8/23/2019 The Trefa Banquet - Commentary
ﬔe Trefa Banquet
On Wednesday evening, July 11, 1883, some two
hundred persons gathered for dinner at the Cincinnati
Highland House, a hilltop…
FEB, 1966 · BY JOHN J. APPEL
On Wednesday evening, July 11, 1883, some two hundred
persons gathered for dinner at the Cincinnati Highland House, a
hilltop resort and restaurant overlooking the Ohio river and the
Kentucky hills. Sponsored by a group of Cincinnati Jews who
preferred to remain anonymous, the event was meant to honor
the delegates to the eighth annual council meeting of the Union
of American Hebrew Congregations, and the first graduating
class of the Hebrew Union College. Among the guests were
members of Cincinnati’s Jewish upper class as well as non-
Jewish judges, clergymen, and professors from the local
university. The Cincinnati Enquirer described the affair as a
“Jewish Jollification”; in American Jewish history it has become
known as the “trefa banquet,” an important link in a chain of
events that was finally to lead to a break between Reform and
Conservative Judaism.
_____________
For the account of what happened that July summer night,
historians have to a large extent relied on the memoirs of David
Philipson, one of the four young men ordained as rabbi at
Cincinnati’s Plum Street Temple on the afternoon of the same
day. In My Life as an American Jew (published in 1941), Rabbi
Philipson recalled that after the guests had been seated, the
invocation spoken, and the waiters signalled to serve the first
course, “terrific excitement” broke out among the diners, seated
under the gas lights of the Highland House banquet hall. “Two
rabbis rose from their seats and rushed from the room. Shrimp
had been placed before them as the opening course of the
elaborate menu.”
https://www.commentarymagazine.com/articles/the-trefa-banquet/ 1/17
8/23/2019 The Trefa Banquet - Commentary
According to Rabbi Philipson, the “orthodox Eastern press rang
the changes on the ‘trefa banquet’ week in, week out,” and the
event furnished the opening for. the movement that culminated
in the founding of the Jewish Theological Seminary of America
and the establishment of the Conservative wing in the American
synagogue. He explained the incident as the failure of a Jewish
caterer to provide a strictly kosher meal, though he had been
explicitly instructed to do so. And this, by and large, has become
the standard explanation found in the standard histories of
American Judaism.
Convinced that the event warranted re-examination, and not
satisfied that a caterer’s whim or oversight was responsible for
the “trefa banquet,” I determined to piece together whatever data
could be located about this controversial dinner. In the course of
my investigations, I discovered a complete version of the bill of
fare served that night. Following is the menu for the “trefa
banquet” exactly as it appeared in the pages of the Cincinnati
Enquirer for July 12, 1883. (I have retained misspellings or
printer’s errors.)
https://www.commentarymagazine.com/articles/the-trefa-banquet/ 2/17
8/23/2019 The Trefa Banquet - Commentary
Menu
Little Neck Clams (half shell)
Amontillado Sherry
Potages
Consommé Royal
Sauternes
Poissons
Fillet de Boef, aux Champignons
Soft-shell Crabs
a l’Amerique, Pommes Duchesse
Salade of Shrimps
St. Julien
Entree
Sweet Breads a la Monglas
Petits Pois a la Francaise
Diedescheimer
Relevee
Poulets a la Viennoise
Asperges Sauce,
Vinaigrette Pommes Pate
Roman Punch
Grenouiles a la Creme
and Cauliflower
Roti
Vol au Vents de Pigeons,
a la Tyrolienne
Salade de Saitue
G. H. Mumm Extra Dry
Hors D’Oeuvers
Bouchies de Volaille, a la Regeurs
Olives Caviv, Sardeiles de Hollands
Brissotins au Supreme Tomatoe
Mayonaise
Sucres
https://www.commentarymagazine.com/articles/the-trefa-banquet/ 3/17
8/23/2019 The Trefa Banquet - Commentary
Ice-Cream
Assorted and Ornamented Cakes
Entrements
Fromages Varies Fruits Varies
Martell Cognac
Cafe Noir
I was persuaded of the accuracy of the Enquirer’s account after
collating it with several partial versions of the menu which
appeared in American, English, and German-Jewish newspapers
at the time. My researches also disclosed that the meal was
supervised by Gus Lindeman, purveyor of food and drink for the
Allemania Club, whose membership was composed of
Cincinnati’s wealthiest German Jews—among them those who
arranged and paid for the Highland House dinner.
