other self-iden-
tified Jews are members of the same religious community demands
that we cannot but think of Judaism in plural terms.3
In addition to highlighting the plurality of contemporary
American Jewish life, it is also my contention that contemporary
Judaisms are “momentary.” The intent here is to recognize the
impact of increasingly complex individual and group identities in
the American Jewish context. For an increasing number of American
Jews, the many Judaisms from which to choose are only some of the
various identities that are available for adoption and that contribute
to the complex identity politics of postethnic America. David
Hollinger has described identity in postethnic America as no longer
inherited, singular, or fixed, but rather voluntary, overlapping, and
dynamic. As such, postethnicity has very real implications for Jewish
identity in the twenty-first century. As Shaul Magid has written, in an
era of postethnicity, “. . . American Jews are multiethnic. For many of
Copyright © 2016. Academic Studies Press. All rights reserved.

them, being Jewish is one part of a more complex narrative of

2 The same might be said for world Jewry; however, my work addresses only the
American Jewish experience.
3 For example, according to the interpretation of Jewish law (halachah) recognized by
most members of the Orthodox community, one can only claim Jewish status if one
has a halachically Jewish biological mother or if one has completed a religious
conversion according to Orthodox standards. As such, those Reform Jews that have
a Jewish father and a non-Jewish mother, or that convert to Judaism according to
non-Orthodox standards, are not considered Jewish by most members of the
Orthodox community. Therefore, it is appropriate to describe the Orthodox and
Reform Jewish communities as representing distinct Judaisms.

xvi

Kleinberg, Darren. Hybrid Judaism : Irving Greenberg, Encounter, and the Changing Nature of American Jewish Identity, Academic
 Introduction

identity” (Magid, American Post-Judaism, 11). These plural and momen-

tary qualities call our attention to the fact that the nature and
meaning of American Jewish identity—of American Moment
Judaisms—is being renegotiated in the twenty-first century.
Rather than merely attempting to describe the changing nature
of American Jewish identity, I will also offer a theological viewpoint
that welcomes and embraces, rather than rejects, the changes I will
outline. At the heart of this book is an appreciation and exploration
of the theological contributions of Irving Greenberg. The postethnic
reality that David Hollinger described in sociological terms was
powerfully anticipated and conveyed in the language of theology by
Greenberg. I have called Greenberg’s theology of encounter Hybrid
Judaism. Although not a biography, per se, I will also draw on
important biographical episodes in Greenberg’s life to provide
important context for the development and culmination of his
theology of Hybrid Judaism. Before fully introducing this concept, it
is important to define some key terms.

Encounter and Identity

Encounter and identity are key terms that are interconnected and
require definition. Simply put, encounter refers to interactions that
result in a transformation of identity. Such transformations can be
the result of encounters with individuals or groups, and sometimes
as a result of encounters with ideas or past historical events. As we
Copyright © 2016. Academic Studies Press. All rights reserved.

shall see later,4 for Greenberg, encounter is also a theological term

that refers to interactions that are informed by recognition that
human beings are created in the image of God. Whether understood
sociologically or theologically, encounter is central to our under-
standing of the changing landscape of identity.
As David Hollinger has suggested, the word “identity” is less
than ideal. In Hollinger’s words, “the concept of identity is more

4 See Part II, Chapter 9.

xvii

Kleinberg, Darren. Hybrid Judaism : Irving Greenberg, Encounter, and the Changing Nature of American Jewish Identity, Academic
 Introduction

psychological than social, and it can hide the extent to which the
achievement of identity is a social process by which a person
becomes affiliated with one or more acculturating cohorts”
(Hollinger, Postethnic America, 6). Hollinger’s point, that individ-
uals become affiliated with groups (i.e., they adopt identities) as a
result of a social process, is of central importance. Throughout this
book, the term “identity” is intended to refer to an individual’s
affiliation, and thus sense of identification, with a given group—
whether religious, cultural, ethnic, or any other—that results from
socialization with that group. This emphasis on affiliation “calls
attention to the social dynamics” that are involved in the achieve-
ment of identity (Hollinger, Postethnic America, 6). As a result,
identity may be comprised of multiple affiliations with a variety of
social groups. This is a critically important realization in the age of
postethnicity.
Regarding the changing nature of American Jewish identity,
intermarriage must be acknowledged as the most significant of
social encounters contributing to the rise of Moment Judaisms. The
Pew survey, A Portrait of Jewish Americans (2013), showed that in the
1970s more than a third of the marriages of American Jews were to
a non-Jewish spouse and that, since the second half of the 1990s,
the percentage had risen to more than half. These couples, and the
offspring that are raised by them, have increasingly complex identi-
ties that are informed by the various religious, cultural, and ethnic
ties that intersect their family lives. Shaul Magid5 has proposed that
Copyright © 2016. Academic Studies Press. All rights reserved.

5 Magid is the first scholar to pay significant attention to “[American] Judaism in

an increasingly postethnic world, a world where identities are mixed . . . . . . ”
(Magid, American Post-Judaism, 5). In addition to Magid’s assessment of American
Judaism in an age of postethnicity, he also makes the case for the Jewish Renewal
movement and its founding figure, Rabbi Zalman Schachter-Shalomi, as repre-
senting a path for “‘Jewish’ survival in such a shifting society” (Magid, American
Post-Judaism, 2). While I am generally in agreement with Magid’s assessment of
the meaning of American Judaism in an age of postethnicity (notwithstanding
the distinction I draw above), it is my contention that Irving Greenberg’s life and
work are more accessible to a broader cross-section of American Jewry than are
Schachter-Shalomi’s, whose worldview—and the Renewal movement that

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the changing nature of Judaism in America “is only partly the conse-
quence of the empirical nature of intermarriage.” According to
Magid, “It is also the consequence of the changing nature of identity
in America, moving from the inherited to the constructed or
performed” (Magid, American Post-Judaism, 2). In contrast to Magid’s
claim, I am proposing that the changing nature of identity that he
has highighted is precisely the result of increasing social encounters
across group lines, with intermarriage being the most significant
example. When the influence of high rates of intermarriage is
accounted for alongside a wide variety of Jewish beliefs and prac-
tices, as well as differing standards for claiming personal status as a
Jew, it becomes clear that we need to develop a more thoughtful and
nuanced way of thinking about American Jewish identity in the
twenty-first century.

Hybridity
In 2007, the Spertus Museum in Chicago took a step in the right
direction when it hosted a groundbreaking exhibit entitled The New
Authentics: Artists of the Post-Jewish Generation. The accompanying
volume opened with an essay from curator Staci Boris, in which she
wrote that “Post-Jewish . . . takes its cues from postmodernism—a
pervasive if highly contested state of cultural affairs in which all
notions of purity and certainty (modernism’s key values) are rejected
in favor of hybridity and relativity” (Boris, The New Authentics, 20).
Copyright © 2016. Academic Studies Press. All rights reserved.

As the ensuing chapters of this book will demonstrate, it is the

quality of hybridity that distinguishes contemporary Moment

followed from it—is appealing to a much more rarefied group. For an important
discussion of Magid’s book, see Allan Arkush, “All-American, Post-Everything,”
Jewish Review of Books, Fall 2013, https://jewishreviewofbooks.com/articles/473/
all-american-post-everything/; Shaul Magid, “’Why Bother?’ A Response,” Jewish
Review of Books, August 29, 2013, https://jewishreviewofbooks.com/articles/545/
why-bother-a-response/; and Allan Arkush, “’Why Bother?’ A Rejoinder,” Jewish
Review of Books, August 29, 2013, http://jewishreviewofbooks.com/articles/543/
why-bother-a-rejoinder/.+

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Judaisms from earlier articulations of American Jewish identity.6

“Hybridity” is defined for my purposes as “Anything derived from
heterogeneous sources, or composed of different or incongruous
elements” (Oxford English Dictionary [OED]), and points to the afore-
mentioned impact of social mixing on identity formation.7

Pluralism
Pluralism is the final key term that requires definition. In a sense,
this book is as much a critique of pluralism as it is anything else.
It is my contention that pluralism is an outdated notion that has
been superseded by postethnicity. We will explore Horace Kallen’s
sociological concept of cultural pluralism in detail in Chapter 3
but, for the time being, a few introductory observations are in
order.
The earliest usage of the term “pluralism” dates back to the
eighteenth century and referred to the simultaneous holding of two
or more ecclesiastical offices by one cleric in the Church of England.
In this sense, it was seen as a corrupt institution in which “parishes,
or benefices, could be bought and sold to the highest bidder”
(Bender and Klassen, After Pluralism, 7). In addition to this ecclesi-
astical application, later usages of pluralism have fallen into the
philosophical, political, and sociological realms. Philosophically,
pluralism has been used to mean “that the world is made up of
more than one kind of substance or thing; (more generally) any
Copyright © 2016. Academic Studies Press. All rights reserved.

theory or system of thought which recognizes more than one irre-

ducible basic principle” (OED). This philosophical application of

6 Other works that have explored the changing nature of American Jewish identity
include the wide-ranging collection of essays edited by Vincent Brook, You Should
See Yourself: Jewish Identity in Postmodern American Culture (2006); Martin Jaffee’s
collection of short musings, The End of Jewish Radar: Snapshots of a Postethnic American
Judaism (2009); and Shaul Magid’s American Post-Judaism: Identity and Renewal in a
Postethnic Society (2013).
7 For a more heavily theoretical treatment of hybridity, see Homi K. Bhabha, The
Location of Culture (1994), and Robert J. C. Young, Colonial Desire: Hybridity in Theory,
Culture, and Race (1995).

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Kleinberg, Darren. Hybrid Judaism : Irving Greenberg, Encounter, and the Changing Nature of American Jewish Identity, Academic
 Introduction

pluralism is most often associated with Harvard philosopher

William James (1842–1910) and his 1909 Hibbert Lectures, later
published in the volume, A Pluralistic Universe. Politically, pluralism
has been understood as a “theory or system of devolution and
autonomy for organizations and individuals in preference to mono-
lithic state power” or “a political system within which many parties
or organizations have access to power” (OED). Of these three
usages—ecclesiastical, philosophical, and political—the first has
largely fallen out of use, with only the philosophical and political
senses of pluralism still being employed.8
Turning to the sociological meaning of pluralism, the Oxford
English Dictionary states its fourth definition of pluralism as: “The
presence or tolerance of a diversity of ethnic or cultural groups
within a society or state; (the advocacy of) toleration or acceptance
of the coexistence of differing views, values, cultures, etc.” (OED).
Within this definition are included both descriptive and prescriptive
qualities of pluralism. Descriptively, pluralism refers to the simple
fact that there is a plurality, a diversity, of peoples. Prescriptively, the
definition refers to “(the advocacy of) tolerance of a diversity of
ethnic or cultural groups within a society or state.”9 While “the pres-
ence or tolerance of a diversity of ethnic or cultural groups” is
descriptive, “(the advocacy of) tolerance . . .” prescribes, in Martin
Marty’s words, “ways of doing things about the diversities of constit-
uencies . . . or ways of thinking about and conceiving them” (Cohen
and Numbers, Gods in America, x).
Copyright © 2016. Academic Studies Press. All rights reserved.

