The torrent of Jewish immigrants that poured onto US shores in the late 19th century encountered an environment singularly inhospitable to the observance of Shabbos. Many were forced into a six-day workweek, toiling up to 18 hours a day, memories of old-world political oppression fading before a new world of economic exploitation. Amidst the fast paced of modern industry, taking time to observe Shabbos or learn Torah was a sign of indolence, clogging the engine of production with the residues of culture
and religion.

The American Jewish establishment of the time, dominated by the bourgeois Reform movement, was not inclined to question the prevailing schedule of the US economy. The 1885 Pittsburgh Platform, which codified the movement’s tenets, acknowledged the “very large number of Jews who, owing to economic and industrial conditions, are not able to attend services.” But instead of challenging these conditions, the platform conceded the point: “Resolved, That in the judgment of this Conference there is nothing in the spirit of Judaism to prevent the holding of divine services on Sunday, or any other day of the week.” Many congregations did hold services on Sunday, though initially as supplements rather than replacements for the Saturday service; the transfer remained controversial in a population that resisted Christianity even despite its ambivalence about tradition. Reform rabbi Isaac Wise of Cincinnati, for instance, called the Sunday Sabbath “a bare faced and...

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