Prophet in a Time of Priests. Janice Rothschild Blumberg

Israelites of Atlanta, have never divided upon the question of orthodoxy and reformation. They are extremists on neither side. While many of the prayers and customs, if not applicable to the present age and the present conditions of the descendants of Jacob, are omitted... , they do not go as far in ignoring ancient traditional usages as do the extreme reformers in many other places.... 13

      This statement expressed Browne’s beliefs. He led the congregation into mild reforms but rejected the more radical ones that were later instituted by his successor, David Marx. In Atlanta, as in most other cities, the changes developed gradually, instituted according to the wishes of the congregation’s leaders-- rabbi, president or both. Such positions and the opinions of those who held them in most communities underwent frequent reversals until the 1890s when rabbis trained in Reform at the Hebrew Union College became available. By 1877, the Temple had already enhanced its services with organ music and a mixed choir (a submission to modern tastes long permitted in many European synagogues) but tabled a motion that allowed men to remove their hats during religious services. Like most of his congregants, Browne abandoned the prohibition against riding on the Sabbath, but he strongly opposed holding services on Sunday, a practice being touted by some Reform congregations, to be discussed in the following chapter. As the Atlanta Constitution in effect stated and Reform advocated, he approved those rituals that seemed meaningful, but abandoned the “external [i.e., halachic] additions” to the Decalogue “suited to the dark ages in which the law-giver lived, but... outlived by growing civilization....”14

      If the trustees ever discussed ideology at their meetings, they failed to record it. Reflecting the limitation of their interest, minutes indicate that they dealt only with practical issues such as assignment of pews, assessment of dues, decorum during the worship service, and regulation of duties for synagogue functionaries. For example, they voted to enforce a rule requiring the choir to have “at least two rehearsals a month.” Another ruling required the rabbi to ask permission before leaving the city for any purpose, regardless of how long he would be away, whether for two days to dedicate a synagogue in a nearby town or for a two-month vacation in Europe. This pattern obtained in other congregations as well. It identified a tension that existed in most congregations over competition for control, and reflected the degree of subjugation imposed on their rabbis. The absence of theological discussion probably also indicated a desire to keep debate on this highly controversial subject at a minimum by avoiding it whenever possible and declining to record it when it occurred.15

      Atlanta’s Temple was one of eight congregations in Georgia serving a total of 309 families in Athens, Augusta, Savannah, Albany, Columbus, Rome, and Macon. Whereas the historic Savannah congregation, third in the nation, had been founded in 1733, almost simultaneously with the colony of Georgia itself, those of Augusta, Macon and Columbus had also preceded Atlanta, having been established in the 1850s, prior to the Civil War. Rome, Albany and Athens followed much later, in the 1870s. All suffered at times from economic recession—hence fluctuations in dues-paying membership—and all endured periods without a rabbi.16

      Although affiliated with Wise’s UAHC at its inception, typical of many congregations, the Temple waffled in and out of membership until the 1890s. This was possibly due to economic factors in the same fashion that individual members sometimes dropped off the congregation’s list temporarily during business hardships. It could also have been caused by dissension when control passed from more traditional leadership to more Reform, or vice versa. Because Browne had not yet been installed as the Temple’s rabbi when the UAHC convened in 1877, the congregation sent Haas as its delegate to that convention. Browne participated at the meeting nonetheless as a delegate representing Congregation Ohaveh Sholem of Summit, Mississippi. He served on several committees and delivered the closing prayer, and in the next two years attended the UAHC conventions representing Atlanta. For reasons unknown, the Temple refused a request from the Athens congregation for him to represent them also, and—possibly due to financial considerations—directed him not to invite the UAHC to meet in Atlanta the following year.17

      While it is not known if these denials were caused by personal pique or other issues, it is certain that the Jewish communities of Georgia bonded for charitable purposes and that the Atlanta congregation proudly permitted its eloquent rabbi to lecture publicly for worthy causes. As he had done in Evansville for the first Hebrew Orphan’s Home, built by B’nai B’rith in Cleveland, he now lectured to benefit another that the order was in the process of building in Atlanta. One of the first in the nation, the Atlanta Home served indigent or abandoned children throughout the Southeast for almost half a century, closing only when foster care supplanted the use of such institutions. Although B’nai B’rith recognized as early as 1903 that placement in private homes was preferable to group care and took steps to implement the change at that time, it continued to support existing facilities as long as they were needed.18

      Browne’s interests and those of his congregation were not limited to Jewish causes. He toured the South in 1878 to raise money for sufferers in one of America’s devastating yellow fever epidemics which was especially virulent along the Mississippi valley, from Memphis to New Orleans. The disease took more than 4,000 lives in the Crescent City alone.

      On another tour that year, Browne lectured to benefit sufferers of the potato famine in Ireland. Some twenty years after the most devastating famine struck there in the 1850s, the Irish were again starving due to drought combined with unfavorable trade policies imposed by Great Britain. Browne raised money in the American South to help them, waiving his customary fee of $150 when lecturing for benefits, so all of the proceeds could be sent to the designated charity. Although tickets cost only twenty-five cents and were free for the clergy, these events usually netted significant amounts. Beneficiaries thanked him in various ways, one of which was an attempt on the part of B’nai B’rith members in Navasota, Texas, to name their lodge in his honour. This did not come about because of B’nai B’rith’s standing regulation forbidding its lodges to be named for living members of the order.19

      With his abundance of energy, Browne managed these travels and more without neglecting participation in local affairs. Temple members had long been prominently involved in Atlanta’s cultural growth. Some helped establish the Young Men’s Library Association, forerunner of the Atlanta Public Library. David Mayer, a founder of the public school system in 1869 and member of its Board until his death in 1890, made certain that Jewish children were excused on the High Holy Days, a privilege that did not yet apply in many American cities, including New York. Browne, too, took an active interest in the public schools and shortly after his arrival was appointed one of the city’s six examiners for high schools.20

      Georgia Governor Alfred Colquitt quickly recognized the rabbi’s potential, especially his intellectual credentials having served as professor of medical jurisprudence and diseases of the mind at the Evansville Medical College. With that in mind, Colquitt appointed him the state’s sole delegate for a “World Congress of Social Science,” scheduled to convene the following summer in Stockholm. Noting the intensified worldwide concern with temperance, the conference president invited Browne to lecture on “Jews, Temperance and Crime, or How the Chosen People Keep Sober and Out of Mischief.” Browne planned to leave for Sweden on July 29, and stop off on the way in Paris to attend a meeting of the Jewish Ecumenical Council convened there by the Alliance Israelite Universelle.21

      As it happened, Browne did not make it to either conference. In June, 1878, Sophie gave birth to their second child, a boy, whom they named Jesse Logan in honor of a family friend, Congressman John A. Logan, Republican of Illinois, who advocated public education. Sophie developed severe postpartum depression, causing her husband to cancel his summer travel. Whatever disappointment he felt in missing the trip was amply overcome by the joy of beholding his newborn son. Upon Sophie’s recovery, even after suffering two illnesses himself including a winter bout with typhoid fever that almost killed him, Browne appeared to be happily settled and functioning at top speed.

      Apparently the congregation appreciated his services, especially in regard to his community outreach. Responding to “many inquiries of Christians as to whether they can attend....” he publicized the fact that he conducted services and delivered his sermons in English. The Daily Constitution reported in1878 that his Rosh Hashanah Eve service was well attended “not only by members of the Jewish church, but also by a number