Kaufmann Kohler

Kaufmann Kohler (1843–1926) was a German-born American rabbi and the leading theologian of Reform Judaism in the United States. Educated at Munich, Berlin and Erlangen, he emigrated in 1869 to serve congregations in Detroit, Chicago and New York, where he succeeded his father-in-law David Einhorn at Temple Beth-El. He convened the Pittsburgh Conference of 1885, whose platform defined classical Reform for a generation, and from 1903 to 1921 was president of Hebrew Union College in Cincinnati. Jewish Theology, Systematically and Historically Considered (1918) was his summary of a lifetime's thought; he also contributed some three hundred articles to the Jewish Encyclopedia.