On Disagreement Lecture Series: “Mordecai Kaplan and the Limits of Dissent,” a conversation between Jenna Weissman Joselit and David Gibson

As part of the On Disagreement lecture series hosted by the Center for Jewish Studies, this event features a conversation between Jenna Weissman Joselit and David Gibson about Mordecai Kaplan, a towering figure of 20th-century Judaism in America.

A self-styled theological maverick in 20th-century America, Mordecai Kaplan created a brand-new, homegrown form of Judaism called “Reconstructionism,” altering its rhythms, rituals and sensibility to fit the perquisites of a free, democratic, and pluralistic society. For his sins, so to speak, he was formally excommunicated from the Jewish community in 1945, its members enjoined to stay clear of him and his many religious publications lest they suffer the “bite of the snake,” an ancient rabbinic curse. This was just one of the many dramatic moments that comprised the long arc of Kaplan’s life, whose biography offers an opportunity to explore the impact of freedom, democracy, and pluralism on religious authority, tradition, identity, and community.

Jenna Weissman Joselit, the Charles E. Smith Professor of Judaic Studies and professor of history at George Washington University, is an historian of American daily life and its relationship to religion. Her latest book, Mordecai M. Kaplan: Restless Soul, will be published in March by Yale University Press as part of its Jewish Lives series. Drawing on Kaplan’s more than 70 years of diary-keeping, it brings to life and humanizes one of American Jewry’s most complicated and controversial personalities.

David Gibson is the director of the Center for Religion and Culture at Fordham. He came to Fordham in 2017 after a long career as an award-winning religion journalist, author, and filmmaker, including at Vatican Radio in Rome and Religion News Service, where he covered the Vatican and the Catholic Church. Gibson is the author of two books on Catholicism: The Coming Catholic Church: How the Faithful Are Shaping a New American Catholicism and The Rule of Benedict: Pope Benedict XVI and His Battle with the Modern World. He co-wrote and co-produced several documentaries on Christianity for CNN and the History Channel and co-authored a book on biblical archeology, Finding Jesus: Faith. Fact. Forgery., the basis of a popular CNN series of the same name. He is a frequent media commentator and op-ed writer on topics related to the Catholic Church and religion in America.