Sundays at Sinai - Tobias Brinkmann

First
established 150 years ago, Chicago Sinai is one of Americas oldest
Reform Jewish congregations. Its founders were upwardly mobile and
civically committed men and women, founders and partners of banks and
landmark businesses like Hart Schaffner & Marx, Sears & Roebuck,
and the giant meatpacking firm Morris & Co. As explicitly modern
Jews, Sinais members supported and led civic institutions and
participated actively in Chicago politics. Perhaps most radically, their
Sunday services, introduced in 1874 and still celebrated today, became a
hallmark of the congregation.In Sundays at Sinai,
Tobias Brinkmann brings modern Jewish history, immigration, urban
history, and religious history together to trace the roots of radical
Reform Judaism from across the Atlantic to this rapidly growing American
metropolis.
Brinkmann shines a light on the development of an urban
reform congregation, illuminating Chicago Sinais practices and history,
and its contribution to Christian-Jewish dialogue in the United States.
Chronicling Chicago Sinais radical beginnings in antebellum Chicago to
the present, Sundays at Sinai is the extraordinary story of a leading Jewish Reform congregation in one of Americas great cities.