ADLER, FELIX
(1851-1933), U.S. philosopher and educator. Adler was born in Germany, the son of the Reform rabbi Samuel *Adler. He studied at Columbia University and preached as a rabbi at Temple Emanu-el in New York, but was too rationalistic to accept Judaism in any traditional sense. In 1874 he accepted a professorship in Hebrew and Oriental literature established at Cornell. Two years later he founded the Society for Ethical Culture, which advocated an ethic apart from any religion or dogma. The Society gained support mainly among intellectuals in America and abroad. Adler worked for various social causes such as maternal and child welfare, vocational training schools, medical care for the poor, labor problems, and civic reform. In 1883 he founded the first U.S. group for child study. Adler was appointed professor of social ethics at Columbia in 1902. His main writings include Creed and Deed (1877); Moral Instruction of Children (1892); Prayer and Worship (1894); An Ethical Philosophy of Life (1918), which is partly autobiographical; and The Reconstruction of the Spiritual Ideal (1924; The Hibbert Lectures). He was an editor of the International Journal of Ethics.
ADLER, FRIEDRICH
(1878-1942), German designer of arts and crafts. Born in Laupheim, Southern Germany, Adler went to Munich to study at the Royal School for Applied Arts at the age of 16. In the world of Munich art nouveau Adler was especially influenced by the artist Hermann Obrist. In order to break with Wilhelminian traditions, Obrist propagated a reform concept of cultural policy and art related to the art nouveau movement. In 1902 Adler continued his studies at the newly founded Debschitz School in Munich, where he became a teacher in 1903. The aim of the school was to intensify the contact between artists and manufacturers in the applied arts. Adler taught the technique of working in stucco and of edifice sculpture. From 1907 to 1933 he taught at the Hamburg School for Applied Arts, where he was appointed professor in 1927. When he lost his position after the National Socialist takeover in 1933, Adler continued to offer private lessons to Jewish students. From 1935 he took an active part in the Hamburg Jewish Cultural Union (Juedischer Kulturbund). In July 1942 he was deported to Auschwitz and apparently murdered there in the same year. Adler’s work was multifaceted and his creations and designs were shown in several exhibitions such as the International Exhibition for Modern and Decorative Arts in Turin (1902) and the world exposition in Brussels (1910). His principal fields of activity were handcrafted work and the design of furniture and metal objects especially made of tin. During the exhibition of the German Werkbund in Cologne in 1914 he met with universal approval for his concept of a synagogue building and for his Jewish ceremonial objects. The latter were fine silver objects in the style of art nouveau and were manufactured by the famous Heilbronn company for silverware Peter Bruckmann & Sons. Only a few of these ritual objects have survived, such as a magnificent Passover set made of silver, ivory, and glass from 1913/14 and an Eternal Light from the same year (both in the Spertus Museum, Chicago).
ADLER, FRIEDRICH
(1879-1960), prominent figure in the Austrian labor movement and secretary of the Socialist International. The son of Victor *Adler, he was born in Vienna, studied physics in Switzerland, and lectured at Zurich University. Adler, who was baptized at the age of seven and later renounced Christianity, had no religion. Adler returned to Austria at the age of 32 and entered active political life. During World War 1 he attacked the policy of the Austrian government and criticized his own Socialist party for supporting it. In order to awaken the public conscience against the horrors of war he shot and killed Count Sturgkh, the prime minister, in a Vienna restaurant on October 21, 1916, and was sentenced to death. His sentence was commuted to 18 years imprisonment, and, under the amnesty which followed the fall of the monarchy in 1918, he was released. Adler was one of the founders of the left-wing International Working Union of Socialist Parties in 1921. From 1923 to 1939 he acted as secretary of the Labor and Socialist International. During World War 11 he lived in the United States but returned to Europe after the defeat of Germany. While he had many contacts with Zionist Socialists and although he had a Jewish marriage, he believed in assimilation and opposed Jewish national aspirations.
ADLER, GEORG
(1863-1908), German economist and economic historian. Born in Posen, Adler taught at the universities of Berlin, Basle, and Kiel, and became professor of political economy at Freiburg. While in Basle, in 1894, he drafted the first law on workmen’s unemployment insurance at the request of the Swiss government. He nevertheless considered the labor movement as necessary for social reform. A follower of the German historical school of economists, he advocated moderate socialism and bitterly opposed the revolutionary socialism of Karl *Marx. He remained a protagonist of social insurance and of international legislation for the protection of labor. His works include Die Geschichte der ersten so-zial-politischen Arbeiterbewegung in Deutschland (1885); Die Grundlagen der Karl Marxschen Kritik der bestehenden Volks-wirtschaft (1887); and Geschichte des Sozialismus und Kom-munismus (1899).
ADLER, GUIDO
(1855-1941), Austrian musicologist; one of the founders of modern musicology. Born at Eibenschitz (Moravia), he was appointed lecturer in musicology at Vienna University in 1881. He was a founder and editor of the Vier-teljahrsschrift fuer Musikwissenschaft (1884-94) and in 1898 succeeded his former teacher, Eduard Hanslick, as professor of music history at Vienna, a position he held until his retirement in 1927. Adler made Vienna one of the leading centers of musicological training and research. The International Society of Musicology, founded upon his initiative, elected him its honorary president in 1927. He was editor-in-chief of Denk-maeler der Tonkunst in Oesterreich, which he had founded in 1894, but was removed from this position by the Nazis in 1938. He remained in Vienna until his death. His work contributed much to the development of musicological discipline. Important publications are his Richard Wagner (1904), Gustav Mahler (1916), and the Handbuch der Musikgeschichte (1924), which he edited.
ADLER, HARRY CLAY
(1865-1940), U.S. newspaper executive. Adler was born in Philadelphia. He was chairman of the board and general manager of the Chattanooga Times from 1901, a paper owned by his brother-in-law, Adolph S. *Ochs, When Ochs went to New York, Adler, already an executive on the paper, was appointed general manager, a position he held for 30 years. He served as chairman of the southern division of the Associated Press from 1917 to 1922, and was considered the "father" of Chattanooga’s commission form of government. Adler used the editorial columns of his newspaper, and the Citizens’ League which he organized, to campaign against the policies of the entrenched political machine until it was overthrown. He was active in charities and for three years was a president of the Mizpah Congregation in Chattanooga.
