Who
was Solomon Schechter and why is our school named after him?
Solomon Schechter
(1847-1915)
Solomon Schechter was born in Foçsani, Romania in 1847, the son of a
Chasidic shokhet (ritual slaughterer). Early on he became devoted to Torah and
Hebrew studies. In the 1860s he was a student of Joseph Saul Nathanson, a
rabbinic author in L'viv, eastern Ukraine. He then studied in Vienna and Berlin.
In 1882 he was invited to accompany a fellow student to London to serve as his
rabbinic tutor. He began teaching as a lecturer in the Talmud at Cambridge
University in 1890 and developed a reputation as a rabbinic scholar. On behalf
of the university he traveled to Cairo where he made an astounding discovery
that brought him international fame. He recovered from an old synagogue in
Fostat (near Cairo) the Genizah, a collection of more than 100,000 manuscripts
and fragments that were centuries old, some dating back to the early Middle
Ages. Among the fragments was a portion of Hebrew text that Schechter identified
as part of the missing Hebrew original of Ecclesiasticus. It had previously been
known only in its Greek translation. In 1899 he was appointed professor of
Hebrew at University College in London. [The term genizah means a hiding place.
In ancient synagogues, sacred manuscripts would be stored in a genizah, or
storeroom. If they became unusable through damage or old age, these manuscripts
would then be stored and eventually buried. In the medieval period, sacred
writings were saved because they contained the sacred names of God. The Genizah
collection is now divided between the libraries of the University of Cambridge
and the Jewish Theological Seminary of America, New York.]
Schechter was committed to the concept of the unity of the Jewish people and the
revival of Jewish religious life through study of the tradition:
"It is not mere revealed Bible that is of first importance to the Jew, but
the Bible as it repeats itself in history, in other words, as it is interpreted
by Tradition.... Since the interpretation of Scripture is mainly a product of
changing historical influences, it follows that the center of authority is
actually removed from the Bible and placed in some living body, which...is not
represented by any section of the nation, or any corporate priesthood, but by
the collective conscience of Catholic Israel as embodied in the Universal
Synagogue. The Synagogue, with its unremittent activity in teaching and
developing the word of God, with its glorious record of saints, martyrs, sages,
philosophers, scholars, and mystics; this Synagogue is the only true witness to
the past, and forming in all ages the sublimest expression of Israel's religious
life, must also retain its authority as the sole true guide for the present and
the future."
-Historical Judaism, First Studies in Judaism, 1896. He was invited to New
York to head The Jewish Theological Seminary. He served as its president from
1902 until his death in 1915. In 1913 he founded the United Synagogue of
America, to strengthen his concept of Jewish unity. Today it is The United
Synagogue of Conservative Judaism. The educational arm of this national
organization is called the Solomon Schechter Day School Association. There are
approximately 70 Schechter Day schools in various configurations (from preschool
through 12th grade) in current operation across North America.
