ABSTRACT
When Reform Judaism began, its principal theologians did not offer the Jews a Judaism—another choice among equally available and comparable alternatives. Nor did they claim merely to modify an authentic, received Judaism in order to accommodate a less than ideal circumstance. Reform Judaism did not present itself as Brand X, and it did not concede it was a lesser version of a good thing that was authentically realized elsewhere, in Orthodox Judaism, for instance. Reform rabbis did not wear head coverings because they did not believe it was correct to do so, the criterion being established by the Torah. That is to say, Reform Judaism thought of itself as Judaism pure and simple: the Judaism that everyone should practice, all Jews and Gentiles as well. It is said that Isaac Mayer Wise thought that by 1900 everyone in the world would practice Reform Judaism. In other words, Reform Judaism began with such confidence, such vigor, such certainty that it claimed to be Judaism, which is to say that Reform proudly asserted, “By the light of the Torah, we are right and you are wrong.”