ADLER, HERMANN
(Naphtali; 1839-1911), British chief rabbi, son of Nathan Marcus *Adler. Born in Hanover, Hermann Adler was taken to London as a child, when his father became British chief rabbi, and was educated at University College School and at University College, London, where he graduated with a B.A. in 1854. Adler was thus one of the first British rabbis to receive a middle-class secular education in England. He continued his studies in Prague under Rabbi S.J. *Rappaport, where he was ordained as a rabbi in 1862. Adler went on to receive a doctoral degree from Leipzig University, his thesis being on (of all things) Druidism. In 1863 he became principal of *Jews’ College, and in 1864 minister of Bayswater Synagogue in the West End of London. After 1879 he deputized as delegate chief rabbi for his father who was ill and was elected to succeed him in 1891. Adler followed and developed the tradition set by his father, combining Orthodoxy with organizational ability, as well as having a firm feeling for the dignity of his office. He was largely instrumental in securing general recognition of the chief rabbi as the main representative of English Jewry, taking his place alongside the heads of other religious communities on public occasions. Opposed to the ideas of Theodor *Herzl, in 1897 Adler termed political Zionism an "egregious blunder," although he had previously visited Palestine and been active in the Hovevei Zion movement. His period of office coincided with the great Russo-Jewish influx into the British Isles. This created a large "foreign" element in the community, whose confidence he did not gain. Despite periods of friction, Adler succeeded in maintaining his position as chief rabbi of Anglo-Jewry as a whole, the *Reform and *Sephardi communities being satisfied to be formally represented by him on public occasions. In the relatively small Anglo-Jewish community of the second half of the 19th century, with its integration into non-Jewish society and its painfully achieved balance, Adler saw a sort of self-contained "National Jewish Church," led on the lay side by the head of the Rothschild family and on the ecclesiastical by the Adlers, as the Jewish equivalent of the Anglican or Catholic hierarchy; Hermann Adler even imitated the Anglican episcopal garb. Hence they were seriously perturbed by the influx of Eastern European refugee immigrants from 1882 onward, which disturbed the delicate balance of the community. In politics, Adler was an avowed Tory and supported the Boer War. Adler published historical and other studies and numerous sermons, as well as preliminary studies for an edition of the Ez Hayyim by the 13th century scholar *Jacob b. Judah H azzan of London. A selection of his sermons was published under the title Anglo-Jewish Memories (London, 1909). Adler’s career is evidence of how comprehensively the acculturated section of Anglo-Jewry had adapted to Britain and had been accepted by its "Establishment."
ADLER, HERMANN
(pseudonym Z evi Nesher; 1911- ), German-language poet, essayist, and playwright. Adler was born in Deutsch-Dioszeg, near Pressburg (Bratislava), but grew up in Nuremberg and after graduating from a teachers’ seminary at Wuerzburg taught in Landeshut (Kamienna Gora), Silesia. He returned to Czechoslovakia in 1934 and enlisted in 1939 in the Czechoslovak Legion in Poland. During World War ii, he joined the Jewish resistance movement in Lithuania and Poland, playing an active part in the ghetto uprisings in Vilna and Warsaw. He escaped to Budapest, but was later deported to Bergen-Belsen, from which he was subsequently released, taking up residence in Switzerland, where he remained. His experiences of Nazi brutality on the one hand and of human dignity and heroism on the other were reflected in several gripping books, partly factual reporting, partly poetic crystallization, such as Ostra Brama, Legende aus der Zeit desgrossen Untergangs (1945), Ostra Brama being the name of a Catholic monastery near Vilna where a number of Jews were hidden and rescued; Gesange aus der Stadt des Todes (1945); Ballade der Gekreuzigten, Auferstandenen, Verachteten (1945).
Among other books which Adler wrote on the fate of the Jews during the Holocaust, and religious poetry, are Fieber-worte von Verdammnis und Erloesung (1948) and Bilder nach dem Buche der Verheissung (1950). He frequently chose the medium of radio and television. One of his TV plays (which won a prize from the Zweites Deutsches Fernsehen) was Feldwebel Anton Schmidt, the story of a German sergeant who during the occupation of Vilna had helped Adler to organize the escape of Jews who joined up with the Jewish resistance movement elsewhere. Schmidt, who was subsequently arrested and sentenced to death by the Nazis, is also referred to in his Ostra Brama. The significance of Adler’s descriptions of the Holocaust for Christian readers was stressed by the Swiss-Catholic historian and theologian Karl *Thieme in his epilogue to his selection from Adler’s writings (Vater … vergib! Gedichte aus dem Ghetto, 1950).
Writing more often on psychological themes in later years, Adler published Judentum und Psychotherapie (1958) and Handbuch der tiefenpsychologischen Symbolik: Ein Lexikon der Symbolik mit Lesetexten und Index (1968). He also translated Itzhak *Katzenelson’s Warsaw Ghetto epic Dos Lid fun Oysge-hargetn Yidishn Folk from Yiddish into German (Das Lied vom letzten Juden, 1951). Of his own works, Gesaenge aus der Stadt des Todes appeared in Hebrew and Dutch translations.
ADLER, HUGO CHAIM
(1894-1955), cantor and composer. Born in Antwerp, Adler served as a chorister to Yossele *Rosenblatt in Hamburg. He officiated as cantor in Mannheim, 1921-39, studied composition with Ernst *Toch, and was strongly influenced by the modern musical idiom. The Jue-disches Lehrhaus of Franz *Rosenzweig in Frankfurt helped to shape his thoughts and he set to music some of Rosenz-weig’s Hebrew hymns. Adler adopted the idea of the musical Lehrstueck, an ethical-political cantata first realized by Brecht and Hindemith, and composed a Maccabean cantata Licht und Volk (performed in 1931) and Balak und Bileam (1934). The performance of his Akedah was prevented by the Kristall-nacht pogrom of November 1938. After his escape to the U.S. he was appointed cantor in Worcester, Massachusetts. There he reshaped the music of the service and composed music for complete liturgies as well as many short pieces and the cantatas Parable of Persecution (1946), Behold the Jew, and Jona (1943). Adler’s importance rests upon his skill in replacing 19th-century additions to synagogue song by a lucid contemporary idiom and striving, in his cantatas, for a collective musical expression of Jewish consciousness.
