A Unique American Apostate 19
transformation which saw him depart from the Jewish religious
tradition and the community in which he was reared.
Born in 1851 in Alzey, a small town in Rhenish Elesse, South¬
west Germany, Felix Adler was the son of Samuel Adler, a very
prominent Reform rabbi in Western Europe. Felix's childhood
years in Germany were brief, for in 1857 Samuel Adler accepted
the prestigious pulpit of Temple Emanu-El in New York, and the
Adler family immigrated to America.
A strong and vital spiritual atmosphere pervaded the Adler
home. By personal example, family rirual observances, and religi¬
ous instruction, Samuel inculcated his son witli the values and
principles of Reform Judaism. Young Felix adopted his father's
fundamental thcolosjical ideas, including the belief that a relitjious
mission to teach ethical monotheism to mankind had been be¬
stowed on Jews by God, and that they had been set apart in order
to fulfill that mission.
The teachings and activities of Felix' parents also greatly nour¬
ished his innate social conscience which later blossomed into the
intense social passion and consuming ethical idealism for which he
became famous. His mother, Henrietta, regularly took him to
New York's tenements to distribute baskets of food to the poor.
His father Samuel not only consistently steered his temple on a
charitable course, but taught that charitable and ethical behavior
were among the noblest manifestations of the Jew's religious life.
Indeed, young Felix found Judaism especially appealing because
of his father's stress on the significance of its moral dimension. The
idea that religion was the ground for morality and thus the indis¬
pensable source of human happiness struck a responsive chord in
Felix and won his ready assent.
But in his late adolescent years, young Adler experienced grave
religious tensions. Intellectually oriented and introspective, he
took his religious faith seriously and subjected it to constant re¬
view and critical judgment. In 1868, in particular, while a junior
at Columbia College, Adler began to reevaluare his fundamental