Max Lilienthal. Freiheit, Frühling und Liebe [“Freedom, Spring and Love.”]

Max Lilienthal (1815-82), a German-born advocate for the reform of Jewish schools in Russia immigrated to the United States in 1845, settling in New York City where he conducted a private boarding school for several years. In 1849 he became rabbi of a short-lived union of the city’s German congregations and directed their day schools. From 1855 until his death Lilienthal was rabbi of the important Bene Israel congregation of Cincinnati, which he led in the direction of moderate Reform. Regarding the present work of poetry, Lilienthal’s biographer, Bruce Ruben, writes: “Lilienthal’s poetry took many of its themes from the ideals of the American Revolutionary War. Written and published in German to appeal to German-American immigrants, the poems celebrated the spirit of America’s founding. The first section, “Freiheit” included poems such as “Unsere Flagge,” Washington,” “Mount Vernon,” Lexington,” “Der Obelisk auf Bunkerhill,” and”Der Vierte Juli 1776.” The last poem in the “Freiheit” section presented an assessment of America in 1857: “It is accomplished, a lad now stands as a giant among the nations. The wish, which was only an ideal, you have realized before all the world.” See Bruce L. Ruben, Max Lilienthal: The Making of the American Rabbinate (2011) pp. 162-63.