On this day: Mordecai Kaplan dies

Born in Lithuania in 1881, Mordecai Kaplan's family moved to the United States when he was eight. He studied at the Jewish Theological Seminary of America and later Columbia University, and was ordained as a rabbi at the age of 21. In 1908 he married Lena Rubin.

But his experience as a rabbi in New York, at Congregation Kehilath Jeshurun, was not a positive one, and in 1909 he almost left the role to work in insurance. He did not leave, but he did remain disillusioned with the Jewish practice around him.

So in 1922 he set up what would become Reconstructionist Judaism – a movement dedicated to “the advancement of Judaism as a religious civilisation, to the building of Eretz Yisrael as the spiritual centre of Jewish people and to the furtherance of universal freedom, justice and peace.”

A prolific writer, in 1934 he authored the book Judaism as a Civilisation, outlining the core philosophy of Reconstructionist Judaism.