Photograph by Amit Lahav via Unsplash

Christian society or secular society both demands that religions express themselves in ways that align with a Christian perception of what religion is and should be. On November 19, 1885, Rabbi Kaufmann Kohler wrote the Pittsburgh Platform with seventeen other rabbis. Together, they spearheaded the reform of Judaism, and demonstrated, strikingly, what American culture still demands of its religious minorities in order to fit in. To survive, religious communities often have to splinter and divide.

The 1885 Pittsburgh Platform reinterpreted several key tenets of Judaism in ways that directly addressed American cultural norms. The rabbis advocated for the elimination of public religious displays and emphasized Judaism’s alignment with the “Christian” project of modernity and civilization. By rejecting the Jewish nation’s past, present, and future, the platform presented a vision of Judaism that would make it more palatable to the Christian majority.

In doing so, the platform signaled a desire to strip religious practices that might hinder full participation in public life. For instance, the rabbis dismissed Mosaic and rabbinical laws regarding diet, priestly purity, and dress, seeking to remove the visible markers of Jewish difference. According to them, Jews should not have to eat different food, shop at separate butchers, or wear distinct clothing. Public markers of Judaism were considered barriers to assimilation, and their removal was framed as necessary for Jewish integration.

This strategic distancing from Jewish customs created a divide within the community, separating those who would be considered “modern” Jews — willing to assimilate — from those who adhered to traditional practices. The platform implicitly established a hierarchy: assimilated Jews were positioned as spiritually “elevated,” while those who maintained traditional practices were seen as “foreign” and regressive, obstructing their own spiritual progress. To fully participate in modern society, Jews were encouraged to blend in with Christian American culture, shedding the elements of their identity that set them apart.

The splintering of Jewish identity into “modern” and “primitive” is a theme that continues to echo among religious minorities. In order to be fully accepted, communities are often forced to compromise on the public expression of their faith, creating a rift between those who make these sacrifices and those who refuse.

Clause three of the platform explicitly bound Judaism only to moral laws, rejecting any that did not align with modern civilization’s “views and habits.” By binding themselves only to the vague category of “moral laws,” the rabbis present Judaism as compatible with the moral code of American Christians. They stress not what is binding to the Jewish community, but merely what is not binding and what American Christians, therefore, need not worry about. The vague category of “moral laws” alludes to a melting pot of common laws, values, and approaches to modernity between American Jews and Christians.

By stripping away public religious practices, the platform showed how deeply intertwined American identity was with Christian norms, even in the late 19th century. To be American, the platform suggested, was at least to present as Christian. The price of assimilation was high: the loss of public expressions of faith and a tacit acceptance of Christianity as the cultural norm.

One of the most radical aspects of the Pittsburgh Platform was its rejection of Zionism. By declaring that Jews were no longer a nation but merely a religious community, the rabbis sought to alleviate the fear of dual allegiance — a key concern for many Americans. In this vision, Jews were not to be a people with a claim to a separate nation but rather loyal citizens of the United States, capable of full integration.

It is notable that reform Judaism did not stay anti-Zionist. The Columbus Platform of 1937 affirmed the existence of a Jewish homeland in Israel. After the establishment of the state of Israel in 1948, the Miami Platform of 1997 and the New Pittsburgh Platform of 1999 also reversed the anti-Zionist language of 1885. Reform Judaism shifted to make Zionism a part of its cultural identity alongside the rise of notable early American Zionist Reform Rabbis like Max Heller, Stephen Wise, and Abba Hillel Silver, and the influence of political and cultural events like rising antisemitism in Europe leading up to the Holocaust.

However, in 1885, the platform’s anti-Zionist stance further aligned Judaism with American Christian norms, casting Jews as a community without national aspirations, unlike other immigrants who might retain allegiances to their countries of origin. This strategic shift aimed to make Jews appear less foreign and more compatible with the ideals of American citizenship.

This is particularly interesting to contrast with the current moment: an emerging Trump presidency signaling its embrace of Christian Zionism with the nomination of Mike Huckabee as ambassador to Israel. For today’s right-wing Christian nationalists, acceptable forms of Judaism are only those compatible with Christian Zionism. Instead of using anti-Zionism to demonstrate loyalty to America, as the Pittsburgh Platform did, Republican politics today demands Zionism to prove Jewish compatibility with Americanness. In both cases, the politically dominant form of Christianity dictates how American Jews are permitted to relate to Zionism.

Despite differences on Zionism, the Pittsburgh Platform exemplifies a still applicable cost of assimilation for religious minorities: a demand to shed essential aspects of their identity to gain acceptance in a society shaped by Christian ideals. The splintering of the Jewish community into “modern” Jews who assimilated and “primitive” Jews who resisted this process underscores the spiritual and communal toll of assimilation.

While the platform represented a progressive turn within Reform Judaism, particularly in its anti-Zionist stance[i] and loosening of ritual obligations, it also highlights the immense pressure to conform to Christian expectations. In a society where Christian norms dictate what is acceptable in public life, religious minorities are often left with the difficult choice of compromising their traditions or risking exclusion.

This is eerily similar to the way America expects religious minorities to show up in the public square today. You can be Jewish, so long as it does not interfere with American public life. You can be Muslim, so long as it doesn’t threaten “Christian” ways of being. Christian nationalism is more than simply legislating American values. It is also the cultural expectation, explicit or implicit, that to be an American religious “other,” your religion must fit into the Christian boxes of what religion is or should be.

This article is not a negative review of what Rabbi Kohler and the other rabbis at the Pittsburgh conference were attempting to do. They played a role in the transformation of Judaism, introduced essential aspects of Reform Judaism, and allowed for a good deal of change and progress to take place within the Jewish community. Judaism today, particularly in the United States, would not look the same without it.

But we must reflect on the cost of assimilation that is still borne by religious minorities in America. What does this do to religious communities themselves, when they constantly have to establish a hierarchy based on who can present more or less Christian in public. In a culture that demands conformity, and where conformity is often equaled with Christianity, what remains the price of acceptance?