ADLER, ISRAEL
(1925- ), Israeli musicologist and librarian. Born in Berlin, Adler immigrated to Palestine in 1937 and studied at yeshivot. From 1949 to 1963 he studied in Paris with Solange Corbin at the Ecole Pratique des Hautes Etudes and J. Chailley at the Institut de Musicologie. In 1963 he took a doc-torat de 3Sme cycle with a dissertation on the music of Jewish communities in 17th- and 18th-century Europe. He was the head of the Hebraic Judaic Section of the Bibliotheque Natio-nale from 1950 to 1963. He returned to Israel in 1963, and became head of the music department of the Jewish National and University Library in Jerusalem. He founded and was director of the Jewish music research center at the Hebrew University from 1963 to 1969 and 1971 to 1994, and was chief editor of Yu-val, the record of its studies. In 1964 he founded the National Sound Archives as part of the music department of the National Library and in 1967 he founded the Israel Musicologi-cal Society. From 1969 to 1971 Adler was director of the Jewish National and University Library. In 1971 he was appointed associate professor at Tel Aviv University and in 1973 he joined the Department of Musicology at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. From 1967 he was a member of the rism committee and vice president of the Association Internationale des Bibliotheques Musicales (1974-77). He was a guest lecturer at numerous European and North and South American universities. Among his publications are La pratique musicale sa-vante dans quelques communautes juives en Europe aux xvne et xviiie siecles, 2 vols. (1966); Musical Life and Traditions of the Portuguese Jewish Community of Amsterdam in the xviiith Century (Jerusalem, 1974); Hebrew Writings Concerning Music in Manuscripts and Printed Books from Geonic Times up to 1800, rism, b/ix/2 (1975); "Three Musical Ceremonies for Hoshana Rabba at Casale Monferrato (1732-1733, 1735)," in: Yuval, 5 (1986), 51-137; Hebrew Notated Manuscript Sources up to circa 1840: A Descriptive and Thematic Catalogue, With a Checklist of Printed Sources (Munich, 1989); The Study of Jewish Music: A Bibliographical Guide (Jerusalem, 1995). bibliography: Grove online; mgg2.
ADLER, JACOB
(1872?-1974), Yiddish poet and humorist, often writing as B. Kovner. Adler was born in Dinov, Austria-Hungary (now Dynow, Poland), but in 1894 immigrated to the United States where he worked in sweatshops, agitated for socialism, and wrote nostalgic poems about the "old country" for various journals, especially his mentor David Pinski’s Der Arbeter. These poems were collected in his first volume, Zikhroynes fun Mayn Haym ("Memories of My Home," 1907), with an introduction by Pinski. They are full of nostalgia for the Jewish milieu of his childhood, which he views as carefree and idyllic, despite its poverty: the festive Sabbaths and holidays, spent in the sweet comfort of the synagogue; the pure yearnings of first love; the final, sad parting from family and birthplace. The volume ends with a lament for himself, sick and weak though young, his life ebbing away in an alien land. He sought relief from the misery of existence in sardonic humor, contributing under various pseudonyms to the popular humorous periodicals Der Groyse Kundes and Der Kibetser, and co-editing Der Yidisher Gazlen with Moyshe Nadir. In 1911, Abraham Cahan, editor of Forverts, invited him to join his staff and assigned him the pseudonym of B. Kovner, thus enabling him to exchange a former pseudonym "Der Galitsiyaner" for a new identity as a "Litvak." Kovner’s humorous feuilletons immediately became a success and his characters, such as the shrewish busybody Yente Telebende, her henpecked husband Mendl, Moyshe Kapoyer, and Peyshe the Farmer soon became household names in American Yiddish homes. His anecdotes and witticisms circulated widely. His characters inspired many songs and stage routines. Many of Adler’s humorous sketches were collected in six Yiddish volumes between 1914 and 1933 and two in English translation (Laugh, Jew, Laugh, 1936, and Cheerful Moments, 1940). His Lider ("Poems," 2 vols., 1924), which appeared at the height of his fame, revealed the sadness and loneliness of the humorist. These poems were grouped into cycles with such titles as "Alone" and "Between Gray Walls." Even the few poems designated as humorous were bitterly satiric. He continued to write prolifically until his late nineties.
