Felix Adler (professor) - Academic Career

Academic Career

When Adler returned to New York at the age of twenty-three, he was asked to give a sermon at Temple Emanu-El. He was meant to follow in his father's footsteps there as rabbi of the congregation. His sermon, "The Judaism of the Future," shocked the congregation, as he did not once mention God. Adler introduced his concept of Judaism as a universal religion of morality for all of mankind. The sermon was his first and last at Temple Emanu-El.

In 1874, after it had become clear that he would not become a rabbi, members of his father's congregation helped Adler gain a teaching position at Cornell University as a nonresident Professor of Hebrew and Oriental literature. He was popular with his students, with whom he discussed his novel religious ideas while illuminating contemporary labor struggles and power politics. He was attacked as an atheist for his views, and in 1876 Cornell declined to accept the grant that had paid Adler's salary. In 1902 Adler was given the chair of political and social ethics at Columbia University, where he taught until his death in 1933.