The menu shows that Little Neck Clams rather than shrimp, as
Rabbi Philipson thought, had the distinction of first offending
those diners who observed kashruth. Nor did clams constitute
the only violation of kashruth; the menu included soft-shell
crabs, shrimp salad, frogs’ legs, and milchig desserts (ice-cream
and assorted cheeses) served after the meat courses. Even a
cursory knowledge of what hotel men call “mass feeding
procedures” should convince anyone that this array of ritually
forbidden dishes for an important ceremonial dinner was not
simply the result of a caterer’s oversight.
If it was not, how then is the “trefa banquet” to be explained?
The investigation inevitably leads to the words and deeds of
Rabbi Isaac M. Wise, at that time president of the Hebrew
Union College, and—according to his contemporary detractors—
the “Pope” of American Reform Judaism. The Highland House
dinner certainly lent substance to the charge made by rabbis of
conservative bent that Wise was encouraging the abrogation of
traditional observances.1 I must therefore emphasize that I
found no evidence to show that Rabbi Wise knew in advance of
the plans by the Cincinnati Banquet Committee to serve trefa
food. Indeed, it is reasonable to assume that he was too good a
politician and organizer to condone plans that were certain to
https://www.commentarymagazine.com/articles/the-trefa-banquet/ 4/17
8/23/2019 The Trefa Banquet - Commentary
offend the influential Orthodox element among the members of
the Union of American Hebrew Congregations and the
supporters of Hebrew Union College. My own conclusion is that
the trefa banquet was deliberately arranged, probably without
Rabbi Wise’s knowledge, by some of his supporters among
Cincinnati businessmen.
_____________
But one cannot leave it at that. The fact is that whether or not
Isaac M. Wise knew of the banquet committee’s plans—and he
disavowed any knowledge—he refused to condemn what was
unquestionably an affront to the sensibilities of those guests who
observed kashruth. Moreover, in the months following the
Highland House dinner, he shifted from a weak defense of the
anonymous hosts to an intemperate attack on the practice of
kashruth as such. His reactions to the “trefa banquet” constitute
an essential part of the story and deserve further attention.
Rabbi Wise’s first response was to pronounce both the Council
meeting and the dinner an unqualified success. He expressed
himself to this effect in two weeklies edited by him, the
American Israelite and the German-language Die Deborah.
(Both papers furnish important evidence for his and his
supporters’ views; a study of Die Deborah is especially revealing
because of Wise’s habit of treating it as his personal mouthpiece
and holding forth in it with less restraint than in its English-
language equivalent.2)
It soon became evident, however, that the matter was not to rest
there. One of the first public intimations that the harmony of the
Cincinnati proceedings had been marred by the “trefa banquet”
appeared in the “religious news” section of the New York Herald
on July 22, 1883. An anonymous report, signed “Historical
Platform,” deplored the fact that the Cincinnati meetings had
accomcomplished little except to promote fraternity, that the
Hebrew Union College did not prepare its students satisfactorily
for the rabbinate, and that the “rabbis and laymen, assembled for
a Jewish interest, instead of rising in a body and leaving the hall,
https://www.commentarymagazine.com/articles/the-trefa-banquet/ 5/17
8/23/2019 The Trefa Banquet - Commentary
sat down and participated” in a trefa dinner. Subsequently, the
Philadelphia Jewish Record and the American Hebrew also took
up the issue.
_____________
When his eastern critics thus began to demand an explanation of
and apology for the Highland House affair, Wise begged to be
excused from further discussions. In the American Israelite for
August 3, 1883, he wrote that he did not wish “to belittle a
number of generous and hospitable gentlemen” on account of
their caterer’s error, and he asked his critics to remember that
the American Hebrew’s religion “centers not in kitchen and
stomach.” He concluded:
The fact is that the said chief cook, himself a Jew, wool-
dyed, was placed there to bring before the guests a kosher
meal. So it was understood in Cincinnati all along, and we
do not know why he diversified his menu with multipeds
and bivalves. If any of the committee gave him such orders,
they are responsible to those who appointed them, not to
us, not to any newspaper, not to the Union of American
Hebrew Congregations, none of whom had anything to do
with the entertainment given to the guests connected with
the Council.
Such an explanation inevitably failed to conciliate his critics.
Two weeks later, Wise admitted in the Deborah that “because the
Cincinnati Banquet Committee allowed a few dishes to be served
which are forbidden according to Jewish ritual law,” those who
applaud liberal thoughts now “make a great to-do” because
“liberal thoughts appeal to reason” but “liberal actions come in
conflict with unthinking prejudice.”