ADLER, JANKEL
(Jacob; 1895-1949), painter, graphic artist, and art critic. Adler was born in Tuszyn, near Lodz. As a child, he received a traditional Jewish education. In 1912, living with his uncle in Belgrade, he worked in the post office and studied to become an etcher. In 1913, he moved to Germany and settled in Barmen (now Wuppertal), where he was employed as a textile worker and shop assistant. From 1916, he attended the local school of applied arts (Kunstgewerbschule), where his tutor was Gustav Wiethuechter. In 1917-18, Adler got to know many young German intellectuals, writers, and modernist artists and became close to the "Das Junge Rheinland" artistic group, who were seeking ways for a renewal of German art. While interested in modernist trends in European culture and establishing ties within the German artistic community, Adler never lost touch with his national roots. His works, starting from the earliest ones, always treated Jewish themes quite distinctly. By way of example, his still-lifes of this period incorporate images of Jewish ritual objects bearing symbolic significance. In 1918, Adler returned to Poland. Together with other young Jewish artists, he took part in the exhibition arranged by the Artistic Society of Lodz. His desire to express national self-awareness in contemporary art forms brought him close to young Jewish artists in Lodz who were pursuing the same goal. This circle formed "Yung Yiddish," a group that brought together Yiddish writers and modernist artists. Adler was among its founders; he took an active part in its performances and published his poems and etchings in its anthologies. In 1919, he displayed his works at the Jewish Kultur-Liga exhibition in Bialystok. His works of this period are executed in an expressionist style incorporating elements of cubism and are characterized by ecstatic pathos and use of Jewish mystic symbols (as in My Parents, 1919; Muzeum Sztuki, Lodz). In 1920, Adler returned to Germany and for some time resided in Berlin, where he established close contacts both with German radical avant-garde artists and Jewish artistic circles, among them Marc *Chagall, Elsa Lasker-Schueler, and Henryk *Berlewi, with whom he collaborated. Later, Adler returned to Barmen and in 1920-21 participated in events organized by Dadaist and other avant-garde groups from Duesseldorf and Cologne. He continued maintaining close contacts with Poland and the Jewish modernist artistic movement there. He illustrated two collections of Yiddish poetry published in Lodz in 1921, one of them being Peril oifn brik by Moshe *Broderzon, the founder and artistic standard-bearer of the "Yung Yiddish" group. At the International Artistic Exhibition in Duesseldorf, he represented Polish artists. Together with Berlewi, he represented East European Jewish artists and was active in organizing the Congress of the Union of Progressive International Artists (Duesseldorf, May 29-31, 1922) and signing the Union’s manifesto. He showed his works at the International Exhibition of Revolutionary Artists in Berlin. In 1922, Adler joined the "Das Junge Rheinland" group and from 1923 participated in "Novembergruppe" exhibitions. After "Das Junge Rheinland" split, Adler became the leader of the "Rheinland" group. In 1924, he took part in the First General German Art Exhibition in the U.S.S.R. He executed monumental murals for the Duesseldorf Planetarium in 1925-26. In the late 1920s, Adler frequently visited Poland, where several of his solo exhibitions took place. Being a prominent figure in German avant-garde art, he unambiguously called himself a "Jewish artist" in his interviews to the Polish and German press. In his publications and statements of the 1920s and 1930s, Adler formulated his own idea of "contemporary Jewish art," which, in his view, should express the striving for "creating new forms" which he believed to be inherent in Judaism and connected to h asidic humanistic mysticism. During the 1920s and the early 1930s, his individual artistic manner crystallized, organically combining elements of cubism, primitivism, expressionism, and "Neue Sachlich-keit." At the same time, he often incorporated images of Jews, Jewish inscriptions, and kabbalistic symbols into his compositions. In 1933, when the Nazis came to power in Germany, Adler moved to France. In 1935-37 he lived in Poland and had two solo exhibitions in Warsaw and Lodz. In 1937, Adler’s works were withdrawn from German museums as embodiments of "degenerate art." Several of them were shown at "En-tartete Kunst" and "Der ewige Jude." In 1937, Adler moved to France; when the country was occupied by Germans in 1940, he fled to the south where he joined the Polish Army. After the Battle of Dunkirk, he was evacuated together with other Polish soldiers to Glasgow, Scotland, and was discharged due to poor health. From 1941, he lived in London, where he was among the initiators of artistic events presenting artists who had fled continental Europe. In addition, he was active in the Ohel club in London, where Jewish intellectuals and artists congregated. Adler’s works from the mid-1930s and especially in the 1940s are characterized by a complete rejection of figurative manner and transition to symbolic abstraction. A number of his works created in this period treated "Jewish themes" and reflect his understanding of the Holocaust (as in Two Rabbis, 1942; Museum of Modern Art, New York). In 1946-47, Adler’s solo exhibitions were on display in London, Dublin, Paris, an d New York.
ADLER, JOSEPH
(1878-1938), U.S. rabbi, scholar, and educationist. Adler was born in Kletzk, Lithuania, and immigrated to America in 1909 after failing in the wood-product industry. His extensive religious education – including stints in ye-shivot in Nesvizh, Minsk, Mir, Slobodka, Kovno, and Aish-ishok as well as rabbinical ordination – probably provided him with little preparation for the cutthroat lumber business, but served him well in the New World. His studies were not confined solely to religious subjects, as he also acquired a familiarity with Russian and Hebrew literature. After arriving in New York City, Adler served as rabbi in a succession of Orthodox synagogues. He joined the Agudat ha-Rabbonim, an organization whose membership was limited to European-trained rabbis. Adler was also active in the religious Zionist movement, directing the Downtown Keren ha-Yesod and becoming an office bearer in the Mizrachi Organization of America. Concerned with the religious laxity of many of his fellow immigrants, he became one of the organizers of the Jewish Sabbath Alliance, an initiative aimed at fostering Sabbath observance within the New York Jewish community. Similar motives most likely inspired his participation in the development of the system of Orthodox religious education. Adler was appointed in 1923 by Shraga Feivel *Mendlowitz, a pioneer of religious day school education in America, as a Talmud teacher at Yeshivah Torah ve-Da’at in Brooklyn. While the school and its later imitators maintained a traditional focus and approach to textual study, Mendlowitz sought to produce a generation of religiously educated American Jews, not train future religious functionaries. In 1931, Adler became the Talmud teacher and principal of Mesivta Tipheret Jerusalem, a yeshivah on the Lower East Side for young men who wanted to combine yeshivah studies during the daytime with evening university classes. This yeshivah was part of an expanding network of religious schools that were established in the interwar and postwar periods by a resurgent Orthodox movement. He held this position until his death.
ADLER, JULES
(1865-1952), French artist. A prolific painter of landscapes, Adler was better known for his urban and industrial scenes such as The Strike, The Factory Interior, and Towing the Barge. These works reveal his socialist outlook and his keen interest in social problems. Adler was regarded as a leading member of the realist school of painting. His son Jean (1899-1944), a painter of promise and integrity, was killed by the Nazis.