8 For example, the political scientist, William E. Connolly, has published a philosoph-
ical work on the subject of pluralism. See William E. Connolly, Pluralism (Durham:
Duke University Press, 2005). On the political side see, for example, Thaddeus J.
Kozinski, The Political Problem of Religious Pluralism: And Why Philosophers Can’t Solve
It (Lanham: Lexington Books, 2010), and Stephen V. Monsoma and J. Christopher
Soper, The Challenge of Pluralism: Church and State in Five Democracies (Lanham:
Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc., 2009).
9 The questions of who is being tolerated, who is doing the tolerating, and what
that means for power dynamics in a given society are important ones. For a
­thoroughgoing critique of the notion of tolerance, see Wendy Brown, Regulating
Aversion: Tolerance in the Age of Identity and Empire. (Princeton: Princeton University
Press, 2006).

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 Introduction

My consideration of pluralism will be limited to its sociolog-

ical application, paying attention to both descriptive and
prescriptive usages of the term. Because the major theorists of
pluralism have failed to appreciate the importance of encounter
in the achievement of identity, they have also misunderstood the
changing nature of identity in America. An appreciation of
postethnicity leads to a recognition of the shortcomings of
pluralism as a framework with which to understand identity in
America in the twenty-first century. Moreover, pluralism is no
longer useful if we are to understand the nature of American
Jewish identity or navigate the contemporary realities of American
Jewish life in the twenty-first century.

Irving Greenberg and Hybrid Judaism

Irving Greenberg is one of the most influential American Jewish
thinkers and activists of the past 50 years. He anticipated the
changing nature of contemporary American Jewish identity long
before it would become more widely recognized. Until now,
much of the scholarship on Greenberg has suffered from an over-
emphasis on his work as a Holocaust theologian and as an activist
on behalf of Holocaust memory. 10 The result has been that some
of his most noteworthy theological and programmatic contribu-
tions have passed unnapreciated. Even the most thoughtful
treatments of his work have failed to detect how far-reaching his
Copyright © 2016. Academic Studies Press. All rights reserved.

ideas are and the importance they hold for understanding

American Jewish identity in the twenty-first century. For
Greenberg, the rise of hybrid identities is both a positive and

10 See, for example, Steven T. Katz’s collection of essays, Historicism, the Holocaust, and
Zionism: Critical Studies in Modern Jewish Thought and History (1992); Michael L.
Morgan’s chapter, “Irving Greenberg and the Post-Holocaust Voluntary Covenant,”
in Beyond Auschwitz: Post-Holocaust Jewish Thought in America (2001); and Edward
T. Linenthal’s Preserving Memory: The Struggle to Create America’s Holocaust Museum
(1995).

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 Introduction

necessary development that represents a shift of potentially

messianic proportions. Greenberg articulated this understanding
through his theology of encounter and his understanding of the
evolving nature of the covenant that combine in what I call
Hybrid Judaism.
Greenberg’s theology of Hybrid Judaism and its emphasis on
the power of human encounters can be located along a century-­
long arc of sociological theories of individual and group identity
in America. Beginning with Israel Zangwill’s drama of the melting
pot and ending with David Hollinger’s notion of postethnicity, the
greater part of the arc centers around three conceptions of pluralism.
Each of these articulations of pluralism—Cultural Pluralism, the
Triple Melting Pot, and Multiculturalism—have failed to capture
the importance of social dynamics in the achievement of identity,
to which David Hollinger has alerted us and to which the realities
of contemporary American Jewish life clearly point. Greenberg’s
work has generally been mischaracterized (by himself as well as
others) as advocating pluralism. In actuality, Greenberg’s ideas
represent a proto-postethnic theology of identity that has much
more in common with David Hollinger’s work than anyone else
along the arc.
Given my emphasis on the importance of social dynamics
(encounter) in the formation of identity, it should come as no
surprise that Greenberg was himself deeply influenced by a number
of profoundly impactful social encounters. As well as receiving great
Copyright © 2016. Academic Studies Press. All rights reserved.

praise for his intellectual and communal efforts, Greenberg has also
been publicly criticized by his peers in the Orthodox community,
threatened with heresy charges by his rabbinical association, and
rejected as an outsider by the centrist Orthodox mainstream and the
haredi wing of the American Orthodox community. These and other
episodes, each of which influenced the formulation of Greenberg’s
theology of Hybrid Judaism, will be presented throughout the book
as evidence in and of themselves of the transformative power of
encounter.

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 Introduction

Overview
In order to address the dual purposes of this book—an under-
standing of the changing nature of contemporary American Jewish
identity and an appreciation of Irving Greenberg’s theology of
encounter as a way of addressing that reality—it is divided into
two parts. Part I introduces Greenberg and examines the broader
trends confronting Jewish life in America in particular and religion
in America in general. It concludes with an exploration of the
century-­long arc of sociological theories of identity, culminating
with David Hollinger’s conception of postethnicity. Part II is
devoted to exploring the key encounters in Greenberg’s life and the
development of his theology of Hybrid Judaism. By presenting
these two sections side-by-side, my hope is that the reader will gain
a deeper understanding of our contemporary postethnic moment,
as well as an appreciation of the opportunity that this new reality
presents.
In Chapter 1, I introduce the central figure of this book: Irving
Greenberg. By right, Greenberg is one of the most celebrated
American Orthodox Jews of the second half of the twentieth century.
An ordained rabbi, a Harvard-trained Ph.D., and one of the most
influential public figures in American Jewish life, Greenberg was,
among a long list of achievements, a founding member of the
Association for Jewish Studies, a leading figure in the Christian–
Jewish dialogue movement, centrally important to the establishment
Copyright © 2016. Academic Studies Press. All rights reserved.

of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, in Washington,

DC, and a tireless activist on behalf of intra-Jewish community
building. It is my claim that Greenberg was also the earliest American
Jewish thought leader to engage notions of postethnicity (although
not by that name) head on.
Chapter 1 then turns to American Judaism. Sketching the major
contours of the history of the American Jewish community serves
to provide the necessary background and context with which to
understand the reality into which Greenberg was born and raised.
Because so much of Greenberg’s work involved attempts to overcome

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Kleinberg, Darren. Hybrid Judaism : Irving Greenberg, Encounter, and the Changing Nature of American Jewish Identity, Academic
 Introduction

intra-Jewish division, this section is organized primarily around the

rise of denominational Judaism in the United States and the accom-
panying tensions that have plagued the American Jewish community.
The chapter concludes with examples of the challenges that confronted
American Jewish institutions as they attempted to respond to the
increasingly fractious community that they served.
Chapter 2 presents a survey of the historiographical record of
American religious history. The historiographical lens serves to
narrate the changing understanding—and reality, to be sure—of
religion in America. It also highlights the relatively recent emphasis
on pluralism by scholars of religion in America and the very real
limitations of such an approach if we are to gain an accurate under-
standing of contemporary American religious diversity.
Chapters 3 and 4 turn our attention to a discussion of the century-­
long arc of sociological theories of group life in America. By pursuing
the shift from the melting pot to postethnicity, it is possible to
arrive at a clear understanding of pluralism as a sociological theory
that originated with the work of Horace Kallen. Milton Gordon’s
important critique of Kallen provides the bridge from cultural
pluralism to David Hollinger’s notion of postethnicity. Gordon’s
appreciation of the importance of social contact between primary
relationships provides the basis for my emphasis on the notion of
encounter, a concept central to Greenberg’s work. Ultimately, the
arc provides a theoretical framework with which to understand the
full extent of Irving Greenberg’s theology of Hybrid Judaism.
Copyright © 2016. Academic Studies Press. All rights reserved.

Part II turns our attention to the life and work of Irving Greenberg.
By weaving a tapestry of personal encounters and theological insights,
the chapters in Part II map the development of Greenberg’s thinking,
culminating in his theology of Hybrid Judaism. Taken together, the
chapters in Part II represent the first complete and systematic presen-
tation of Greenberg’s theology of Hybrid Judaism. Although
Greenberg himself adopted the language of pluralism, it is clear that
his ideas extend beyond pluralism, embracing notions of religious
identity that are immediately recognizable as precursors and paral-
lels to Hollinger’s conception of postethnicity. Greenberg’s notion

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Kleinberg, Darren. Hybrid Judaism : Irving Greenberg, Encounter, and the Changing Nature of American Jewish Identity, Academic
 Introduction

of Hybrid Judaism describes those Jews who are deeply rooted in

their Jewish identity but are also radically open to opportunities for
hybridity. Hybrid Judaism affirmatively acknowledges the reality that
different expressions of Judaism (including, but not limited to,
denominational ones) are influenced, transformed, and—in some
cases—coupled with other religious (and ethnic and cultural) identi-
ties. Hybrid Judaism has no outer limit and communicates the ability
of contemporary expressions of American Moment Judaisms to
incorporate any new attachment or affiliation from within or beyond
the Jewish context. The full implications of Greenberg’s theology of
Hybrid Judaism serve to reassert his importance and shed new light
on the relevance of his work for our understanding of American
Jewish identities in the twenty-first century.
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Kleinberg, Darren. Hybrid Judaism : Irving Greenberg, Encounter, and the Changing Nature of American Jewish Identity, Academic
 PART 1
CHAPTER 1

Irving Greenberg and the

Changing American Jewish
Landscape

P laced against the backdrop of twentieth-century American

Judaism in particular and religion in America in general, Irving
Greenberg is best understood as both of and ahead of his time. His
theological response to the changing American and Jewish realities
that surrounded him both anticipated and welcomed developments
that would have a defining impact on American Jewish life in the
twenty-first century. The source of his openness to the changes that
would take place around him can be located in a number of key
encounters during his formative years.
Born on May 16, 1933, Irving Greenberg was raised in Borough
Park, Brooklyn.1 The American Jewish reality that Greenberg was born
into was one of great upheaval and transformation. In 1930, the Jewish
population of New York was estimated at more than 1.8 million
inhabitants, with Borough Park alone numbering 61,000 Jewish
residents (Horowitz and Kaplan, Jewish Population of the New York
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Area, 32). Greenberg was raised with “more learning and piety . . .
than in the average Jewish home” (Freedman, Living in the Image of
God, 1) and, unlike many immigrant Jewish families that abandoned
the religious commitments of their European forebears, his family
remained steadfast. Nonetheless, Greenberg’s birth did present his
parents with a cultural conflict. Greenberg recalled that,

when [my father] and my mother came to name their son

they could not bear the thought that I should be stigmatized

1 Also commonly spelled Boro Park.

Kleinberg, Darren. Hybrid Judaism : Irving Greenberg, Encounter, and the Changing Nature of American Jewish Identity, Academic
 HYBRID JUDAISM

with a name like Yitzchak, which could label their son as

outside the mainstream of American life. So they looked
around for the most white Anglo-Saxon, Protestant name
they could find, and they found it: Irving! (Greenberg, “End
of Emancipation,” 48)

Unwilling to hold their son back from the opportunities that

America presented, Greenberg’s parents opted for a thoroughly
American name. By naming their son Irving, the Greenbergs conceded
to the new American reality in which they found ­ themselves.
Although the younger Greenberg would later embrace a more
distinctively Jewish name—“Yitz”—he would continue to confront
the tension between his particular identity as a Jew and his embrace
of a more open and postethnic identity.
From a young age, Greenberg was exposed to a world outside of
his own. The most significant encounter with non-Orthodox Judaism
during his childhood years occurred in the company of his father,
Rabbi Elias Henry Greenberg (1894–1975). The senior Greenberg
was a former student of Rabbi Haim Soloveitchik (1853–1918)2 and
a scholar in his own right. As Greenberg recalled: “The learning was
supplied by my father, who was a talmid chacham3 of awesome propor-
tions . . . He taught Talmud daily in an immigrant c­ongregation”
(Freedman, Living in the Image of God, 1). Nevertheless, he was also
willing to expose his son to a Jewish world beyond just their own.
Greenberg recalled this story:
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When I look back, certain amazing little experiences stand

out. There was one Conservative congregation in Boro
Park—Temple Emanuel. David Koussevitsky was chazzan
there. Many times, on the way back from Beth El (my father’s
shul), my father would take me in to hear Koussevitsky.