In Wise’s opinion, the issue of the “trefa banquet” was merely a
pretext for striking at the Hebrew Union College and the Union
of American Hebrew Congregations. In responding to what he
considered the real issue, he soon abandoned all talk of a
caterer’s oversight, and transformed the Highland House Dinner
first into a test case of liberal convictions and gradually into an
act of assertion of the “new” Judaism. Thus in Die Deborah of
https://www.commentarymagazine.com/articles/the-trefa-banquet/ 6/17
8/23/2019 The Trefa Banquet - Commentary
November 2, 1883, Wise insisted that further explanations of the
“trefa banquet” were unnecessary because the large majority of
American Jews were indifferent to dietary laws, and because
Orthodox Jewish customs “cheapened” Judaism before the
public.
_____________
The most outspoken exposition of this point of view came from
the Denver correspondent of Die Deborah, one Rabbi Schreiber,
who coupled it with a slashing attack on the “open and hidden
enemies” of Wise, the College, and the Union. Dr. Schreiber
described Wise’s critics as “ignorant fanatics” and the Cincinnati
dinner as a fitting occasion to declare “publicly and
emphatically” that “kitchen Judaism” should be relegated “to the
antique cabinet where it belongs.” Why should a dozen men
whose religion depended upon abstention from oysters and
lobsters decide what others, who liked these dishes, should eat?
Who forced them to eat trefa dishes when so many fine kosher
foods had also been available? The “humbug” of the dietary laws
must go, for they “promote clannishness, Jewish exclusiveness,
even fanaticism” and they make Judaism “ridiculous, Lilliputian,
demeaning.”
_____________
Nor was the counterattack limited to words. When the Free Sons
of Israel, a fraternal order, met for a week-long convention in
Cincinnati in March 1884, about five hundred delegates
assembled at Eureka Hall for a dinner catered by Gus Lindeman,
whose previous “error” had not diminished his popularity. Rabbi
Wise, a member of the order, reproduced the full menu in the
American Israelite and noted that it was “printed on a silk scroll,
similar in form to that upon which the Jewish law is written.”
Readers of the Deborah were reminded that everything
consumed at Eureka Hall was kosher “except the oysters.” That
same month Grand Lodge No. 4 of Kesher Shel Barzel, another
fraternal order, met in Cleveland and dined on oysters, lobsters,
and similar delicacies. Continuing its offensive, the Israelite
https://www.commentarymagazine.com/articles/the-trefa-banquet/ 7/17
8/23/2019 The Trefa Banquet - Commentary
reprinted this menu as well, and reminded its readers that it was
not by accident that members of both orders had consumed
oysters on the half-shell.
“Ebn Samiel,” the Israelite’s Chicago correspondent, predicted
that the serving of oysters in Cincinnati would “undoubtedly
become occasion for new assaults” against the president of
Hebrew Union College. In the name of Chicago Jews, he offered
to take the blame for this “second mortal sin against the Jewish
stomach” on the grounds that the convention’s presiding officer
had been from Chicago, and Chicago Jews had been the first to
entertain Jewish conventions at non-Jewish hotels. Why feign
compliance to dietary laws in public when no one observed them
privately? “The new Judaism has a right to assert itself,” he
concluded. “And in the very publicity of such occasions, we want
to show our face.”
In April 1884, Wise’s quarrel with his critics led to his censure by
Congregation Rodef Sholem of Philadelphia. A “memorial”
adopted at a general meeting and sent to the Executive Board of
the Union of American Hebrew Congregations, accused him of
lacking “scholarly earnestness, dignity and respect for the worth
and character of others,” and asserted that his public utterances
as president of Hebrew Union College gave “grounds for alarm
concerning the example set to its students for the ministry.” The
indictment singled out an American Israelite editorial of July 27,
1883—concerning the “trefa banquet”—and objected to the “low
tone” of Wise’s remarks about rabbis and the Jewish press.
Eventually, the charges were referred to a committee of five,
appointed by the Union of American Hebrew Congregations.
The committee rejected the complaints as attempted censorship
of a newspaperman’s “forcible and vigorous” prose and cleared
Wise by noting that his labors entitled him to warmest support,
high esteem, and personal respect. Though the editor of the
American Hebrew (July 18, 1884) called the committee’s report a
“whitewash” of Wise, the latter informed the readers of Die
Deborah that the “crusade” against him had ended with his
exoneration. In point of fact, the schism between Wise and his
critics was in no way mended by his “exoneration.” In this
connection, it suffices to cite three important dates from the
https://www.commentarymagazine.com/articles/the-trefa-banquet/ 8/17
8/23/2019 The Trefa Banquet - Commentary
historical record. In 1885, a group of Eastern Reform rabbis met
in Pittsburgh and successfully challenged Rabbi Wise’s
leadership; in 1887, the Jewish Theological Seminary of New
York was established as a rival rabbinical training school to the
Hebrew Union College; and in 1889 the Central Conference of
American Rabbis—an organization of conservative Reform
rabbis—was set up.