ADLER, JULIUS OCHS
(1892-1955), U.S. newspaperman and soldier. Adler was born in Chattanooga, Tenn. He graduated from Princeton University and then joined the staff of the New York Times, published by his uncle, Adolph *Ochs. At the same time he enrolled as a citizen-soldier. Before World War 1 he was in the cavalry, but he transferred to the infantry on the outbreak of war. Adler was gassed while commanding a battalion on the Western Front. During World War 11 he commanded the 77th Infantry Division which was responsible for the defense of the Hawaiian Islands from 1941 to 1944. In 1948 he was promoted to major-general in the reserve. Meanwhile, Adler became vice president of the New York Times, and after a number of years he became the paper’s general manager (1935).In 1945 Adler was one of 17 newspaper executives invited by General Eisenhower to visit the liberated concentration camps and he wrote a series of moving and dramatic articles on them for the New York Times. In 1954 he was appointed chairman of the National Security Training Commission, and later headed a commission supervising the building of a combat-ready reserve through a modified form of universal military training.
ADLER, LARRY
(1914-2001), harmonica (mouth organ) player. Born in Baltimore, Adler won the Maryland Harmonica Championship at the age of 13. He first performed in revues and films, developing the technique of the 12-hole chromatic harmonica. He worked in England from 1934 to 1939, with many prominent jazz musicians. In 1939 he made his debut as a concert soloist with the Sydney Symphony Orchestra. In 1940, determined to read music, he studied with Ernst Toch.
During World War 11 Adler joined the dancer Paul Draper touring for U.S. organizations abroad. On his return to the U.S. in 1959, he embarked on a career as a concert performer appearing as a soloist with leading symphony orchestras. Adler was acknowledged as the first harmonica player who elevated the instrument to concert status. His repertoire included arrangements of classical works, and famous composers wrote for him such as Darius *Milhaud, R. Vaughan Williams, Gordon Jacob, and Malcolm Arnold. Adler toured extensively and broadcast frequently on radio and television. He appeared in films and composed scores for the cinema, such as Genevieve and A High Wind in Jamaica.
In 1988 Adler was made a fellow of Yale University. His cd The Glory of Gershwin earned him a place in the Guinness Book of Records as the oldest artist to reach the British pop charts. He also recorded as a pianist and singer and published several books, including How I Play (1936), Harmonica Favorites (1944), the autobiography It Ain’t Necessarily So (1984), and Have I Ever Told You (2001).
ADLER, LAZARUS LEVI
(1810-1886), German rabbi and pedagogue. Adler’s education included intensive Talmud study in Gelnhausen (Hesse-Nassau) and Wuerzburg and secular studies culminating in a doctorate from the University of Er-langen in 1833. In 1852 Adler became district rabbi of the province of Hesse-Kassel and retained this post until his retirement to Wiesbaden in 1883. Adler represented the more conservative branch of the Reform movement in Germany. While a consistent advocate of religious and educational progress, he opposed measures, such as the abolition of circumcision, which he felt would create an unbridgeable gulf between factions of the Jewish community. He was president of the Kassel rabbinical conference (1868) and an important participant in the German-Jewish synods of Leipzig (1869) and Augsburg (1871). From 1837 to 1839 Adler published Die Synagoge, a periodical containing sermons, popular historical studies, and essays dealing with contemporary Jewish issues. His final religious position is presented in Hillel und Schamai (1878).
ADLER, LIEBMAN
(1812-1892), U.S. rabbi. Born in the town of Lengsfeld in the Grand Duchy of Saxe-Weimar, Adler received his education at the Jewish high school in Frankfurt and later trained at the teachers’ seminary in Weimar. He taught at the synagogue school in Lengsfeld until 1854, immigrating to America in his early forties. Adler served as rabbi at Temple Bethel in Detroit before assuming the pulpit of Kehillath An-she Maarabh in Chicago in 1861. His arrival coincided with a period of dissension within the German congregation over the introduction of liturgical reforms. A self-styled "orthodox reformer," Adler proved to be a perfect fit for the divided congregation, able to act as a mediator between the younger reform-minded generation and older traditionalist immigrants. Under his stewardship, the synagogue gradually adopted reformist innovations. Adler served the congregation for over 20 years, earning the adoration of its membership. He delivered sermons in German until 1872, when the congregation hired a minister able to preach in English. During the Civil War, he spoke out forcefully against slavery. Adler was a regular contributor to the German-language Jewish press in America. He also published three volumes of sermons in German. The Jewish Publication Society printed a collection of his sermons in translation in 1893.
ADLER, MAX
(1866-1952), U.S. merchant-executive, musician, and philanthropist, who provided the money for America’s first planetarium. Born in Elgin, Illinois, Adler as a child revealed remarkable talent for the violin. After receiving instruction in Elgin and Chicago, he was sent in 1884 to study at the Royal Conservatory in Berlin. Upon his return to the United States in 1888, he joined Boston’s Mendelssohn Quintet as violinist and manager. In 1897, in response to the invitation of his brother-in-law, Julius *Rosenwald, president of Sears, Roebuck and Company, Adler left the concert platform to supervise the firm’s music department. He rose rapidly to a vice presidency and membership on the board of directors. His enthusiasm for music never waned, and among his many philanthropic acts was the assistance he gave promising young musicians. His principal philanthropy was his gift to Chicago in 1930 of the Adler Planetarium and Astronomical Museum.
ADLER, MAX
(1873-1937), Austrian socialist theoretician. Adler studied law at the university of his native Vienna, where he was professor of sociology from 1920. He joined the socialist movement in his youth and was a Social-Democratic deputy in the Austrian parliament for more than twenty years.
In his first major work, Kausalitaet und Teleologie im Streite um die Wissenschaft (1904), as well as in such later writings as Das Soziologische in Kants Erkenntnis-Kritik (1924) and Kant und der Marxismus (1925), he considers society and social phenomena not only as products of social interaction, but also as a priori concepts of the human mind. The social nature of consciousness brings about actual sociation and societal development. Using this theory as a basis, he formulated a dynamic proletarian (as opposed to a static bourgeois) sociology, and epistemologically clarified the materialistic conception of history. He attempted to fortify the dialectic elements in Marxism with the principles of idealistic philosophy. These ideas are worked out in Marxistische Probleme (1913), Weg-weiser-Studien zur Geistegeschichte des Sozialismus (1914), Die Staalsauffassung des Marxismus (1922), Marx als Denker (2nd ed. 1925), Lehrbuch der materialistisehen Geschichtsauffassung (1930-32), and Das Raetsel der Gesellschaft (1936). His book Neue Menschen (1926) was translated into Hebrew under the title Anshei ha-Mahteret (1931).