2 Haim Soloveitchik was the grandfather of Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik, who would
become an important influence on the younger Greenberg.
3 Literally, “a wise student.” This traditional honorific is used to describe great scholars.

Kleinberg, Darren. Hybrid Judaism : Irving Greenberg, Encounter, and the Changing Nature of American Jewish Identity, Academic
 Irving Greenberg and the Changing American Jewish Landscape CHAPTER 1 | PART 1

I do not think there were many other Orthodox rabbis

from Boro Park who would have gone into that shul . . .
going into a Conservative congregation was not standard
operating procedure. By such simple, almost elementary
gestures (not only taking me inside to hear the chazzan,
but also showing respect for the service), he taught me an
instinctive pluralism. (Freedman, Living in the Image of
God, 4)

Greenberg’s exposure both to Conservative Judaism and his father’s

respect for it took place at an early, formative age and left a strong
impression.
In another reminiscence, this time of a story he had heard about
an episode involving his older sister in 1929 or 1930, Greenberg
recalled,

. . . my sister Lillian walked by a Catholic parochial school

located near my parents’ apartment around 62nd St. on the
border of Borough Park and Bensonhurst. A few of the
students apparently harassed her . . . The verbal harassment
included anti-Semitic slurs. When she came home, she told
my father. Instead of letting this go by, my father took her
hand and marched her back to the school. He went in and
asked to meet with the principal who was a Catholic priest . . .
the two of them communicated what happened, the fact
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that they were immigrants, and the fact that my father was a
Rabbi. The principal listened respectfully. He then apologized
for the boys’ behavior. Moreover he called an assembly . . .
He spoke to [the students] and explained that these were
immigrants who had come to America seeking a better life.
Therefore Americans should welcome them and treat them
with respect and kindness. He also told the boys that my
father was a Rabbi and that it was wrong to attack a Rabbi
or his child with anti-Semitic slurs . . .

Kleinberg, Darren. Hybrid Judaism : Irving Greenberg, Encounter, and the Changing Nature of American Jewish Identity, Academic
 HYBRID JUDAISM

The lesson was clear and powerful:

. . . my father told me the story and drew the moral from it.
America was different. He said to me that in Poland the
clergy themselves would have been anti-Semitic and would
encourage such behaviors. He knew or had understood that
in America, Christians i.e. Catholics were different. Not only
could you assume that they were against anti-Semitic behavior
but that one could turn to them for justice. Looking back
I believe such a story sowed the seeds of my more positive
attitude toward Christianity—seeds that blossomed when
I became involved in Jewish Christian dialogue after the
Holocaust.4

Greenberg’s father modeled what it meant to learn from encounters

with both non-Orthodox Jews and non-Jews alike.
These vignettes are reminiscent of the paternal influence on
another significant American Jewish figure, Mordecai M. Kaplan. Also
a devoutly Orthodox rabbi, the older Kaplan exhibited an openness
that strongly influenced his son. As Kaplan’s biographer has recorded,
“Old Rabbi Kaplan was a tolerant man, and frequently the boys were
entertained by the conversation of a rather heretical Bible scholar
named Arnold Ehrlich . . . thus, at an early age, young Mordecai was
exposed to Biblical criticism and the problems raised by a scientific
study of the Bible” (Scult, Communings of the Spirit, 46). For both
Copyright © 2016. Academic Studies Press. All rights reserved.

Kaplan and Greenberg, their fathers opened their eyes to different

possibilities at a very young age. 5 While it is impossible to demonstrate
the direct influence of these experiences on their later contributions,
the impact on Kaplan and Greenberg‘s development is beyond doubt.
As a child, Greenberg attended Yeshivat Etz Chaim elementary
school and then Yeshiva University High School. Both institutions

4 Personal e-mail communication, May 26, 2013.

5 Kaplan dedicated his magnum opus, Judaism as a Civilization (1934), to his father
and credited him with being his “eyes as I wandered in the desert of confusion”
(Exodus 14:3).

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 Irving Greenberg and the Changing American Jewish Landscape CHAPTER 1 | PART 1

were located in Brooklyn and both were “in the upper range of
Modern Orthodox education in America” (Freedman, Living in the
Image of God, 1). Following high school, Greenberg attended both
Brooklyn College and Beth Joseph Rabbinical Seminary6 simultane-
ously. While attending Brooklyn College, and under the influence of
his older sister, Lillian, Greenberg became interested in the study of
history.
Meanwhile, at Beth Joseph, he was exposed to a particular
strain of the Jewish Musar tradition of self-improvement that was
established in the nineteenth century by Israel Lipkin (1810–1883),
popularly known as Yisrael Salanter.7 Beth Joseph was heir to a
branch of the Musar tradition that originated in the Eastern European
city of Novardok (Navahrudak), which emphasized the negation of
the ego and of material desires as a path to the divine. Greenberg has
described his experience at Beth Joseph in this way: “Thanks to . . . its
strong musar component, Bais Yosef gave me a dynamic and very
different, more moving religious experience . . .” (Freedman, Living
in the Image of God, 3). Taken together with the experience at
Brooklyn College, Greenberg has observed that, compared to what
his experience might have been had he attended the more
Americanized, Modern Orthodox, Yeshiva University, where he
could have received both a secular and religious education, his “reli-
gious education was much less filtered by modernity, and my college
experience . . . was much less filtered by Orthodoxy” (Freedman,
Living in the Image of God, 3). His unadulterated encounter with both
Copyright © 2016. Academic Studies Press. All rights reserved.

the academy and the piety of the Musar tradition provided Greenberg
with two different perspectives on the world—one through secular
scholarship and the other through deep religiosity.
Subsequent to his graduation from Brooklyn College, where he
majored in history, and his ordination as a rabbi from Beth Joseph,
both in 1953, Greenberg went on to graduate school at Harvard

6 Also known as Yeshiva Bais Yosef, or Novardok.

7 Lipkin was known by the name Salanter in recognition of the Lithuanian city
(Salantai) where he studied and was mentored by the spiritual father of the Musar
movement, Rabbi Zundel of Salant (1786–1866).

Kleinberg, Darren. Hybrid Judaism : Irving Greenberg, Encounter, and the Changing Nature of American Jewish Identity, Academic
 HYBRID JUDAISM

University. According to Greenberg, his pursuit of rabbinical ordination

was intended “simply to please [his] parents, especially [his] father”
(Freedman, Living in the Image of God, 6). His true intentions
remained firmly focused on becoming a secular academician.
Having left the familiar surroundings of Brooklyn, Greenberg
now had to navigate the secular world of an elite American college
campus. In doing so, Greenberg had to reconsider his custom of
always wearing a kippah. “The classic example: when I arrived, no
one told me, but I just knew that you could not wear a kippah . . . So
I wore a hat and took it off when I went into class. As soon as I came
out of class, I would put the hat on again.” (Freedman, Living in the
Image of God, 7). Unhappy with this compromise, and in defiance of
the unspoken expectation, Greenberg decided to go ahead and don
his kippah at all times. According to him, “That coming-out was a
key transition for me. By then, I was looking to emotionally connect
with and serve Jews” (Freedman, Living in the Image of God, 7).
During this time, and while still a student at Harvard working on his
dissertation,8 Greenberg served as the Rabbi of the Young Israel
synagogue in Brookline, Massachusetts, from 1954 to 1955. After
completing his studies and receiving his doctorate in American
History in 1960, Greenberg pursued a faculty position at Yeshiva
University instead of staying at Harvard for a postdoctoral position,
and began what would be a lifelong commitment to Jewish education
and the Jewish community.
These early encounters exposed Greenberg to the realities of
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being Jewish in the United States in the twentieth century. He quickly

became aware of the challenge of being both Jewish and American at
the same time. The dual realities of his parents’ Orthodoxy and his
American name; Brooklyn College and Beth Joseph; Harvard Yard
and his decision to literally wear his Judaism for all to see, set
Greenberg on a unique path. Of course, Greenberg was not alone in
having to negotiate the challenges of being an American Jew in

8 Greenberg’s advisor was Frederick Merk (1887–1977), an American historian who

taught at Harvard University from 1924 until 1956. The title of Greenberg’s disser-
tation was Theodore Roosevelt and Labor: 1900–1918.

Kleinberg, Darren. Hybrid Judaism : Irving Greenberg, Encounter, and the Changing Nature of American Jewish Identity, Academic
 Irving Greenberg and the Changing American Jewish Landscape CHAPTER 1 | PART 1

the twentieth century. In fact, his reality was rather typical for first-gen-
eration-born children of immigrant families trying to find their way
in America. But, as I will show, it was his response—informed by
the formative example set by his father—that distinguished him
from his peers.
Greenberg was raised and came of age at a time when American
Judaism was undergoing significant change. From the colonial
period up until the second half of the nineteenth century, the Jewish
community in America was tiny. It was not until the middle of the
nineteenth century that the American Jewish population totaled
more than 50,000 members. The earliest American Jews were diverse
and “a full gamut of religious observances and attitudes could be
found, from deep piety to total indifference” (Sarna, American
Judaism, 22). By 1860, there were as many as 200,000 Jews living in
the United States; beginning in 1880, increasing numbers of
European Jewish immigrants arrived on American shores and
contributed to the rapid growth of the American Jewish community.
Consequently, by the turn of the twentieth century, the population
of the American Jewish community had reached more than 1 million
members. By 1920, the number was more than 3.5 million (Sarna,
American Judaism, 375). A rapidly growing American Jewish commu-
nity meant that, already by the middle of the nineteenth century,
religious leaders were lobbying to attract a following for what was,
at the time, a fledgling American Jewish denominationalism.9
In 1854, Rabbi Isaac Mayer Wise established himself in
Copyright © 2016. Academic Studies Press. All rights reserved.

Cincinnati, Ohio, and, in time, became a major organizer of the

American Reform movement. The relationship between the fast-
growing Reform movement and the nascent American Orthodox
community was tense. In an effort to ameliorate growing tensions, a
national conference was called in 1855 by Wise and his Orthodox
counterpart, Isaac Leeser,10 to discuss “a common liturgy, and a plan

9 Jewish denominationalism first appeared in the second decade of the nineteenth

century with the rise of early Reform Judaism in Germany.
10 Isaac Leeser (1806–1868) was a German-born traditional Jew who arrived in
America in 1824. He served as the cantor of Congregation Mikveh Israel of

Kleinberg, Darren. Hybrid Judaism : Irving Greenberg, Encounter, and the Changing Nature of American Jewish Identity, Academic
 HYBRID JUDAISM

for promoting Jewish education” (Sarna, American Judaism, 108).

The response was that “both Wise and Leeser met with enormous
criticism.” The recently arrived Reform ideologue, Rabbi David
Einhorn, “opposed compromises with Orthodoxy on principal,”
while at the same time “. . . the Orthodox side . . . boycotted the
meeting” (Sarna, American Judaism, 110). As a result, “Like so many
other attempts at compromise in the middle decades of the nine-
teenth century, this one too failed to take hold” (Sarna, American
Judaism, 109).11
The American Reform movement grew steadily in the nineteenth
century as it actively embraced the new era. The construction of
Moorish-style, cathedral-like synagogues in major Jewish centers such
as Boston, Philadelphia, and New York; the incorporation of organs
and choirs to accompany the prayer services; the introduction
of family pews; and the production of a new Reform liturgy all
­contributed to “underscore[] Reform Judaism’s break with the past”
and served

(1) to attract younger, Americanized Jews to the syna-

gogue; (2) to make non-Jewish friends and visitors feel
welcome; (3) to improve Judaism’s public image; and (4)
to create the kind of solemn, formal, awe-inspiring atmo-
sphere that high-minded Jews and Christians alike during
this period considered conducive to moral reflection
and effective devotional prayer. (Sarna, American Judaism,
Copyright © 2016. Academic Studies Press. All rights reserved.

