Joseph Krauskopf (January 21, 1858 – June 12, 1923) was a prominent American Jewish rabbi, author, leader of Reform Judaism, founder of the National Farm School (now Delaware Valley University), and long-time (1887–1923) rabbi at Reform Congregation Keneseth Israel (KI), the oldest reform synagogue in Philadelphia which under Krauskopf, became the largest reform congregation in the nation.
Early life
Joseph Krauskopf was born in Ostrowo, Prussia, on January 21, 1858. In July 1872, at the age of fourteen, Krauskopf emigrated to the United States, expecting to join his older brother, Manaseh, in New Jersey. His brother was murdered just as Krauskopf arrived in the United States and instead he went to Fall River, Massachusetts, where he had cousins. There he found employment as clerk in a tea-store. While not denying or renouncing his own faith, he attended the local Unitarian Church (there was no Jewish congregation in the city), and became a protégé of Mrs. Mary Bridges Canedy Slade, who was the assistant editor the New England Journal of Education, a well-known author and composer, and the wife of the principal of the local high school, Albion Slade. Mrs. Slade directed Krauskopf's self-education, as he could not afford to quit work to attend school. In 1875 Mrs. Slade recommended him to Isaac Mayer Wise who was organizing the first rabbinical class at the newly founded Hebrew Union College in Cincinnati, Ohio. Rabbi Wise probably respected Slade's recommendation because she was a prominent hymnist and author of children's literature. Also writing a letter of recommendation for Krauskopf was William Reed, the editor of the Fall River Daily Evening News. Thus, through the intervention of this devoutly Christian woman, Krauskopf went to rabbinical school.
Rabbinical education and early career
Krauskopf arrived in Cincinnati in 1875 to be part of the first class at Hebrew Union College. This was Krauskopf's first opportunity to enter a program of formal education since arriving in the United States three years earlier at the age of fourteen. Krauskopf spent the next eight years at Hebrew Union College. In this time, he earned a high school degree, a bachelor's degree from the University of Cincinnati, and finally rabbinical ordination from Hebrew Union College in 1883. Therefore, in Cincinnati, he effectively went to high school, college, and rabbinical school simultaneously. While studying at Hebrew Union and at the University of Cincinnati, Krauskopf earned money as a tutor, contributed articles to journals, and published and marketed (with his future brother-in-law, Henry Berkowitz) the Union Hebrew Reader (1881, commonly known as the First Union Hebrew Reader), the Second Union Hebrew Reader (1884), and Bible Ethics: A Manual of Instruction in the History and Principles of Judaism, According to Hebrew Scriptures (1884) (full text). A contemporary journal, which focused on the study of Hebrew language and literature, praised the first Union Hebrew Reader (which sold for 25 cents) for providing ordered lessons that would "lead to the needed familiarity with the Hebrew page." In 1899 both of his Hebrew readers were being sold through the "Educational Catalogue for 1899" advertised in the publishing industry trade journal, Bookseller, Newsdealer, and Stationer.
While studying for his ordination, Krauskopf served as a student rabbi in Peoria, Illinois, and in Kalamazoo, Michigan. After his ordination, he became the rabbi at Congregation B'nai Jehudah in Kansas City, Missouri. Two years later, in 1885, he finished work on his graduate degree and earned a Doctor of Divinity from Hebrew Union College.