tradition of Reform responsa writing plays a subtle, but I think also essential, role. If 50, then Solomon Freehof and Walter Jacob have played midwife to a major process of revitalization in American Reform Judaism.
Notes
11) Jakob Petuchowski , Prayerbook Reform in Europe, the Liturgy of European Liberal and Reform Judaism, New York , WUPJ , 1968, esp. chap.
J
2. Published in Hamburg by B. S. Berendsohn, 1842.
3. Published in Breslau by Leopold Freund , 1943. 4. The Committees first appearance occurs in vol. XXI 1911, p. 67, but is simply recorded as an oral report received by the Conference. The first published text I could find is in vol. XXIII, 1913, pp. 166ff.
5. American Reform Responsa: Collected Responsa of the Central Conference of American Rabbis, 1889-1983, ed. by Walter Jacob , New York . CCAR, 1983.
6. A resolution was presented during the 1906 Conference calling on the president"to appoint a committee of two to whom such questions may be submitted and who shall furnish the responsa for the Year Book" vol. XVI, 1906, p. 67. There is no record of the approval of this resolution by the Resolution Committee, However, the next volume of the Year Book lists an eight member Responsa Committee for 1907-1908.
7. See especially Joel Mueller,"Brief und Responsen in der vorgeonaeischen juedischen Literatur" Vierter Bericht ueber die Lehranstahlt fuer die Wissenschaft des Judenthums, Berlin, 1866, pp. 3-4.
8. The exact date when responsa began to be written is still unclear. See Simha Assaf in