125–126)

Philadelphia, was the founding editor of the influential Jewish periodical, The
Occident, and established the first Jewish Publication Society of America, among
numerous other communal roles.
11 Leeser was at the center of prior attempts at unity. In 1841, he developed a “plan for
establishing a religious union among the Israelites of America” that would include
a Central Religious Council, a network of Jewish schools, and a union of congrega-
tional delegates. Shortly afterward, Leeser championed the idea of installing a Chief
Rabbi, along the line of the Anglo-Jewish community. Neither of these attempts
proved successful (Sarna, American Judaism, 103–134).

Kleinberg, Darren. Hybrid Judaism : Irving Greenberg, Encounter, and the Changing Nature of American Jewish Identity, Academic
 Irving Greenberg and the Changing American Jewish Landscape CHAPTER 1 | PART 1

Furthermore, the establishment of the Union of American Hebrew

Congregations in 1873 and the Hebrew Union College in 1875,
both in Cincinnati, provided both an organizational arm for the
movement and a training ground for new American Reform
rabbis. As Jonathan Sarna has noted, by the close of the ­nineteenth
century “Reform Jewish leaders concluded that the cause to which
they had devoted their lives had triumphed” (Sarna, American
Judaism, 129).
Although the Reform movement experienced rapid and dramatic
growth throughout the nineteenth century, the demographic land-
scape began to shift quickly with the growing waves of immigration.
The arrival of more than 2 million Eastern European Jews between
the early 1880s and 1920s significantly influenced the demographic
balance from colonial Jews and their descendants to immigrant Jews
from Eastern Europe and Russia. Although only a minority of these
new immigrants were “synagogued,” they were a sizable group,
numbering in the hundreds of thousands. Then, beginning in the
1930s, a cadre of influential Orthodox leaders arrived on American
shores. Among them were Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik12 (arrived in
1932), Rabbi Moshe Feinstein13 (arrived in 1936), Rabbi Aaron
Kotler14 (arrived in 1941), and Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson15

12 Soloveitchik (1903–1993), a European-trained Talmudic scholar, philosopher,

and theologian, served for over 40 years as the senior Rosh Yeshiva of the Rabbi
Isaac Elchanan Theological Seminary (RIETS) and occupied the Lieb Merkin
Copyright © 2016. Academic Studies Press. All rights reserved.

Distinguished Professorial Chair in Talmud and Jewish Philosophy at Yeshiva

University, New York. He became the most significant twentieth-century Modern
Orthodox leader in the American Jewish community, ordaining some 2,000 rabbis
during his tenure.
13 Feinstein (1895–1986), an Orthodox scholar from Lithuania, would become one
of, if not the, most influential Jewish-legal decisor of the twentieth century. He
served as the head of Mesivtha Tifereth Jerusalem, on the Lower East Side of
Manhattan, and was president of the Union of Orthodox Rabbis of the USA and
Canada as well as the Moetzes Gedolei Torah of Agudath Israel of America.
14 Kotler (1891–1962) established the Beth Medrash Govoha in Lakewood, New Jersey.
It would become one of the largest yeshivot (Talmudic seminaries) in the world,
serving the haredi community.
15 Schneerson (1902–1994) would become the leader of the Chabad-Lubavitch sect of
Hasidic Orthodoxy. Under his leadership, the sect would embark on the largest

Kleinberg, Darren. Hybrid Judaism : Irving Greenberg, Encounter, and the Changing Nature of American Jewish Identity, Academic
 HYBRID JUDAISM

(arrived in 1941). As a result, the Orthodox community began to

assert itself on the American Jewish landscape.
Parallel to the growth of Orthodoxy was the rising influence of
Conservative Judaism in the American Jewish community.16 In 1886,
the Jewish Theological Seminary of America (JTS) was established to
“steer a course between ‘stupid Orthodox and insane Reform”
(Diner, “Like the Antelope and the Badger,” 6).17 Their concern was
that the Orthodox and Reform movements “threatened Judaism in
America, because both staked out extreme positions and forced Jews
to choose sides” (Diner, “Like the Antelope and the Badger,” 6). JTS,
the flagship institution of American Conservative Judaism, was
conceived to train traditional rabbis for a modern American Jewry
“thanks largely to Americanizing East European Jews and their
children” (Sarna, American Judaism, 213).18 By the middle of the
twentieth century, Conservative Judaism had distinguished itself
from Reform and Orthodox expressions of Judaism, and became
the largest denomination in the American Jewish community
(Wertheimer, “Recent Trends,” 67).
In addition to these developments, the increasingly influential
role of Mordecai M. Kaplan (1881–1983) and his American-born
Reconstructionist movement added to the twentieth-century profile
of American Judaism. Reconstructionist Judaism presented an alter-
native, albeit a much smaller one, to the assumed tri-choice of
Conservative, Orthodox, and Reform Judaism. More important, as
an influential faculty member at JTS and a noted Jewish intellectual for
Copyright © 2016. Academic Studies Press. All rights reserved.

more than half a century, Kaplan exerted a powerful influence over

intra-Jewish missionary campaign in Jewish history.

16 American Conservative Judaism was the successor to the Positive-Historical school
established by Zecharias Frankel (1801–1875) in Germany after his split from the
early Reformers in 1845.
17 Quoted by Diner from an 1895 edition of the periodical, American Hebrew.
18 From the time of the establishment of the Seminary until the middle part of the
twentieth century, Conservative Judaism did not consider itself, nor was it generally
treated as, a separate denomination from, albeit a more modern version of,
Orthodox Judaism.

10

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 Irving Greenberg and the Changing American Jewish Landscape CHAPTER 1 | PART 1

more than a generation of Conservative and Reform rabbis who

remained attached to their movements, but were strongly attracted
to his ideas.
Kaplan’s influence, and the extent to which denominational
tensions flared within the American Jewish community, can be
­illustrated by a disturbing episode. By the middle of the twentieth
century, Kaplan was already well established as the most controversial
figure in the American Jewish community. Deemed a heretic by
many in the Conservative movement and even more so within
Orthodoxy, Kaplan was a radical theologian, scholar, and social
theorist.19 In 1945, the Reconstructionist movement published a
Sabbath prayer book “which reflected Kaplan’s rejection of chosen-
ness. It also removed all references to the idea of the resurrection of
the dead and the inevitable coming of the messiah” (Diner, The Jews
of the United States, 255). Each one of these theological innovations
would have been shocking to traditional Jewish ears and eyes by
themselves; presented together, they were perceived as a threat that
needed to be countered.20 Even more shocking, though, was the
public burning of the prayer book.21 This act was especially disturbing
given that it occurred so soon after the Holocaust, when the burning
of Jewish books was a regular form of Nazi terror. This is but one,

19 See Jeffrey S. Gurock and Jacob J. Schachter, eds., A Modern Heretic and a Traditional
Community: Mordecai M. Kaplan, Orthodoxy, and American Judaism (New York:
Copyright © 2016. Academic Studies Press. All rights reserved.

Columbia University Press, 1997).

20 Of course, each of these theological innovations had already been adopted by nine-
teenth-century Reform Jews in Germany and the United States. The particularly
harsh reaction to Kaplan was likely influenced by his own familial and professional
ties to the Orthodox community—in addition to being raised in the home of an
Orthodox rabbi, Kaplan himself was ordained in Europe by the Orthodox Zionist
leader, Rabbi Isaac Jacob Reines and, early on in his career, filled rabbinic posts at
the Orthodox Congregation Kehilath Jeshurun and the Jewish Center, in New York
City.
21 They also “issued a herem, a ban of excommunication against Kaplan” (Diner, The
Jews of the United States, 255). For a discussion of exactly who was responsible for the
book burning, see this blog post from Marc B. Shapiro: http://seforim.blogspot.
com/2014/09/r-isaac-arama-r-kook-mordecai-kaplan.html

11

Kleinberg, Darren. Hybrid Judaism : Irving Greenberg, Encounter, and the Changing Nature of American Jewish Identity, Academic
 HYBRID JUDAISM

albeit extreme, example of how fraught relationships were between

different religious branches of the American Jewish community.
In the second half of the twentieth century, the rise of the Havurah
movement, Jewish Renewal, Neo-Hasidism, Secular Humanistic
Judaism, and a number of other groups would further diversify the
American Jewish landscape. By the end of the twentieth century, the
institutional and numeric strength that Conservative Judaism had
exhibited since mid-century would eventually wane while Reform
Judaism remained numerically strong and Orthodoxy continued to
grow and become more strident.
As has been widely noted, the broader American religious
landscape experienced a “slide to the right” in the last third of the
twentieth century. This shift was exhibited most powerfully by the
numerical and cultural resurgence of an Evangelical Conservatism
that would actively challenge the cultural hegemony of more liberal
expressions of American Protestantism. A similar movement can be
detected in the American Orthodox Jewish community, and has been
given its fullest treatment in Samuel Heilman’s book, Sliding to the
Right: The Contest for the Future of American Jewish Orthodoxy (2006).
Heilman posited that the American Orthodox community can
be divided into two core groups: pluralist and enclavist.22 Pluralist
Orthodox Jews have “the ability to live in and be embraced by several
cultures and worldviews at once” (Heilman, Sliding to the Right, 3),
whereas enclavist Orthodox Jews “view[] the surrounding modern
world not as an opportunity but as a threat and seek[] instead to keep
Copyright © 2016. Academic Studies Press. All rights reserved.

it at arm’s length . . .” (Heilman, Sliding to the Right, 4). For enclavist

Orthodox Jews, the need for a mechanism with which to negotiate
diversity is less important; after all, they limit their exposure to more
progressive Orthodox Jews, non-Orthodox Jews, and non-Jews as
much as possible. As Heilman has pointed out, enclavists choose
“separation or exclusion [and] create powerful boundaries between
those who share their outlook and behavior and those who do not.”

22 He also acknowledged a third group of Orthodox Jews of Middle-Eastern descent

that was not considered due to their limited role in American Orthodox life, as
contrasted with Israel.

12

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 Irving Greenberg and the Changing American Jewish Landscape CHAPTER 1 | PART 1

Furthermore, “[i]n their chosen insularity, they reject the ideal of the
melting pot and mobility . . . allowing almost no room for ­acceptance
of cultural pluralism, in which other ways of living can be viewed as
legitimate or appropriate for Jews” (Heilman, Sliding to the Right,
83). According to Heilman, this has been increasingly the trend in
the American Orthodox community. Although some have argued
that Orthodoxy is also experiencing its own internal diversification of
sorts,23 Heilman has certainly identified the dominant trend within
that community. During this time, the haredi (enclavist) Orthodox
community has experienced rapid growth while Modern Orthodoxy
(pluralist) has seen a steep decline.24
The changes taking place on the denominational landscape
since the middle of the nineteenth century meant that American
Judaism was becoming increasingly fractured. As a result, nonsectarian
American Jewish organizations grappled with the challenge of
serving a changing American Jewry, with varying levels of success.
Different organizations had different responses to the rising
­denominationalism in American Jewish life. Some attempted to
ignore it, while others confronted it head on. What follows is a brief
overview of the work of four American Jewish organizations—B’nai
B’rith, The Jewish Welfare Board, Hillel, and The Synagogue Council
of America—to highlight some of the challenges and limitations of
working in this new American Jewish context.
Copyright © 2016. Academic Studies Press. All rights reserved.

