1768 - 1828 ISRAEL JACOBSON (Germany)
The "Father of Reform", he was also the financial agent of Jerome Bonaparte, King of Westphalia. He organized the first Reform service and later founded the first Reform Temple with the help of Jacob Herz Beer. Jacobson was a strong believer in inter-racial association, and in 1801 established a school for Jewish and Christian children in the Herz mountains. The Reform movement was also known as the "Liberal" or "Progressive" movement. It developed partly out of the political and cultural emancipation of Jews in Western Europe. Although Jacobson sought a basis for his ideas in traditional Judaism, the Reform movement soon sought to distance itself from Orthodoxy, nationalism, and the authority of the written and Oral Law and concentrate on the "universal" aspects of Judaism. (See 1806, 1810, 1885)
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