Woman in the Mind of American Reform: The Independent Order B'nai B'rith and the Independent Order True Sisters, 1843-1914

Inspired by the German Reform thought the Independent Order B’nai B’rith, an all-male fraternal order, initiated by German-Jewish immigrants in New York City in 1843, sought to establish a new role model for a modern Jewish identity in civil society.

Inspired by B’nai B’rith the immigrant women pushed for integration into the male order by 1844. Rather than auxiliary roles, they wanted to pursue their own Bildung and character formation, but membership in the swiftly growing male order was considered too controversial for most of middle class society and for most Jews. Instead a small group of radical reformers encouraged the women to found a separate order, the “Independent Order True Sisters” (UOTS). Based on the major collections of both fraternal orders the paper will explore the role the “woman question” has played in the B’nai B’rith, the design of this first independent American Jewish women’s organization and track why the IOBB has committed to the True Sisters as partner organization.  It will also highlight and explain how both organizations’ identities have been affected by their German Jewish roots, have undergone the Americanization processes at different speeds, and why the UOTS, although instrumental in the founding of the NCJW, had limited appeal as a modern Jewish mass organization in the 20th century.