23 See Adam S. Ferziger, “Church/Sect Theory and American Orthodoxy Reconsidered,”

in Ambivalent Jew: Charles Liebman in Memorium, ed. Stuart Cohen and Bernard
Susser (New York: The Jewish Theological Seminary of America, 2007): 107–123;
Adam S. Ferziger, Beyond Sectarianism: The Realignment of American Orthodox Judaism
(Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 2015); and Yehuda Turetsky and Chaim I.
Waxman, “Sliding to the Left? Contemporary American Orthodoxy,” Modern Judaism
31, no. 2 (May 2011).
24 As Jack Wertheimer wrote in 2014: “Just a few decades ago, the modern sector consti-
tuted the large majority of Orthodox Jews; in our time, it has become vastly outnumbered
by the Orthodox resisters and is on track to decline even further. As compared with the
3 percent of American Jews who (according to Pew) identify themselves as Modern
Orthodox, 6 percent identify themselves as haredi. In absolute numbers this translates
into an estimated 310,000 adult haredim compared with 168,000 adult Modern
Orthodox.” See Jack Wertheimer, “Can Modern Orthodoxy Survive?” Mosaic. http://
mosaicmagazine.com/essay/2014/08/can-modern-orthodoxy-survive/

13

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 HYBRID JUDAISM

One early American Jewish organization attempted to simply

sidestep denominational politics, rather than attempt to navigate
the religious tensions of American Jewish life. B’nai B’rith, founded
in 1843 as a fraternal order, was a Jewish establishment o ­ rganization
that, according to its historian, Deborah Dash Moore, identified two
central areas of focus: “the quest for leadership [of the American
Jewish community] and for unity of American Jews” (D. Moore,
B’nai B’rith, xii). In trying to achieve these goals, the early leaders of
B’nai B’rith realized that “[t]he debates between the nascent Reform
and Orthodox partisans filled Jewish gatherings with bitterness” and
therefore “they would have to avoid religious issues in order to
succeed” (D. Moore, B’nai B’rith, 4). Consequently, “. . . B’nai B’rith’s
founders intended to ‘banish from its deliberations all doctrinal and
dogmatic discussions,’ and framed their rituals ‘to be equally
­unobjectionable to the Orthodox as to the Reformers’” (D. Moore,
B’nai B’rith, 10). The result was a “pragmatic nonsectarianism” (D.
Moore, B’nai B’rith, 10) that chose to sidestep denominations and the
growing tensions between them.
By contrast, the Jewish Welfare Board (JWB), an early twentieth-­
century American Jewish organization, sought to incorporate the various
denominations in its work. The JWB was organized out of the practical
necessity of having a single group that would represent the American
Jewish community before the United States government in the latter’s
attempt to provide for the religious needs of troops in the U.S. Armed
Forces. Impressively, the JWB’s inaugural meeting in 1917 included
Copyright © 2016. Academic Studies Press. All rights reserved.

“representatives from the five ­most ­prominent rabbinical and congre-

gational organizations, the United Synagogue [Conservative], the
Union of American Hebrew Congregations [Reform], the Union of
Orthodox Jewish Congregations, the Agudath Ha-Rabbonim
[Orthodox], and the CCAR [Central Conference of American Rabbis,
Reform], together with the Jewish Publication Society” (Cooperman,
“A Little Army Discipline,” 82). As a result, the JWB did have some
success, in no small part due to the involvement of the United States
government and the overriding need to provide for Jewish troops.

14

Kleinberg, Darren. Hybrid Judaism : Irving Greenberg, Encounter, and the Changing Nature of American Jewish Identity, Academic
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 It is true that among epicures the famous white fish of Lakes Huron and
Superior, which is also found in a more flabby condition in Erie and
Ontario, ranks before either the black bass or the pike-perch; but as he is
deceived by neither decoy nor bait, he is not worthy of the fisherman’s
regard. To be tasted in perfection, the white fish must be eaten fresh from
the rapids of Lake Superior, where, lying in the eddy below some
immovable rock, he is taken by the sharp-eyed Indian in the long-handled
net from out the foaming water, brought immediately to land, cooked and
placed steaming hot upon the table before he has lost the delicious freshness
of his native element.
The black bass, however, is in the west what the trout is in our eastern
brooks—the principal source of the angler’s enjoyment.
The rivers that empty into Hudson’s Bay are ascended by the migratory
salmon, but from their peculiar character do not furnish fly-fishing except
for trout. The latter are found in Lake Superior and the streams that empty
into it, in the tributaries of the Upper Mississippi, and in the brooks of the
Alleghany and Rocky Mountains; but are not generally distributed through
the weedy streams of the Western States.
The flat expanse of Ohio is not favorable to the existence of that lover of
the noisy brook and tumbling torrent; and streams flowing through marl
deposits are supposed not to furnish proper food; so that the beauty that we
in our eastern homes entice from every stream or brooklet from Maine to
Pennsylvania, is found rarely, if at all, in Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, western
Kentucky, and southern Wisconsin; but in the cool depths of Lake Superior
and its amber-hued tributaries he absolutely swarms.
In the Upper Mississippi there are black bass and mascallonge; in the
brooks that, rising amid the hills of that region, swell its current, there are
trout; in neighboring lakes black bass and perch abound; among the Rocky
Mountains are found several species of trout; and in the waters of Oregon
and California salmon are plentiful.
Although the largest trout in the United States are taken in Maine, in the
Umbagog region, the greatest number and the most vigorous are found in
Lake Superior, where fish of two pounds weight can be captured to the
heart’s content. The fish of Maine are of rich and strong color, while those
of Lake Superior have the bright sides and delicate tints of the sea-trout. All
brook trout, however—the genuine salmo fontinalis—have the peculiar
bright vermilion specks that distinguish them from kindred species, and
these are distinctly visible upon the silver sides of the fish of Lake Superior.
The innumerable rivers of the State of Maine are interwoven together in
such a manner that the fisherman, urging his silent canoe with dripping
paddle or stout pole, gliding beneath the arching boughs that shade in
gloom the narrow stream, or pushing boldly into the open lakes, can pass
from one region of waters to another, and, making short portages, explore in
a continuous trip rivers that run north, east, and west. To the true sportsman,
armed with pliant rod and feathered hook for the seduction of the merry
trout, and trusty rifle loaded with heavy ball for the destruction of the lordly
moose, nothing surpasses the intense enjoyment of wandering amid the
forest wilds from river to river, threading the uninhabited groves, or
following the unknown and unnamed stream, and leaving to whim or
chance, or the influence of luck, to determine his final destination. Alone
with his single guide he is content; accompanied by a friend, still better
pleased; in a party of associates perfectly happy; blessed by the society of
ladies—real ladies and true wood nymphs—he is in Elysium.
Or, he may coast the shores of our western lakes, where the bright sun
sparkles on the rippling surface, and only seek the shade upon the land to
avoid its heat; there he may kill the black bass, the mascallonge, and in
Lake Superior the trout; fleeing from the approaching storm to some
sheltered nook, he partakes the inland ocean’s varying moods, passing the
days upon its surface and the nights amid the neighboring forests; stopping
occasionally to use the light shot-gun and kill a few woodcock or
partridges, and now and then slaying a duck upon the route.
In the wide world there is no other country so propitious to the fisherman
as the northern part of North America; it furnishes every variety of sport,
from the delicate refined fishing of the transparent ponds and over-fished
trout-preserves of Long Island, to the coarser and easier sport of killing with
large flies and heavy rods the countless hosts of Maine, the Labrador coast,
or Lake Superior; from the casting the menhaden bait into the boisterous
ocean for striped bass, to the trolling amid the Thousand Isles of the St.
Lawrence for the ugly and powerful mascallonge; from the capture of the
noble salmon to that of the spirited black bass. In fact, there is so much and
so good fishing everywhere, that it is difficult to give a preference or lay out
any specific directions. You may go by railroad to Cape Vincent, and thence
by steamboat to Clayton or Alexandria bay, and fish the St. Lawrence; or
take the ocean steamer from Boston to Eastport, and thence to Calais, and
explore the St. Croix River for land-locked salmon; or continue on to St.
John, and by railroad and stage or steamer to the Nipisiquit, and kill the true
salmon—salmo salar—king of fish; or you may take the railroad from
Boston to Bethel and cross by stage into the Umbagog region of Maine, and
visit its innumerable lakes with unpronounceable names, or may embark on
the steamboat at Cleveland, and wake up, after two days’ tranquil voyage, at
the Sault Ste. Marie, the outlet of Lake Superior; or you may stop anywhere
on any of these routes, even out in the ocean, on the way to New
Brunswick, if you please, where there are pollock or haddock, and have
good fishing. There is excellent fishing close to New York city, and better
still the farther you recede from it.
It is true the fisherman will not find those refined comforts that the more
cultivated and densely peopled districts of Europe afford; but he will
receive a hearty welcome and wholesome entertainment at the country
tavern or the farmer’s house. If, however, he have youth and tolerable
hardihood, he should look for no such reception; but, carrying his canvas-
home, enjoy the luxury of unrestrained independence, kill and cook his own
dinner, and sleep in the pure air of the wilderness. He will have to surrender
a few necessaries that habit has made so, but he will be repaid a
thousandfold by increased happiness and improved health; he will not have
servants to wait on him, nor desserts or wines to pamper him; but he will
have his guide to instruct, and abundant food to support him. He will
acquire an insight into the mystery of woodcraft, and learn a few of its
wonders and delights; he will come to rely upon his own stout muscles and
sharp eyes, and return to the city a renovated being. Or, if he have sufficient
enthusiasm and high courage, he may cast aside all trammels, and taking his
rifle or rod, salt pork, and hard bread, strike off into the trackless forest with
no covering to shield him from the rain or sun, no floating thing of beauty
to bear him in its bosom over the water, no store of provisions to fall back
upon if fish do not rise and the bullet flies astray; but bearing bravely up
against heat and weariness, sleeping, amid the rain and storm, wrapped in
the heavy coat, catching or killing game sufficient for daily food, or going
hungry till better luck shall interpose. This, indeed, is manhood; and our
country, with its vast solitudes, its unbroken forests, its network of water-
courses, its endless chains of lakes, its vast mountains and limitless prairies,
offers inducements for such a life that no other land possesses.
 As pretty full instructions have been given in the Game Fish of North
America to aid the learner in commencing his experiences of camp life, the
reader who desires such information is referred to that work; but whether he
shall go into the solitary wilderness, away from man and human habitation,
or can only tear himself from business for a few hours for a flying visit to
some quiet preserve near the bustling city, he should never forget that he is
a sportsman, and owes the duties of moderation, humanity, patience, and
kindness under all circumstances; that he cannot slaughter or poach; and
that, from his profession, he should ever be a gentleman. He should never
forget the words of that most amiable of our fraternity—the splendid shot,
the skilful angler, the genial companion, and the graceful writer, now long
since gathered to his final resting-place—who was known to the public
under the name of J. Cypress, Jr.:
“No genuine piscator ever tabernacled at Fireplace or Stump-pond who
could not exhibit proofs of great natural delicacy and strength of
apprehension—I mean of things in general, including fish. But the vis
vivida animi, the os magna sonans, the manus mentis, the divine rapture of
the seduction of a trout, how few have known the apotheosis! The creative
power of genius can make a feather-fly live, and move, and have being; and
a wisely stricken fish gives up the ghost in transports. That puts me in mind
of a story of Ned Locus. Ned swears that he once threw a fly so far and
delicately and suspendedly, that just as it was dropping upon the water, after
lying a moment in the scarcely moving air as though it knew no law of
gravity, it actually took life and wings, and would have flown away but that
an old four-pounder, seeing it start, sprang and jumped at it full a foot out of
his element, and changed the course of the insect’s travel from the upper air
to the bottom of his throat. That is one of Ned’s, and I do not guarantee it,
but such a thing might be. Insects are called into being in a variety of
mysterious ways, as all the world knows; for instance, the animalcula that
appear in the neighborhood of departed horses; and, as Ned says, if death
can create life, what is the reason a smart man can’t? Good fishermen are
generally great lawyers; ecce signa, Patrick Henry and Daniel Webster. I
have known this rule, however, to have exceptions. But the true sportsman
is always at least a man of genius and an honest man. I have either read or
heard some one say, and I am sure it is the fact, that there never was an
instance of a sincere lover of a dog, gun, and rod being sent to bridewell or
penitentiary.... If I were governor and knew a case, I would exert the
pardoning power without making any inquiry. I should determine without
waiting to hear a single fact that the man was convicted by means of
perjury. There is a plain reason for all this. A genuine sportsman must
possess a combination of virtues which will fill him so full that no room can
be left for sin to squeeze in. He must be an early riser—to be which is the
beginning of all virtue—ambitious, temperate, prudent, patient of toil,
fatigue, and disappointment; courageous, watchful, intent upon his
business; always ready, confident, cool; kind to his dog, civil to the girls,
and courteous to his brother sportsmen.”
To constitute a sportsman, therefore, it is not sufficient merely to be able
to catch fish; although a very important element in the angler’s
composition, it is not all that is required, nor will it alone entitle him to full
fellowship with the fraternity. He must have higher aspirations and nobler
gifts; he must look beyond the mere result to the mode of effecting it,
regarding, perhaps, the means more than the end. Any unfair trick or mean
advantage he must never take, even to fill a vacant creel or empty pocket;
he must never slay the crouching bevy, huddled in terror before his
pointer’s nose; he must never resort to the grapple or the noose, no matter
how provokingly the wary trout, lying motionless in the clear water, may
disdain his choicest flies; and, when the nature of the fish pursued induces it
to accept the imitation, he can use the natural bait, only in extreme cases
and at great risk to his reputation. The noblest of fish, the mighty salmon,
refuses bait utterly, and only with the most artistic tackle and the greatest
skill can he be taken; the trout, which ranks second to the salmon, demands
an almost equal perfection of both, and in his true season, the genial days of
spring and summer, scorns every allurement but the tempting fly. The black
bass prefers the fly, but will take the trolling-spoon, and even bait, at all
seasons; whereas the fish of lesser station give a preference to bait, or
accept it alone. This order of precedence sufficiently proves what every
thorough sportsman will endorse—that bait-fishing, although an art of
intricacy and difficulty, is altogether inferior to the science of fly-fishing;
and that the man who merely follows it without higher aspiration, and uses
a worm equally for the beautiful trout and the hideous cat-fish, cannot claim
to be a sportsman. Occasionally there is a person who will use the bait with
wonderful ability, and entice the reluctant fish against their will to an
unwished-for meal; but he never experiences the higher pleasures of his
pursuit—his enjoyment in making a neat and killing fly, his satisfaction at
its success, his delight in putting it properly upon the water, and his
gratification when with it and his frail tackle he shall have overcome the
fierce and stubborn prey. Therefore to his many other qualities, the true
sportsman must add a thorough knowledge of fly-fishing, and only can the
use of artificial fish or fly, or casting the menhaden bait for bass, be termed
SUPERIOR FISHING.

