Kohler, Kaufmann [key], 1843–1926, American rabbi, scholar, and leader in Reform Judaism, b. Bavaria. He emigrated to the United States in 1869 and served with congregations in Detroit and Chicago before becoming (1879) rabbi of Temple Beth-El in New York City. From 1903 to 1921 he was president of the Hebrew Union College in Cincinnati. He called the conference (1885) at which the Pittsburgh Platform of Reformed Judaism was adopted. One of the editors of The Jewish Encyclopedia, he also wrote Backwards or Forwards: Lectures on Reform Judaism (1885), Jewish Theology Systematically and Historically Considered (1918), Heaven and Hell in Comparative Religion (1923), and the Origins of the Synagogue and the Church (1929). His Studies, Addresses, and Personal Papers (1931) contains a short autobiography.
See R. J. Marx, Kaufmann Kohler as Reformer (1951).
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