Over the past three to four decades, “congregational studies” has emerged as a distinct field among researchers of American religion. Propelled mainly by sociologists and ethnographers, this field has also enlisted students of practical theology and, to a far lesser extent, historians. The relative paucity of contributions by academic historians is not hard to fathom: congregations rarely retain enough of their historical records to warrant an extended history, and records that do survive generally offer only a partial view of life in the congregation. When congregational histories are written, their authors are usually informed amateurs, spurred to write upon the occasion of milestone anniversaries. The resulting histories tend to be richly illustrated with photographs of individuals and groups and view congregational life mainly as a series of pronouncements by clergy and prominent lay leaders.

In his exemplary congregational history, Tobias Brinkman demonstrates how rich and illuminating a well-told tale of congregational life can be. Brinkman's focus is Chicago's Sinai Temple during its first sixty-five years. (Two brief chapters sketch developments over the next ninety years.) He has benefited greatly from the unusually well-preserved archives at Sinai, but he has also gone beyond those sources to link Sinai to broader themes: the adaptation to America by German Jewish immigrants during the middle of the nineteenth century; the debate between radical and moderate reformers that wracked the Reform movement for decades; the participation of German Jewish immigrants in the Civil War and in the rebuilding of Chicago after the Great Fire of 1871; the impact of Ethical Culture on the thinking of Reform rabbis; the involvement of the latter in the large social and civic movements of the time, such as Progressivism, the organization of American laborers, the founding of settlement houses, and Zionism; and the wrenching dilemma faced by some German-born rabbis when their adopted country went to war against the land of their birth during World War I.

Sundays at Sinai benefits greatly from its author's facility with German-language source material. Sinai's minutes were written in German for much of its early history and its first rabbis, especially Bernhard Felsenthal and Kaufman Kohler, were most comfortable in the German language. Using German sources, Brinkman reconstructs the “chain migration” that brought Jewish immigrants from the same rural villages of Central Europe to settle in specific American cities. And as he amply details, in the lead-up to Sinai's founding, the two great antagonists of American Reform engaged in a tug-of-war that also implicated the leading lights of German Reform, such as Abraham Geiger—all of whom communicated in German.

Throughout his narrative, Brinkman underscores Sinai's distinctive path. Though today, its website proudly proclaims Sinai's “commitment to Classical Reform,” the congregation “defined itself against Cincinnati” (226), standing aloof from the organized Reform movement until it finally joined the Union of American Hebrew Congregations in 1903. Sinai's hallmark, as announced by Brinkman's title, was the centrality it accorded to its Sunday morning services. Introduced initially to provide an opportunity for members who worked on Saturday mornings to celebrate a day of rest on Sundays, these services were intentionally designed to draw large audiences of Jews and gentiles to Sinai, even as the Saturday morning service withered. Emil G. Hirsch, the congregation's longest-serving rabbi, was not shaken by this development and publicly explained that “the old Jewish Sabbath is dead. To successfully revive it, seclusion on the part of the Jews from the outer world in a new Ghetto would be the price” (140). Despite his initial opposition, Hirsch also officiated at High Holiday services that were pushed off to Sundays, a departure from Jewish tradition apparently with no parallel in any other synagogue in the world. For good reason, Brinkman characterizes Sinai in its nineteenth century incarnation as “the most radical Reform congregation in America” (132).

Though Brinkman arguably has written the most wide-ranging history of an American synagogue ever undertaken, he is ultimately limited by his sources: there is relatively little he can tell us about the experience of the Jews in the pews. Brinkman approvingly cites the work of social historians who pay “much attention to the grassroots, gender, and everyday life” (6). Alas, his volume offers little insight into the lived Judaism of average members. By focusing so heavily upon the rabbinic leadership of the congregation and some of its outspoken lay trustees, Brinkman leaves readers wondering what sense worshippers made of reforms that, for example, banished all Torah scrolls from the synagogue's sanctuary. What did they take away from the high-flown oratory of their rabbis and assorted visiting lecturers? And, indeed, what were Sundays at Sinai like for congregants?