THE FIRST VEIL.

 CHAPTER I.

LAKE SUPERIOR.

Don Pedro is descended from one of what we in our young country call the
old and highly-respectable families, and having been nurtured amid the
refinements and luxuries of life, is one of the most gentlemanly men
imaginable. At the public rooms of a hotel, in the halls, on the piazza, in the
saloon of a steamboat, he can never pass a lady, though she be a perfect
stranger, without in the most deferential manner removing his hat. To this
reverence for the fair sex he adds an easy elegance towards his own, that at
once commands attention and respect.
Never having taken an active share in the world’s affairs, his abilities,
which are far above the average, have lain dormant or run to criticising art
or committing poetry; and he is rather apt to discuss very small matters with
a minuteness and persistency that important ones scarcely merit.
He had travelled Europe, of course, had shot quail and taken trout in
Long Island, fired at crocodiles on the Nile and jackals in the desert; and
although probably the greatest exposure of his life had been damp sheets at
a country inn, and his severest hardship the finding his claret sour or being
compelled twice in one day to eat of the same kind of game, he was now
seized with a sporting mania, and determined to rough it in the woods. An
unsafe companion, perhaps, the reader may think; but it is not always the
roughest men who have the most pluck, nor those accustomed to the
commonest fare who grumble the least when offered still coarser, and there
is truth in the words of worthy Tom Draw: “Give me a raal gentleman, one
as sleeps soft and eats high, and drinks highest kind, to stand roughing it.”
So we discussed matters over a comfortable dinner, with the aid of a
couple of bottles of claret, one of champagne, and a little brandy; and Don
concluded he would as lief eat salt pork as woodcock, and ship biscuit as
French rolls. He was anxious to examine my list of camp articles, and was
quite ready to do away with a large part of them; but finally determined to
leave that matter to me, holding me strictly responsible for carrying any
unnecessary effeminate luxuries. The discussion was not a short one, but
this happy decision being arrived at, I was perfectly satisfied.
 We met by appointment a few days later at the Angier House, in that
thriving, active town of Cleveland, which seems to be drawing to itself the
business of the other cities of Lake Erie, and, cannibal-like, to be growing
fat on their exhausted lives. It is a thoroughly American city, and, like all
our cities, doubtless has the handsomest street in the world, for so we were
assured by the citizens.
A large part of the trade of Cleveland is with the mines of Lake Superior,
and steamers leave almost daily for that region, carrying a miscellaneous
assortment of the necessaries of life, and returning laden with copper and
iron ore. Not content, however, with this unexciting freight, these vessels
propose to carry excursion parties round the lakes, and are all, if their
advertisements are to be believed, supplied with brass bands, and every
luxury of the season.
In Cleveland we intended to purchase such ardent spirits as we might
require, and Don commenced:
“Now as to this question of liquor, I should like to have your views
concerning kind and quantity?”
“Well, I expect we will be in the woods twenty days, and have made my
computations on that basis; so we will need a case of liquor, and as you
prefer brandy, brandy let it be.”
“No, no; by no means,” responded Don; “do not let my predilections
influence you; besides, a dozen bottles seems a good deal. If we were gone
twenty-four days it would be just a pint a day, or a half-pint apiece—rather
severe, considering we expect to rough it.”
“You know we have to give the men some occasionally, and then we will
meet other parties and have mutual good-luck to drink. It will not be an
over-supply, though we can make it less if you say so; I myself drink little
when in the woods.”
“I believe that,” replied Don, ironically; “and considering how well I
know you, it was hardly worth while to mention it. But this is a serious
question, for we can get nothing drinkable after leaving Cleveland; and if
we have to do what you say, do you not think we shall run short? I want
plenty of everything, and it would be better to take a dozen and a half, if
there is a doubt.”
“There is no doubt; but if——”
 “If you say there is no doubt, that is sufficient; but I am surprised you
should give the men expensive brandy, when they would probably prefer a
coarser article.”
“Of course, we will take a common whiskey for the men; but
occasionally while using the flask ourselves we will naturally pass it to
them.”
“Ah, yes; I understand. But, really, I am not satisfied it should be all
brandy; you must not expect to have the same comforts you would in the
city, and if you will take my advice, you will have at least part whiskey.”
“But you prefer brandy, and one is as easy to carry as the other.”
“Really, now, you must not consult my wishes; in fact, although I admit
a slight preference for brandy, many persons prefer whiskey. Before you
decide, it would be well to examine the matter thoroughly; and as we are
now at the store, you must make up your mind promptly.”
This conversation had taken place as we were walking from the hotel to
an establishment that had been recommended to us.
“Remember,” continued Don, “you must act for the joint interest, and
there are several points well worth considering. In the first place, whiskey is
much cheaper; then it is probably purer than the brandy you buy here; if a
bottle should be broken the loss is less——”
“Certainly; if you would be equally content, I should arrange it
differently.”
“How often must I tell you not to consider me, and I am decidedly
pleased at your change of views. Now, putting aside any supposed
preference on my part, what proportions would you suggest?”
“Nine of whiskey to three of brandy.”
“Ah,” gasped Don, losing his breath at the suddenness of this response,
“have you given the matter sufficient consideration? You have not even
ascertained the price;” and then turning to the clerk, he asked: “How do you
sell your best whiskey?”
“Eight dollars a dozen, and brandy two dollars a bottle.”
“Nine bottles of whiskey would be six dollars,” I calculated aloud, “and
six for the brandy, make twelve. Have them packed and delivered on board
the City of Cleveland promptly at half-past seven, because she leaves at
eight.”
 “But are you satisfied?” cried Don in an agony of horror at such a want
of discussion; “have you examined all the bearings of the change? Can it be
packed in time? You know whiskey does not go as far as brandy. Are you
sure you have enough? Is there no question about that being the best
proportion? Would you not prefer all whiskey? In case of sickness, may we
not need more brandy? What is the best mode of packing it? Is it sure to be
at the boat punctually?”
“That is the clerk’s affair; if it is there it will be paid for, and if not it
won’t. Let’s look at the town; come,” and I dragged him off just in time to
avoid a dozen new propositions, and as many unanswerable questions,
leaving the clerk, bottle in hand, looking the image of despair at the
avalanche of inquiries that had burst upon him.
After strolling about for several hours we reached the boat, and found
the case of liquor waiting for us, and proceeded to select our stateroom.
This matter rose at once to a serious question in Don’s eyes. I resolved to
leave it entirely to him, confident that his elegant manner would impress the
steward. He at once devoted his entire attention to it, flitting from place to
place in the forward and after cabins with the steward at his side, pointing
out defects here, suggesting changes there, popping in and out of doors,
describing his foreign experiences and the prime necessity of comfortable
quarters, turning down the sheets, peering into cracks, feeling the pillows,
casting a suspicious eye upon blankets, dissatisfied with all, and finally
resolved to take one which could not be examined at the time for want of
the key, but which the steward, who had been a respectful and sympathetic
listener, assured him had none of the defects he had pointed out.
The immaculate stateroom was engaged, the boat pushed off, the key
was obtained, and lo and behold! if it had none of these specified defects, it
had another—one of the wooden supports, a huge beam eighteen inches
broad, passed directly up through the foot of both the berths, reducing them
to four feet six inches in length. When Don made this discovery his face
was a study for his friends the artists; anger could not do justice to the
occasion; despair, bewilderment, horror, astonishment, seemed blended,
with a lurking suspicion that the sympathetic steward had been making
game of him. He rushed to the office, could find nothing of the steward, but
was informed that all the other staterooms were engaged.
 However, after supper, the officials relented and gave us another room,
enjoying mightily their joke, as I always believed it to be, although Don
never could be brought to admit that they could by any possibility have
dared to make fun of him, and insisted it was a blunder of that “stupid
steward.”
We reached Detroit by five o’clock of the following morning, and as the
boat for some wise reason remained there till two in the afternoon, we
strolled round the city. It is a promising place, and has the finest street in the
world, so the citizens assured us, called Jefferson Avenue. The market was
well supplied with fish, and among them sturgeon, cut into slabs of yellow,
flabby flesh; pale Mackinaw salmon, and darker ones from Lake Superior;
white fish, the best of which were sold for six cents a pound; lake mullet,
black and white bass, yellow and white perch, sun-fish, northern pickerel,
suckers, pike-perch, cat-fish, and lake shad or lake sheepshead, called in
French Bossu, or humpback—a very appropriate appellation. These fish had
been for the most part taken in nets; but black bass are captured abundantly
with the rod in the small lakes near Detroit, and in Canada opposite. The
principal articles sold in the market, however, were strawberries and hoop-
skirts; the latter being so numerous that Don remarked incidentally that the
inhabitants absolutely skirt the market. This he evidently intended as a joke.
A few miles beyond Detroit is situated its pretentious rival, Port Huron,
which is also a flourishing town, and has the handsomest street in the
world; and opposite Port Huron are Sarnia and Point Edwards, the termini
of the Grand Trunk and the Great Western railroads of Canada. We touched
at Point Edwards at about eleven o’clock in the evening.
America is a great place; the people are upright, virtuous, honest,
enterprising, energetic, brave, intelligent, charitable and public spirited;
they are the finest race of men and the most beautiful and cultivated women
in the world, but they do not know how to dine. To gobble down one’s
victuals, regardless of digestion or decency, is not eating like Christians but
feeding like animals; to thrust one’s fork or spoon into the dish appropriated
to holding food for all, is uncleanly and offensive; to eat peas with a knife is
bad enough, but to use it immediately afterwards to cut butter from the
butter-plate is absolutely disgusting. No one who does these things is either
a lady or a gentleman; and no one who cannot keep his arms at his side
while cutting his meat is fit to eat at a public table.
 There was one gentleman, as he would claim to be considered, who sat
near us, who, although he had a proper silver fork, endeavored religiously
to eat his peas on a knife that happened to have a small point. This
operation, always difficult and dangerous, became, from the formation of
the blade, almost impossible; the peas rolled off at every attempt, and the
unfortunate rarely succeeded in carrying to his mouth more than one at a
time, till finally reduced to despair, he seized a table-spoon, and with it
devoured them in great mouthfuls.
The dinner was quite a lively scene; the ladies, although there was plenty
of room, were smuggled in clandestinely before the gong was sounded, and
the men, dreading the horrors of a second table, rushed for the remaining