Adler’s combination of philosophical idealism and socioeconomic realism led him to a deterministic interpretation of Marxism and to revisionism in socialist politics. He warned that the ruling classes would be likely to abandon parliamentary democracy as soon as class antagonisms became intensified and that a revolutionary posture of the unified Socialist movement was therefore necessary. This position is clarified in his book Politische oder soziale Demokratie (1926).
ADLER, MICHAEL
(1868-1944), English minister and historian. Born into an immigrant Russian-Jewish family, he later adopted the name Adler. In 1890 he was appointed minister of the newly founded Hammersmith Synagogue in London and was for many years minister of the Central Synagogue. In World War 1 he served as senior Jewish chaplain to the armed forces, receiving a medal for his efforts. He was also chairman of the Jewish Central Lads’ Brigade. He published, mainly in the Transactions of the Jewish Historical Society of England (of which he was president, 1934-36), a number of fundamental essays on the history of the Jews in England in the Middle Ages, based largely on documentary sources. Many of these were republished in his The Jews of Medieval England (1939). He also published two Hebrew grammars and edited British Jewry, Book of Honour (1922) on the service of the English Jews in World War 1.
ADLER, MORITZ
(1826-1902), Hungarian painter. Born in Budapest, Adler studied in Munich and in Paris. On his return to Hungary, he settled in Budapest. Adler’s reputation was created with his painting Memento Mori (1852). A meticulous artist, he was popular as a painter of genre and still life, and made portraits of many eminent Hungarians of his time. His Apotheosis of Baron Joseph Eotvos pays tribute to this champion of the emancipation of Hungary’s Jews.
ADLER, MORRIS
(1906-1966), U.S. Conservative rabbi. Adler, son of a rabbi, was born in Slutzk, Russia, and was brought to the U.S. in 1913. After serving in Buffalo, n.y., Rabbi Adler accepted the pulpit of Shaare Zedek in Detroit, Mich. (1938), where, except for his chaplaincy (1943-46), he remained for the rest of his life. Under Rabbi Adler’s leadership the congregation grew into one of the largest in the world, and he was considered by many to be the leading spokesman of the Detroit Jewish community. He was especially devoted to the field of adult Jewish education, on which he lectured and wrote extensively. A friend of labor leader Walter Reuther, Rabbi Adler served as chairman of the Public Review Board of the United Auto Workers (1957-66) and was a member of the Michigan Fair Election Practices Commission and the Labor-Management Citizens’ Committee. He was a member of the Governor’s Commission on Higher Education (1963-66). Positions he held in the Jewish world included chairmanship of the B’nai B’rith Adult Jewish Education Commission (1963-66) and various offices in the Rabbinical Assembly. He wrote Great Passages from the Torah (1947) for adult Jewish study, and World of the Talmud (1958). He also edited the Jewish Heritage Reader (with Lily Edelman, 1965).
He was killed during Sabbath services in his synagogue by a mentally ill youth. The day of his funeral was declared by Governor George Romney a day of mourning in the state of Michigan. A collection of his writings, compiled by his widow Goldie Adler and Lily Edelman, May I Have a Word With You, appeared in 1967. A second posthumous volume, The Voice Still Speaks: Message of Torah for Contemporary Man (ed. Jacob Chinitz), appeared in 1969.
ADLER, MORTIMER JEROME
(1902-2001), U.S. philosopher and educator. Born in New York, Adler studied and later taught psychology at Columbia. From 1927 to 1929 he was assistant director of the People’s Institute in New York. In 1930, he was appointed associate professor of philosophy of law at the University of Chicago (full professor in 1942), where he was active in curriculum reform. In 1952 he became director of the Institute for Philosophical Research in Chicago. Adler opposed John Dewey’s influence in education, and advocated studying the great books of the Western tradition. While he continued his educational reforms on a more conservative basis, the concept of seminars on "great books" and "great ideas" continued to become integrated into programs at other educational institutions. In 1952, his work in this area culminated in the publication of the Great Books of the Western World by the Encyclopaedia Britannica company in 54 volumes (1945-52), with R.M. Hutchins.
Adler helped found the Institute for Philosophical Research and the Aspen Institute. He taught business leaders the classics at the Aspen Institute for more than 40 years. He was also on the board of the Ford Foundation and the Board of Editors of the Encyclopaedia Britannica, where his influence was clearly felt in its policies and programs. He was also the co-founder, along with Max Weismann, of the Center for the Study of Great Ideas.
In 1977, Adler published an autobiography entitled Philosopher at Large, which was later followed by another account entitled A Second Look in the Rearview Mirror: Further Autobiographical Reflections of a Philosopher at Large (1992). He spent a lifetime making philosophy’s greatest texts accessible to everyone. Throughout his teaching career, he remained devoted to helping those outside academia educate themselves further. According to Adler, no one, no matter how old, should stop learning. He wrote more than 20 books after the age of 70, and at the age of 95 was working on his 60th, The New Technology: Servant or Master?
Adler’s main works include Art and Prudence (1937); St. Thomas and the Gentiles (1938); How to Read a Book (1940); A Dialectic of Morals (1941); The Capitalist Manifesto (with L. Kelso, 1958); Great Ideas from the Great Books (1961); The Conditions of Philosophy (1966); The Difference of Man and the Difference It Makes (1968); Reforming Education: The Opening of the American Mind (1977); The Time of Our Lives: Ethics of Common Sense (1970); Aristotle for Everybody: Difficult Thought Made Easy (1980); The Paideia Proposal: An Educational Manifesto (1982); The Angels and Us (1982); Six Great Ideas (1984); A Vision of the Future: Twelve Ideas for a Better Life and a Better Society (1984); Ten Philosophical Mistakes (1985); How to Speak / How to Listen (1985); A Guidebook to Learning: For a Lifelong Pursuit of Wisdom (1986); Truth in Religion: The Plurality of Religions and the Unity of Truth (1990); How to Think about God: A Guide for the 20th-Century Pagan (1991); Desires, Right & Wrong: The Ethics of Enough (1991); and Adler’s Philosophical Dictionary: 125 Key Terms for the Philosopher’s Lexicon (1995).
