Tikvah
Editors’ Pick

July 27, 2026

Jewish Universalism Can Be More Than an Abdication in Prophetic Clothing

Let Athens dwell in the tents of Jerusalem.

Born in San Francisco, Judah L. Magnes (1877–1948) was a prominent Reform rabbi in the U.S. who went on to serve as the first chancellor of Hebrew University. Leon Morris examines Magnes’s religious thought, his attempt to found a Jerusalem synagogue with Henrietta Szold (the founder of Hadassah), and his ideas about universalism—which he “believed in passionately.”

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