chairs, standing behind and guarding them religiously, but politely waiting
till the ladies were seated. There was plenty of food, but each man
immediately collected such delicacies as were near him, and he imagined he
might need, and transferred them to his plate or a small saucer. There was
abundance of time, no one having the slightest prospect of occupation after
dinner, and yet every man, woman, and child set to work eating as though
they expected at any moment to be dragged away and condemned to weeks
of starvation.
The waiters, like all Americanized Irishmen, were independent if not
insolent, and we overheard the following discourse between one of them
and an unhappy wretch who had come in late and could obtain no
attendance. The suffering individual began rapping on his plate with the
knife till he attracted the notice of a passing waiter:
Waiter.—“Well, what are you making that noise for?”
Starving Individual.—“I should like to have something to eat.”
Waiter.—“Isn’t there plenty to eat all round you?”
Individual.—“But I want some meat.”
Waiter.—“Why don’t you ask for it, then? What do you want?”
Individual.—“What kinds are there?”
Waiter.—“Why there’s beefsteak, to be sure.”
Individual.—“I would like to have some beefsteak.”
Waiter.—“Why didn’t you say so, then, at first? Give me your plate if
you expect me to get it for you.”
 It was their habit to empty the water left in the glasses back into the
pitchers, and when I asked one for a glass of water, he drank out of it
himself first, and then handed it to me. On another occasion he helped Don
by giving him the tumbler a stranger had just used.
These little peculiarities all round encouraged sociability; you could
hardly refuse to know a man when you had drunk out of the same glass and
eaten from the same dish with him, and a lady naturally felt at home with a
gentleman whose ribs she had been punching for half an hour. The progress
of the meal, however, was somewhat checkered, not a few of the guests
clamoring for their dessert ere the others had finished their soup. The only
explanation of this haste was from the graceful stewardess, who was the
redeeming feature of the boat, and who said the waiters were in a hurry so
as to have it over as soon as possible. It might aptly be said of the
Americans: “They eat to live.”
Beyond Lake St. Clair the land on both sides of the river is low, and,
especially on the Canadian side, adorned with cultivated farms and dotted
with picturesque country houses. A half mile barely separates the two
nations; and, in case of war, with our present improved artillery, the
intervening river would hardly form an obstacle to mutual destruction, till
the once smiling fields and happy homes would be one vast scene of
desolation.
Emerging into Lake Huron we began to perceive the effects of the cool
water and consequent condensation of the warmer atmosphere; a heavy fog
lay upon the surface, at first not higher than our upper deck, but creeping up
as the night advanced. On one side a beautiful fog-bow with faint and
delicate colors, spanned the sky, while on the other a brilliant ring of
sparkling silver surrounded the moon. The water that was an opaque, milky
white at Cleveland, had been growing darker, greener, and clearer, attaining
perfect purity ere we reached Lake Superior, and exposing to view objects
many feet below its surface.
Having reached Detour, which is a growing place and will soon have the
finest street in the world, at eight o’clock at night, and the channel through
Lake George being intricate, the captain announced we could proceed no
further that evening, and the passengers generally went ashore to explore
the country. The land is low around Detour, though there are clusters of
pretty islands, and here for the first did we see the rocky northern formation
and the evergreen trees.
Lake George, which is at the head of Lake Huron, or more properly a
part of it, is shallow and muddy. A channel, narrow and of but twelve feet in
depth, has been dredged and marked out with stakes; it is crooked, and will
scarcely admit of two vessels passing abreast. The shoal mud-flats were
visible in every direction, and our wheels stirred up the bottom as we
passed.
It was with a feeling of relief that we escaped from this lake into the
deeper and rapid waters of the river Ste. Marie, whose eddying current and
bold shores were a pleasant sight, to our eyes wearied with the sameness of
lake travel. We had been three nights and almost three days caged in our
floating home, and were delighted at the near approach to our destination.
We had not heard the band mentioned in the advertisements, but supplied its
place with a crazy piano strummed by amateur performers; we had not
partaken of all the luxuries of the season, but had appreciated with
sharpened appetites the substantials that were furnished; we had not
enjoyed the company of fair excursionists from Cleveland or Detroit, but
had formed the acquaintance of one or two kind beings in crinoline; we had
not had an exciting trip, but had been transported safely and slowly, and at
eight o’clock that morning we reached the Sault Ste. Marie.
A weary waste of waters lay behind; our track lengthening into the dim
distance, stretched out to many thousand miles; we had crossed deep
streams, had burrowed through high mountains, had darted along broad
meadows, had swept across majestic lakes, had ascended mighty rivers; less
than a hundred years ago many months would have been expended in
completing this same journey; serious difficulties would have had to be
overcome and dangers encountered; we had condensed a year of our
grandfathers’ lives into three days; we had spanned one-half our great
continent, fled from the metropolis of civilization to the native haunts of the
savage; in fact, gone back from the nineteenth into the eighteenth century.
We had been carried by steam upon the track of iron or in the moving
palace; in future we were to embark in the voyageur’s bateau, and be
propelled by oars or sail. Heretofore the unnatural wants of civilized life
had been indulged and gratified; hereafter, the commonest home, the
simplest covering, the plainest food, was to be our lot; hitherto we had been
in the land where gold was the talisman that commanded ten thousand
slaves; henceforth we were to trust ourselves to kindly nature and our own
capabilities. Glorious were our anticipations from the change. Our vessel,
the unromantic City of Cleveland, which, from the beginning, had been
lumbering along at the moderate rate of ten miles an hour without ever
being betrayed into the slightest evidence of enthusiasm, seemed overjoyed
at her approaching arrival, and dressed herself in her gala costume of
variegated bunting. She whistled merrily to announce to the inhabitants that
once more she was to bless their sight, and tried to get up a little extra steam
for a final burst. The travellers crowded her decks, the natives collected
along shore; the former waved their handkerchiefs, the latter, probably
having no handkerchiefs, swung their hats; and amid all this excitement we
came merrily up to the dock.
The Sault, or Soo, as the name of the village is always pronounced, is
not a large place, but proved to be larger than I expected; our dull plodding
eastern people can hardly imagine how rapidly the west is growing in
wealth and population; already our little western brother is claiming to be a
man, and if we are not careful will be too much for us some day. This newly
planted village, almost at the extreme northwest of American civilization,
included an excellent hotel, a dozen stores, and at least a hundred houses
and workshops. Already the belles of Illinois, Wisconsin, Iowa, and
Minnesota were congregating at it to enjoy its cool temperature and
invigorating atmosphere, and ere many years are passed it will be a
fashionable watering-place, thronged with the élite of western society. Its
principal hotel, the Chippewa House, is admirably kept, and doubtless is the
pioneer of an infinitely more gorgeous affair.
Don, however, who is rather particular and not much accustomed to the
free and easy mode of country life, was somewhat disappointed with our
room. It had the great desideratum of plenty of fresh air, for it was of the
whole width of the house and had windows back and front, but Don was
surprised that people who kept hotels did not acquaint themselves with the
other important requisites.
“There, for instance, you observe the water pitcher has a cracked handle.
Some time you will undertake to lift it and it will give way, and then there is
no telling what it may ruin; the trunk, even, may receive the entire
contents.”
 “But, Don, that is an old crack; it has evidently stood several years, and
will doubtless last the few days we are here.”
“Not so certain; and just observe that disgusting nick in the wash-basin,
it will always look dirty even if it is not.”
“Don, you are wrong there; that is a good sign, it proves the basin may
nick but won’t break.”
“Then there is no slop-basin; now what do you suppose we are to do
without a slop-basin?”
“Why, throw the slops out of the window, to be sure.”
“You would hardly call that decent in New York; and not only may they
fall on some passer-by, but the window is too small to permit it
conveniently. Just look at this pillow; it is long, to be sure, but not stuffed
with half feathers enough; what am I to do with such an apology for a
pillow as this?”
“Why, double it up, of course.”
“I see,” he concluded, in a resigned tone, “you are making a joke of
these matters, so we will not pursue the subject; but now that we are on
shore fresh from our voyage, I wish to ask seriously your deliberate opinion
whether you would advise any one to take the trip just for the pleasure of
the journey itself?”
 CHAPTER II.
In the northern part of Minnesota is the greatest elevation of what
geologists denominate the eastern water-shed of our continent; lying almost
exactly in the centre of North America, here the streams that flow to the
north, east, and south, find their source. Lake Superior, that adjoins this
section on the east, is the chief of those magnificent lakes that empty from
one another into the St. Lawrence, and finally wash the coast of Labrador.
The Mississippi, taking its rise in the same region and but a few miles away,
flows southward with ever increasing volume to the Gulf of Mexico, and
then sweeping around Florida and through the Atlantic, rejoins the waters of
Lake Superior off Newfoundland; while the Red River of the North,
pursuing a contrary course, empties into Hudson’s Bay and thence into the
Northern Ocean. These waters, starting from little rills and springs scarcely
more than a few steps apart, after wandering thousands of miles asunder
come together and commingle in the Northern Atlantic Ocean.
Here were the famous Indian portages. One from Lake Superior through
Pigeon River, Sturgeon Lake, and Rainy River into the Lake of the Woods,
has served to locate the boundary between two great nations, and is the
native highway between Hudson’s River and Hudson’s Bay. Another
through Brulé River leads into the head waters of the Mississippi, and
thence, by ascending the Missouri, to the rivers that empty into the Pacific
Ocean. These portages were traversed year after year by the aboriginal
inhabitants, who have left their tracks in the well-worn paths that are still
followed by the voyageurs, and are suggestive of easy grades to those who
wish to bind our country together by paddle-wheel and railroad track.
Lake Superior, with a surface six hundred feet above, and a bottom three
hundred feet below the level of the sea, stretches out in vastness and
splendor five hundred miles long by nearly two hundred broad, and holds in
its bosom islands that would make respectable kingdoms in the old world.
On the southern shore its sandstone rocks are worn by the waves and storms
into fantastic shapes, imitative of ancient castles or modern vessels, or are
hollowed out into deep caverns; on the north the bolder shore rises into
rugged mountains whose face has been seamed by the moving ice-drift of
former ages. In the country bordering upon the south are located
inexhaustible mines of copper and iron of immense value; and along the
northern coast are found agates and precious stones.
A hundred streams pour their contents into the great lake which, from its
