The Pittsburgh Platform of 1885 is the founding declaration of Reform Judaism in America — eight principles that defined the movement's relationship to Torah, science, Jewish nationhood, and social justice for the half-century following the Civil War. Convened at the call of Kaufmann Kohler of New York, the conference met from November 16–19, 1885, with Isaac Mayer Wise presiding, and declared itself the continuation of the German Reform conferences of 1841–1846 and the Philadelphia Conference of 1869.

The Platform articulates a modernist Jewish theology: the Bible as moral instrument rather than literal record, Mosaic ceremonial law as historically contingent rather than eternally binding, the Jewish people as a religious community rather than a nation awaiting restoration to Palestine. Its final article commits Reform Judaism to the "great task of modern times" — the problems of social inequality, framed in prophetic terms.

The Platform dominated American Reform Judaism until 1937, when the Columbus Platform superseded it. It remains the clearest statement of classical Reform Judaism's Enlightenment-era presuppositions — confident in the compatibility of reason and revelation, progressive in its understanding of religious development, and cosmopolitan in its vision of the Jewish mission to humanity.

Declaration of Principles

Convening at the call of Kaufmann Kohler of New York, Reform rabbis from around the United States met from November 16 through November 19, 1885, with Isaac Mayer Wise presiding. The meeting was declared the continuation of the Philadelphia Conference of 1869, which was the continuation of the German Conference of 1841 to 1846. The rabbis adopted the following principles:

1. We recognize in every religion an attempt to grasp the Infinite, and in every mode, source or book of revelation held sacred in any religious system the consciousness of the indwelling of God in man. We hold that Judaism presents the highest conception of the God-idea as taught in our Holy Scriptures and developed and spiritualized by the Jewish teachers, in accordance with the moral and philosophical progress of their respective ages. We maintain that Judaism preserved and defended midst continual struggles and trials and under enforced isolation, this God-idea as the central religious truth for the human race.
2. We recognize in the Bible the record of the consecration of the Jewish people to its mission as the priest of the one God, and value it as the most potent instrument of religious and moral instruction. We hold that the modern discoveries of scientific researches in the domain of nature and history are not antagonistic to the doctrines of Judaism, the Bible reflecting the primitive ideas of its own age, and at times clothing its conception of divine Providence and Justice dealing with men in miraculous narratives.
3. We recognize in the Mosaic legislation a system of training the Jewish people for its mission during its national life in Palestine, and today we accept as binding only its moral laws, and maintain only such ceremonies as elevate and sanctify our lives, but reject all such as are not adapted to the views and habits of modern civilization.
4. We hold that all such Mosaic and rabbinical laws as regulate diet, priestly purity, and dress originated in ages and under the influence of ideas entirely foreign to our present mental and spiritual state. They fail to impress the modern Jew with a spirit of priestly holiness; their observance in our days is apt rather to obstruct than to further modern spiritual elevation.
5. We recognize, in the modern era of universal culture of heart and intellect, the approaching of the realization of Israel's great Messianic hope for the establishment of the kingdom of truth, justice, and peace among all men. We consider ourselves no longer a nation, but a religious community, and therefore expect neither a return to Palestine, nor a sacrificial worship under the sons of Aaron, nor the restoration of any of the laws concerning the Jewish state.
6. We recognize in Judaism a progressive religion, ever striving to be in accord with the postulates of reason. We are convinced of the utmost necessity of preserving the historical identity with our great past. Christianity and Islam, being daughter religions of Judaism, we appreciate their providential mission, to aid in the spreading of monotheistic and moral truth. We acknowledge that the spirit of broad humanity of our age is our ally in the fulfillment of our mission, and therefore we extend the hand of fellowship to all who cooperate with us in the establishment of the reign of truth and righteousness among men.
7. We reassert the doctrine of Judaism that the soul is immortal, grounding the belief on the divine nature of human spirit, which forever finds bliss in righteousness and misery in wickedness. We reject as ideas not rooted in Judaism, the beliefs both in bodily resurrection and in Gehenna and Eden (Hell and Paradise) as abodes for everlasting punishment and reward.
8. In full accordance with the spirit of the Mosaic legislation, which strives to regulate the relations between rich and poor, we deem it our duty to participate in the great task of modern times, to solve, on the basis of justice and righteousness, the problems presented by the contrasts and evils of the present organization of society.

Colophon

The Pittsburgh Platform was adopted on November 19, 1885, at a conference of Reform rabbis convened in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. The principal architect of the document was Kaufmann Kohler (1843–1926), a German-born rabbi and theologian who had emigrated to the United States and become one of the foremost intellectual voices of American Reform Judaism. The conference was presided over by Isaac Mayer Wise (1819–1900), the founder of the Union of American Hebrew Congregations (1873), the Hebrew Union College (1875), and the Central Conference of American Rabbis (1889) — the three institutional pillars of American Reform Judaism. Wise brought the institutional framework; Kohler brought the theology.

The Platform declared itself the heir of earlier German Reform conferences (Braunschweig 1844, Frankfurt 1845, Breslau 1846) and the Philadelphia Conference of 1869, situating American Reform in the broader nineteenth-century project of reconciling Judaism with Enlightenment rationalism and modern historical scholarship. The eight principles range from the rejection of dietary and purity laws as historically contingent, to the denial of Jewish national identity in favor of a universal religious mission, to an engagement with the social problems of industrial capitalism framed in prophetic terms. The document was controversial from the moment of its adoption — the Orthodox response was sharp, and even within Reform circles the Platform's confident modernism eventually gave way to a re-evaluation of Jewish peoplehood and tradition. The 1937 Columbus Platform superseded it.

This text is in the public domain. The principles are quoted as preserved in James G. Heller, Isaac M. Wise: His Life, Work and Thought (New York: Union of American Hebrew Congregations, 1965), pp. 464–465. Minor OCR corrections: "reject al" → "reject all"; "Israel s great" → "Israel's great"; doubled period in principle 6 removed.

Compiled and formatted for the Good Work Library by the New Tianmu Anglican Church, 2026.

🌲