Rabbi Bernard Felsenthal (1822 - 1908),
born in Bavaria, moving to the United
States in 1854, eventually settling as
the first
Reform rabbi in Chicago, member of the
World Zionist Congress, and vice-president of
the Federation of American Zionists.
In 1881 The American
Jewish Pulpit, A Collection of Sermons
by the Most
Eminent American Rabbis was
published in Cincinnati, it included a
sermon
by Felsenthal entitled Jewish
Ideas Conquer the World, in
which he said:
"In the golden age of mankind, which was not in the remote past, as we are told by Grecian myths, but which, rather, will be in the future, or, to use Biblical language, in the Messianic time coming, Jewish ideas will have conquered the world and will rule it."
"We, from our Jewish standpoint, only regret the fact that the Jewish doctrines, when borrowed by others (Christianity & Islam), were not carefully guarded against adulteration by and inter mixture with foreign elements, with elements un-Jewish and anti-Jewish. Time, however, slowly but surely will effect a thorough purification, and pure and unadulterated Jewish ideas, we repeat it, will finally rule the world."
"And as truth in the end will always be victorious, so will Judaism certainly be victorious."
Jewish Ideas Conquer the World by
Rabbi Bernard Felsenthal. The
American Jewish Pulpit, A Collection
of Sermons by the Most Eminent
American Rabbis. Cincinnati:
Bloch & Co. 1881. pp.67-75.
See Also:
1907: Jews Must Yet
Conquer the World
