(0:01 - 14:57): To begin the episode, Rabbi Daniel Freelander discusses the earliest post-Enlightenment reforms of Judaism that occurred in Germany, highlighting Israel Jacobson as a key figure in initiating those reforms. [3] Freelander lays out an important frame for the remainder of his overview of Reform Jewish history -- the three major eras of Reform Judaism, which he terms Moderate Reform, Classical/Radical Reform, and New Reform. He also outlines the earliest manifestations of Reform Judaism in the United States in the mid-19th Century.

(14:58 - 32:33): Freelander emphasizes the lack of centralized bodies in the early years of Reform Judaism, which resulted, he explains, in the first era of Moderate Reform being largely defined by lay leaders, not rabbis. Freelander presents two key figures, Isaac Mayer Wise and David Einhorn, whose different philosophies exemplified some of the ideological debates of the time, and he engages with the deep shifts to American Judaism that came about due to the massive immigration wave of East European Jews beginning in the 1880s. He then tells the story of the founding of Hebrew Union College, the first American rabbinical seminary, along with the infamous "Trefa Banquet" [non-kosher banquet] that occurred at its first ordination. [4] Freelander also analyzes forms of Jewish life in this period that manifested outside of synagogues, often in homes.