Such, then, were the after-effects of the “trefa banquet.”
Returning now to the event itself, we may note that the whole
rancorous feud over the observance of the dietary laws occurred
at a time when many American Jews had already ceased to
observe kashruth. Among other things, the Highland House
dinner is a nearly perfect expression of the assimilationist
tendencies among American Jews in the 19th century, especially
among German Jews. So strong was the propensity of the
members of the Banquet Committee to regard conformity to
Gentile norms as an unquestioned virtue, that they deliberately
chose to make an issue of serving trefa food in public. It must be
admitted that their choice showed a good deal of sociological
awareness, for the adoption of the majority culture’s food
customs has always been one of the first and most significant
means of a minority group’s assimilation. Conversely, the
retention of food preferences and prohibitions continues even
today to provide a ready index for the degree of cultural
pluralism that is to be found on the American scene.
_____________
Yet for all their assimilationist yearnings, the wealthy Cincinnati
Jews who arranged the Highland House Dinner chose to remain
Jews. Therefore, they required an appropriate theological
justification for abrogating kashruth, and this is precisely what
Rabbi Wise provided for them. One of his biographers has
concluded that Wise’s method of interpretation of the
Pentateuch probably gave him sanction for whatever he wished
to advocate respecting the dietary laws. According to this
approach, oysters, apparently the high-status food for 19th-
century American Reform Jews—today it has been replaced by
https://www.commentarymagazine.com/articles/the-trefa-banquet/ 9/17
8/23/2019 The Trefa Banquet - Commentary
the shrimp cocktail—could be (and were) proved to be both
kosher and trefa by Rabbi Wise at different times in his long
career.3
Rabbi Wise’s own motives in all this are not clear. He himself
remained an observer of kashruth, and we do not know whether
he approved of the actions of his congregants, or whether he
merely felt constrained to defend his employers. What is clear,
however, is that he used his considerable talents to furnish a
rationalization for those who found kashruth a burden. Thus, at
the conclusion of a series of lectures on “Dietary Laws and
Sanitary Measures” in 1883, he said:
Whoever wants to be more or most conscientious in these
matters, and surround these Mosaic laws with the
rabbinical “fences” is certainly doing right if he is
conscientious in the matter, and thinks he does all that in
order to worship God and obey his laws. But he who does
not submit to all those ordinances, and is guided by the
simple directions of Moses in this matter, is certainly no
sinner, and may be a true and faithful son or daughter of
the Covenant. There is a law which stands higher than all
dietary laws, and that is “Be no fanatic,” which translated in
our vulgar language would sound somewhat like this: “Be
intelligent, and allow your reason to govern your passions,
propensities and superstitions.”
A study of the “trefa banquet” inevitably leads to a somewhat
altered portrait of Rabbi Wise, who has hitherto been considered
as a moderate Reformer. At least in this affair, he fought back
stubbornly, tactlessly, and with a zeal seemingly out of all
proportion to the cause at issue. His editorials reveal a man
apparently neither caring for nor understanding the deep hold of
traditional practice on his fellow Jews, a doctrinaire Reformer
zealous to bring Judaism into line with American customs and
apparently blind to the fact that attacks on others’ habits and
preferences are bound to create controversies which appeals to
reason cannot resolve.
https://www.commentarymagazine.com/articles/the-trefa-banquet/ 10/17
8/23/2019 The Trefa Banquet - Commentary
All this was long ago, as the following incident will make clear.
In March of 1965 I presented a paper on the “trefa banquet” at
the 63rd Annual Meeting of the American Jewish Historical
Society in Cincinnati. Greeting the delegates at a dinner
meeting, Dr. Nelson Glueck, President of the Hebrew Union
College-Jewish Institute of Religion, remarked that the repast
about to be served, though catered, was strictly kosher. Times do
change—and so does Reform Judaism.
1
On this point, see The Emergence of Conservative Judaism by
Moshe Davis, 1963.
2
This tendency has been analyzed in an excellent article by
Professor Joseph Gutman, “Watchman on the American Rhine:
New Light on Isaac M. Wise,” in the October 1958 American
Jewish Archives.
3
See D. Wilanski, Sinai to Cincinnati, 1937.
LIKE T WEET
John J. Appel
Enter Keyword SEARCH
https://www.commentarymagazine.com/articles/the-trefa-banquet/ 11/17