A self-described pagan for most of his life, Adler converted to Christianity in 1984 and was baptized by an Episcopalian priest. In 1999, he converted to Roman Catholicism.
ADLER, NATHAN BEN SIMEON HA-KOHEN
(17411800), German rabbi. Born into a distinguished family in Frankfurt, Adler was a student of Tevele David *Schiff, and became known as an "illui" (an extraordinarily talented student of Talmud). In addition to talmudic subjects, he studied the natural sciences and Hebrew and Aramaic grammar. At the age of 20 he had achieved a reputation for his scholarship and piety. He founded a yeshivah which drew students from many cities. His students included Seckel Loeb *Wormser, Mendel *Kargau, and Moses *Sofer. Adler was especially attracted to practical Kabbalah. He gathered a congregation in his home and conducted the services from the prayer book of Isaac *Luria, employing the Sephardi pronunciation he had learned from R. H ayyim Modai of Jerusalem who had been his houseguest for several years. Adler even had the priestly blessing recited daily, and departed from accepted practices in other particulars. He was especially stringent in regard to laws relating to ritual slaughter and the dietary laws. Although he was careful not to cite the Zohar or to canvass disciples for his views, there was considerable friction between his followers and the community leaders. Nevertheless, his profound learning and impeccable conduct were universally acknowledged. In 1779, his followers excommunicated one of the members of the Frankfurt community. Adler was summoned to the bet din to account for this presumptuous act. He refused to appear, and in consequence a resolution was passed and proclaimed in the synagogues, forbidding him to conduct services in his house, forbidding any member of the community from participating in these services, and threatening transgressors with excommunication. Adler ignored the order, whereupon a statement was issued by the rabbis and communal leaders of Frankfurt, signed by Phinehas *Horowitz. It threatened to place Adler under a ban which would prevent him from fulfilling any rabbinic functions and withdraw his right to decide on religious matters. The decision was referred to the civil authorities and approved by them, and Adler was obliged to submit. A temporary truce resulted when Adler was invited to accept the post of rabbi of Boskowitz in Moravia (1782). His devoted follower, Moses Sofer, decided not to abandon his master, and Adler encouraged him to accompany him. Eighteen years later, in his eulogy on Adler, Sofer declared, "I ran after him for 100 miles, forsaking my mother’s house, and the home in which I was born." On their way, they passed through Prague where they were received with great honor by Ezekiel *Landau. Adler, however, was not happy in Boskowitz, and after three years a dispute broke out between him and the community as a result of his attempt to introduce regulations regarding terefot which were more stringent than those hitherto in use. As a result he was obliged to leave the city. He and Sofer reached Vienna in the spring of 1785, but eventually Adler returned to Frankfurt, while Sofer settled in Prossnitz. In Frankfurt Adler reopened his yeshivah and reconvened his congregation. No action was taken by the community, but, in 1789, two of his students were punished by the communal leaders for alarming the community with accounts of their dreams. Adler and his disciples placed great significance on heavenly signs, miracles, and especially dreams. Adler himself was well-known for his dreams. As part of his kabbalistic life style, he was in constant search of divine revelation and prophetic visions. The excommunication pronounced ten years earlier against Adler and his dayyan, R. Lazer Wallase (the maternal grandfather of Abraham *Geiger), was renewed. About that time an anonymous polemical pamphlet entitled Ma’asei Ta’atu’im (1790) appeared in Frankfurt, describing the practices of the H asidim who were attracted to Adler. The author of the brochure, a certain Loeb Wetzler, who wrote in the style of the early Haskalah, claimed that the Hasidim had devised new laws. Adler’s community did deviate from common practice in the areas of prayer, asceticism, and wearing two sets of tefillin instead of the usual one, all based on their study of Kabbalah. The added strictures of law, the asceticism, and the life style based on Kabbalah were very close to similar practices of the nascent hasidic communities developing in Eastern Europe during the same period. To a certain extent the opposition to these "deviant" practices was motivated by a resurgence of interest in the Shabbatean movement that occurred at the same time. The excommunication on Adler was removed on the 11th of Elul 1800, only three weeks before his death. The eulogy was delivered by R. Phinehas Horowitz, av bet din of Frankfurt. Adler left no writings except some brief notes, based on explanations he had heard from Tevele David Schiff. He wrote these in the margins of his copy of the Mishnah. Some, on Berakhot and tractates of the order Zera’im, were published by R. Zevi Benjamin Auerbach under the title Mishnat Rabbi Nathan (1862). Some of Adler’s views on halakhah and aggadah and his minhagim were published in Moses Sofer’s Hatam Sofer and Torat Moshe (19062). Adler’s method in teaching the Oral Law was original. He took the Mishnah as his starting point, gave the results of the discussion of the Gemara on it, and then pointed out the various stages in the development of the halakhah as it appears in the works of the early codifi-ers, particularly Maimonides and Alfasi.
