"Adass Jeshurun, Adas Jisroal was originally the breakaway minority of Orthodox congregations in Germany in the mid-19th century. These congregations dissociated themselves on religious grounds from the unitary congregations established by state law in which the majority tended toward Reform Judaism.
"The main aim of this branch was to safeguard strict adherence to Jewish law. The Hebrew terms Adass (or Adat, Adath) Jeshurun and Adass Jisroel, meaning "congregation of Jeshurun" and "congregation of Israel," were chosen by these congregations to express their conviction that, even if in the minority, they were the "true Israel." The names were cherished for their socioreligious connotations by Orthodox groups in the West where Reform Judaism was widespread.
continue reading Jewish Virtual Library on Adass Jeshurun
I recently read that Rav Hirsch used the name Adas Jeschurun because that was the name of the shul the Hafla'ah (Rabbi Pinhas Horowitz) was using in his Frankfurt congregation that closed its doors under reform at the turn of the 19th century. R. Hirsch was thus claiming to be the spiritual inheritor of the original FF kehilla. This was an essential theme to R. Hirsch, that he is not a "seccessionist" kehilla, but the rebirth of the original. All this in Mattias Morgenstern's book on Isaac Breuer. p. 7 and p. 155 et. al.
ReplyDeletethank you for the fascinating comment
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