Its founders were concerned with the Americanized, acculturated character of even the relatively traditional wing of local Jewry, exemplified by the Orthodox Union (OU), which had formed five years earlier, and the Jewish Theological Seminary of America.
European transplants were often Yiddish-speaking with barely any English skills, trained exclusively in rabbinics, and would be termed Haredi today, and had a stronger affinity to the entire body of religious texts; they were there to maintain standards."
[citation needed] To the Eastern Europeans, the OU and its later affiliated Rabbinical Council of America, were dangerously accommodationist and lacking in both scholarship and piety.
[citation needed] In December 1925, Reform Rabbi Stephen S. Wise delivered a sermon about Jesus the Jew, causing an uproar culminating in an edict of condemnation against him by the Agudath Harabonim.
Kaplan, a critic of both Orthodox and Reform Judaism, believed that Jewish practice should be reconciled with modern thought, a philosophy reflected in his Sabbath Prayer Book.
[citation needed] The group has regularly placed advertisements in Jewish newspapers shortly before the High Holy Days, prohibiting worship at non-Orthodox synagogues.
[citation needed] In 2005, French politician Simone Veil, an Auschwitz survivor, was invited to speak at the commemoration of the 60th anniversary of the camp's liberation.
Yehuda Levin, on behalf of the Union, wrote to the President of Poland that it was inappropriate for Veil to speak at the event, since by "having brought about the legalization of abortion in France" she was "responsible for an ongoing destruction of human life far exceeding that of the Nazis".
PR Jan.27, 2005 Notable current or recent members of the Union of Orthodox Rabbis of the USA and Canada include: The organization's primary function is the Beis Din which serves the Americas.