KOHLER, KAUFMANN (1843–1926), Reform rabbi, scholar, and theologian. Born in Fürth, Bavaria, into a pious Orthodox family of rabbinical ancestry, Kohler entered the Gymnasium in Frankfurt in 1862 and continued his earlier rabbinic training with Samson Raphael Hirsch, leader of German Neo-Orthodoxy, whose crucial religious impact on him Kohler frequently acknowledged. Gradually, however, with exposure to modern science and the critical studies of philology, the Bible, history, and comparative religion at the universities of Munich, Berlin, and Erlanger (where he received his Ph.D. in 1867), his faith in Orthodox Judaism was shattered.

Attracted to the religious orientation of Abraham Geiger, leader of German Reform Judaism, Kohler embraced Reform as an outlet for both his profound religious faith and his scholarly proclivities. When a rabbinical appointment in Germany was not forthcoming, he moved to the United States in 1869 and served congregations in Detroit and Chicago until, in 1879, he...