ADLER, NATHAN MARCUS
(1803-1890), British chief rabbi. Nathan Adler was born in Hanover, then under the British crown, and was educated in Germany. He became rabbi of Oldenburg in 1829 and succeeded his father, Marcus Baer Adler, at Hanover the following year. In 1844 he was elected chief rabbi of the United Hebrew Congregations of the British Empire in succession to Solomon *Hirschel. He was chosen by a representative gathering of national delegates, and not, as with his predecessors, by the London Great Synagogue alone. S.R. *Hirsch was among the other candidates. During his 45 years of office the Anglo-Jewish community developed its modern features, which Adler did much to shape. His firm but enlightened orthodoxy was coupled with a strong and attractive personality. Adler was largely responsible for the failure of the *Reform movement, established in England shortly before his arrival, to make much headway there. His wide-ranging and ambitious conception of his office was made clear in his Laws and Regulations for all the Ashkenazi Synagogues in the British Empire, issued in 1847. He was mainly responsible for the establishment of *Jews’ College in 1855 and was a moving spirit in the organization of the Jewish Board of Guardians in 1859. In 1866 he took the first steps toward the creation of the *United Synagogue. His pastoral tours and visits to provincial communities made his influence felt throughout the country, and he was also able to secure recognition of his authority in the British colonies. Adler regarded Anglo-Orthodoxy as lax compared with the Continent and therefore in need of central direction. Outside the community he was regarded as the official representative and public spokesman for Judaism. Ill health curtailed his activity after 1879, when his son Hermann *Adler was appointed delegate chief rabbi. His principal literary work is Netinah la-Ger, a Hebrew commentary on the Tar-gum *Onkelos (Vilna, 1875; published in numerous editions). His Ahavat Yonatan, a commentary on the Targum Jonathan, remains in manuscript (jtsa, Ms. Adler, 1173). Adler enjoyed an international reputation for his scholarship. He greatly strengthened the position of the chief rabbi.
ADLER, PAUL
(1878-1946), German author. Adler studied law in his native Prague and served for a short time as a judge. He moved to France and Italy and finally settled in Hellerau, an artists’ community near Dresden.Adler was coeditor of Neue Blaetter, the circle’s periodical. In 1933, he returned to Czechoslovakia and survived the Nazi occupation in hiding. Adler’s best known legendary tales, collected in Elohim (1914), teem with fantastic characters, and anticipate those of Franz *Kafka. Elohims giants, angels, and titans combine the symbolism of the Talmud, of Christianity, and of paganism. Adler’s two major novels were Naemlich (1915) and Die Zauberfloete (1916); here he interpreted creation as a work of destruction. In later years he became interested in Japanese literature and collaborated in a monograph, Japanische Literatur (1925).
ADLER, POLLY
(Pearl; 1900-1962), U.S. author and owner of bordellos. The eldest of nine children of Gertrude Koval and Morris Adler, a tailor, Pearl Adler hoped to complete gymnasium studies in her native Belorussia. However, her father sent her to America to prepare the way for the immigration of the rest of the family. On her own in New York, she was raped at 17 by a sweatshop foreman and resorted to an abortion. Alienated from relatives, she learned to support herself in the sex industry, a survival necessity followed by a significant number of Jewish female immigrants from Eastern Europe. Unsuccessful in legitimate undertakings, Adler became a madam, operating a series of increasingly upscale brothels catering to gangsters and the fashionable upper classes. She retired in 1943 to Burbank, California, where she completed high school and enrolled in college courses. Her notoriety as the classic American madam, "a feisty, albeit disreputable, victor over adversity," was sealed by the publication of her popular memoir, A House Is Not a Home (1953) and its film version (1964).
ADLER, RENATA
(1938- ), U.S. journalist, novelist, and film critic. Born in Milan, Italy, Adler graduated from Bryn Mawr College in 1959; the Sorbonne in 1961; Harvard University in 1962; and Yale University Law School. Trained as a journalist, Adler worked intermittently for 20 years at the New Yorker magazine. Hired in her twenties by the legendary editor William *Shawn, she reported from Vietnam; from Selma, Ala., a civil rights hot spot; and from the Middle East. Her first two books were collections of essays and reviews written on assignment for that magazine and for the New York Times, where she worked, still in her twenties, for 18 months as a film critic, at a time when film became a serious intellectual, artistic, and political pursuit. Her generally negative reviews so angered the movie-making industry that in 1968 United Artists took out a full-page ad in the New York Times denouncing her. Strom Thurmond attacked her on the floor of the Senate for her critique of the John Wayne film The Green Berets.
She returned to the New Yorker and was promptly sent to report on the civil war in Biafra. Then she went to Washington, where she was hired by the House Committee investigating the Watergate scandal to write speeches for the chairman, Representative Peter Rodino. In 1969, she turned to writing short stories. Her early work surfaced in the New Yorker, and she eventually collected and reshaped much of this short fiction into an award-winning first novel, Speedboat, a collection of short paragraphs offering snippets of narrative, sometimes presented randomly. Essentially Adler was creating a disturbing portrait of urban life. The critics, however, were unimpressed. The literary controversy was rekindled in 1983 with her second novel, Pitch Dark, an autobiographical story about a young woman running from her relationship with a married man. It was similar in style to her first novel, with a skeletal plot and observations arranged haphazardly.
Her legal training was reflected in her 1986 book, an exhaustive investigation into shoddy news reporting practices, Reckless Disregard: Westmoreland v. cbs et al.; Sharon v. Time. It dealt with Ariel Sharon’s libel suit against Time for its reporting of the Sabra and Shatila massacre in Lebanon and Westmoreland’s suit against cbs for accusing him of deception in estimating North Vietnamese troop strengths. Adler accused the defendants of refusing to acknowledge even the possibility of error and their lawyers with having displayed "a concerted disregard for the fundamental goals of truth and accuracy." cbs tried to get the book suppressed; the network was unsuccessful and the manuscript was published without change.
In the late 1980s, Adler became a single mother by adopting a baby and wrote little. Her critique of the venerated New Yorker film critic Pauline *Kael, published in the New York Review of Books, was particularly noteworthy for the vicious-ness of her attack. In 1999, she published Gone: The Last Days of the New Yorker, a critique of the magazine after it changed ownership and editors. In 2001 came Canaries in the Mine-shaft: Essays on Politics and Media. She also contributed articles and short stories, sometimes under the pseudonym Brett Daniels, to the magazines National Review, Vanity Fair, Harper’s Bazaar, Commentary, and Atlantic. She was a member of the editorial board of American Scholar from 1969 to 1975. She was a Guggenheim Fellow in 1973-74, won first prize in the O. Henry Short Story Awards in 1974, won the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters Award in 1976, and the Ernest Hemingway Prize in 1976 for the best first novel. She taught at several universities and was a member of pen and the National Academy of Arts and Letters.
