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By :
Cyrus
Adler
Milton
Goldsmith
American rabbi and author; born in Ostrowo, Prussia, Jan. 21,
1858. He emigrated to America (New York) in July, 1872, and from New York he
went to Fall River, Mass., where he found employment as clerk in a
tea-store. Through the influence of friends Krauskopf secured admittance
into the Hebrew Union College, Cincinnati (Oct., 1875). While studying there
and in the University of Cincinnati, Krauskopf acted as a tutor, contributed
articles to journals, and published (with H. Berkowitz) "The First Union
Hebrew Reader" and "Second Union Hebrew Reader" and "Bible Ethics" (1883).
He graduated from the university and from the Hebrew Union College (rabbi)
in 1883. In 1885 the faculty of the college conferred upon him the degree of
D.D. Krauskopf received and accepted a call from the Bnai Jehudah
congregation in Kansas City, Mo. He was appointed by the governor of
Missouri as a life-member of the Board of National Charities and
Corrections, and in 1885 was elected vice-president of the Pittsburg
Conference, of which Dr. I. M. Wise was president. In the same year
Krauskopf received a call from the Keneseth Israel congregation (Reform) of
Philadelphia.
Krauskopf entered on his duties in Philadelphia, Oct. 19, 1887. He
established a Sunday service in addition to the regular Sabbath service;
under his ministration the congregation flourished, and has become one of
the largest Jewish congregations in the United States. Seventeen volumes of
Krauskopf's lectures, embracing subjects in the fields of religion, ethics,
and social science, have been published since 1888. He aided in the
organization of theJewish Publication Society of
America, in the spring of 1888.
In the spring of the year 1894, when the stream of immigration of
Russian Jewish exiles into the United States was at its fullest, Krauskopf
resolved to visit Russia. He made a study of the condition of the Jews
within the Pale of Settlement and of the agricultural colonies in the
interior. One of the institutions Krauskopf visited was the Jewish
Agricultural School at Odessa, the excellence of which so impressed him that
immediately after his return to the United States he set to work to
establish a National Farm School, at Doylestown, Pa.; Krauskopf is president
of that institution. By his efforts Keneseth Israel succeeded in building
its present house of worship in 1892. Shortly after the outbreak of the
Spanish-American war (1898), Krauskopf was chosen by the National Relief
Commission as one of three special field commissioners instructed to visit
the camps of the United States and Cuba, and to render such relief as was
found necessary. In March, 1903, he was elected director-general of the I.
M. Wise Memorial Fund, and in July of the same year president of the Central
Conference of American Rabbis.
Krauskopf is the author of the following: "The Jews and Moors in
Spain" (1886); "Sunday Discourses" (1887-1902); "The Evolution of Judaism"
(1887); "Service Ritual" (1888); "Service Manual" (1892); "Gleanings from
Our Vineyard" (1895); "The Mourners' Service" (1895); "Sabbath-School
Service" (1896); "Society and Its Morals" (1900); "A Rabbi's Impressions of
the Oberammergau Passion-Play" (1901); "The Seven Ages of Man" (1902); "Old
Truths in New Books" (1902).A.
M.
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