enormous size and depth, retaining the temperature of winter through the
summer months, empties its clear, cold, transparent waters into the river
Ste. Marie. Not producing a large variety of fish, those that dwell in its
bosom are the finest of their species. The speckled trout, the Mackinaw
salmon, and the black bass are large and vigorous; sturgeons are plentiful,
although valueless except as an article of food; and the white fish are the
daintiest fresh-water fish in the world.
The forests are mainly composed of the sombre evergreen trees, relieved
frequently by the beautiful white birch, and along the low lands by a
considerable number of other varieties; the shore on the north is a bold bluff
five hundred feet high, but where it descends to the water it forms
occasionally tracts of fertile interval; on the south the coast is more level
and apparently more sterile. Both shores are as yet totally uncultivated, and
from the severity of the winters will probably long so remain.
Immediately upon our arrival at the Sault we made our preparations for a
campaign against the fish, and engaged as guides Joseph Le Sayre, a
Melicete chief, and Alexis Biron, a Canadian half-breed. Old Joe, as we
called him, though he did not seem over forty, was a fine looking Indian
with an erect graceful shape, and pleasant open countenance; Alexis, though
apparently a good man, was not so prepossessing.
We embarked in a large, stout canoe, and paddling across the broken
water at the foot of the fall, commenced fishing the streams into which the
river is divided by numerous islands near the opposite shore. A small,
brown caddis fly, or, scientifically speaking, phryganea, covered the water
in myriads, was wafted along in clouds by the wind, and settled upon the
trees and rocks everywhere. Knowing that they changed from a species of
worm on rising to the surface, we selected clear, calm spots and endeavored
to examine the process. It was too rapid for human eyesight; a spot of
transparent water would be bare one instant, and the next there would be
upon its surface two or three little creatures dancing about and trying their
wings preparatory to a bolder flight. We never managed to see the larva, but
invariably beheld the perfect fly appear instantaneously.
 Their number was incalculable; living ones filled the air, were blown
along like moving sand, were carried into our faces so that we could
scarcely face the wind, and settled upon our boat; dead ones covered the
water in all directions, were devoured by the fish, especially the lake
herring, and were collected by the current in masses resembling sea-weed.
They were nearly the color of common brown paper throughout, legs,
wings, and body being of much the same hue. They arrive every year at the
same time and in about the same numbers. They last a week or so, and
although we found them the entire length of our subsequent trip, their
favorite locality seemed to be the Sault. They are used as bait for the lake
herring, which I believe is identical with the cisco, an excellent fish closely
resembling, and in my opinion equal, if not superior to the white fish.
The trout usually begin taking the artificial fly in the early part of July,
but although we had been warned that they were not as yet rising this year,
we had no anticipation of the wretched luck that awaited us.
Notwithstanding the water seemed promising, and deep, dark holes,
beautiful eddies, and lively pools indicated success; and notwithstanding
continual changes of our flies, we only killed three small fish. Perhaps the
numerous natural insects, or the larvæ from which they were
metamorphosed, proved a sufficient and preferable food; we could not
induce the trout to rise, and did not even see them breaking.
Exploring all the little streams of the Canadian side, hoping at every cast
to improve our luck, we worked our way slowly and arduously, for the
water was unusually low, against the current, and steadily ascending with
the strenuous efforts of our canoe men, who used stout poles for the
purpose, we at last emerged above the islands and at the head of the rapids.
Here the water of the lake, confined to the narrow channel, chafed
uneasily in tiny wavelets, as though conscious of the approaching struggle.
Above, the river stretched away to the westward, evidently from a
considerable elevation but comparatively smooth; nearer, it was rushing like
a mill-race; below it was broken into white waves, huge cascades, and
seething rapids. How wonderful is the change in the appearance of water
lying calmly in the lake, hurrying rapidly but silently down a smooth slope,
lashed into billows by the wind, toiling among rocks or leaping over falls—
but above all is it peculiar and terrible in passing through broken descents!
See it glide so deceitfully smooth, but with such resistless power toward the
rapids; notice its tiny innocent ripples and childlike murmurs at your feet;
see the pretty rolling undulations. Trust yourself to its seductions. Now it
has you in its fearful current, now it drags you along, it clasps you
struggling and shrieking in its fierce embrace; it throws its white arms
around you, lashes itself into a fury, whirls you about in its powerful eddies,
sinks you down in its mighty whirlpools, dashes you against the rocks,
drags you along the jagged bottom, tosses you over the cascades, and
finally flings you torn, bleeding, disfigured, and lifeless to the bottom of the
tranquil pool at its base.
In the sunlight it resembles liquid crystal; flowing along placidly,
transparent as the diamond, it sweeps upon the rocky shoals and flies up in
a shower of purest pearls, alternately revealing or hiding some monstrous
gem to which it lends its reflective brilliancy; over the limestone it is opal,
over yellow rocks it becomes onyx, over the red, ruby or garnet, over the
green, emerald.
Bending and waving in ever varying beauty of form, but carrying in its
bosom or reflecting from its foam the sunlight fire, a thousand times
intensified, of precious stones.
As the day was well advanced, we determined to trust ourselves to the
unreliable element and run the rapids, which is one of the favorite
amusements of the adventurous. This can be made as dangerous as
desirable, according to the selection of route, either near shore, where there
is only the chance of an upset and a few bruises, or through the centre,
where it is certain death. We chose a middle course, but as near the centre as
our guides, who were not venturesome, would go. Crossing over above the
broken water to the American shore, the large, high-sided, but fragile canoe
was headed down stream, giving us a view of the prospect before us.
Great ridges of white foam stretched at intervals almost from shore to
shore, while the darker water was broken into heavy waves, curling up
stream and ready to pour into the boat as it should rush downwards through
them. At first the canoe settled gently, making us plainly feel that we were
going down hill; then it gathered way as the current increased, and went
plunging on its course. The waves flew from our bow or leaped over in
upon us, the rocks glided by racing up stream, whirlpools twisted us from
side to side; we sprang over tiny cascades or darted down slopes deep and
dark, or shallow and feathery white with foam; we rushed upon rocks where
inevitable destruction seemed awaiting us, and the shore, trees, and houses
went tearing by; past the little island at the head of the rapids, past the main
fall, through foam and spray, we dashed headlong, till the few minutes
required for the entire descent being exhausted, we glided calmly and
quietly into the water below.
Looking back it seemed as though we gazed upon a hill covered with
water instead of up a river, and nothing but practical experience would
convince a tyro that it could be navigated in safety with a birch canoe.
Exhilarated with the pleasurable sensations we had enjoyed, and satisfied
that the trout were not in a rising mood that day at least, we returned to the
hotel.
The few fish we had killed were transferred by our host to the cook, and
reäppeared on table in fine style. After discussing an excellent dinner and
comparing notes with the other fishermen present, we accepted the
invitation of the canal superintendent to examine the locks and visit his
pond of tame trout. We found the canal an admirable structure, expensively
built, and of a size to accommodate the largest steamers that navigate Lake
Superior; not, however, being skilful in works of that character, we felt
more interest in the trout pond.
The latter was quite small, fed by a pipe from the canal that cast up a jet
in the centre, and was filled with over a hundred of fine, large, active trout,
weighing from one to four pounds. They were wonderfully gentle, would
feed from the hand, allow any one to scratch their sides and lift them from
the water, and if one end of the food was held fast, they would tug like good
fellows at the other. When we held a piece of bait between the first finger
and thumb, and at the same time presented the little finger, they would
frequently seize the latter by mistake; and although on that occasion they let
go instantly without doing the least harm, the proprietor said when hungry
they occasionally left the marks of their teeth. It was extremely interesting
to watch their movements, as their appetites were never allowed to become
ravenous and produce quarrelling among themselves. They were
magnificent fellows, swimming about majestically, and coming to the
surface in a fearless way to return the gaze of the spectators.
The trout were mostly taken in nets from the canal when the water was
drawn off. They had been known to spawn, trying to ascend the jet for that
purpose, and depositing their eggs where the water fell; but the spawn either
was eaten by their comrades or failed to hatch. Under no circumstances,
however, would the young have lived among such rapacious giants.
Having amused ourselves sufficiently with the tame trout, we turned our
attention once more to their wilder brethren; but as no better success
attended us than in the morning, we returned early to superintend the
capture of the white-fish. Every morning and evening the Indians and half-
breeds are seen by pairs in their canoes, one wielding a large net with a long
wooden handle, and the other plying the paddle. Ascending cautiously to
the eddy below some prominent rock, the net-man in the bow peers into the
troubled water, and having caught sight of the white-fish lying securely in
his haven of rest, casts the net over him. The moment the net touches the
water the other ceases paddling, and allows the canoe to settle back with the
current; the fish thus entangled in the meshes is lifted out and thrown into
the boat. The net is about four feet across, the rim is of wood, and the
handle is bent at the end so as to afford a secure hold. Nothing but the
practised eye of the native can distinguish, amid the foam and spray and
broken water, the dim and varying outline of the fish. Many are frequently
taken at one cast, and they are sold, large and small, for five cents apiece.
Although undoubtedly delicious eating, fresh from the cold water of
Lake Superior, white-fish are not superior in flavor to their smaller brethren,
the lake herring. The latter, so closely resembling the former as to be only
distinguishable by the sharper projection of the lower jaw, are taken with
the natural brown fly that has been already described. Differing little, if at
all, from the cisco of Lake Ontario, they rise with a bolder leap at the
natural fly, and their break is as vigorous and determined as that of the
trout. They do not seem, except on rare occasions, to take the artificial fly,
but with bait not only furnish pleasant sport for ladies, but an admirable
dish for the table.
The lake herring is found in many of the extensive waters of the West,
but being smaller than the white-fish, is overshadowed by the reputation of
the latter. It is a pretty fish, bites freely and plays well, but having to
contend in delicacy against the white-fish, and in vigor against the trout, it
does not receive the attention it deserves. Early in July they collect at the
Sault in millions, filling every eddy of the rapids and crowding the canal,
and devour the dead and living phryganidæ. Later they retire to deep water.