thousands of refugees from Germany brought their Liberal Judaism to other lands as well. In 1930, the first Liberal congregation, Temple Beth Israel Melbourne, was founded in Australia. In June 1931, the South African Jewish Religious Union for Liberal Judaism was organised, soon employing HUC-ordained Moses Cyrus Weiler. The Congregação Israelita Paulista of São Paulo, first branch in South America, was established in 1936. German refugees also founded a Liberal community named Emet ve-Emuna in Jerusalem, but it joined the Conservatives by 1949. The New Reform Judaism Kohler retired in 1923. Rabbi Samuel S. Cohon was appointed HUC Chair of Theology in his stead, serving until 1956. Cohon, born near Minsk, was emblematic of the new generation of East European-descended clergy within American Reform. Deeply influenced by Ahad Ha'am and Mordecai Kaplan, he viewed Judaism as a Civilization, rather than a religion, though he and other Reform sympathizers of Kaplan fully maintained the notions of Election and revelation, which the latter denied. Cohon valued Jewish particularism over universalist leanings, encouraging the reincorporation of traditional elements long discarded, not as part of a comprehensive legalistic framework but as means to rekindle ethnic cohesion. His approach echoed popular sentiment in the East Coast. So did Solomon Freehof, son to immigrants from Chernihiv, who advocated a selective rapprochement with halakha'', which was to offer "guidance, not governance"; Freehof advocated replacing the sterile mood of community life, allowing isolated practices to emerge spontaneously and reincorporating old ones. He redrafted the Union Prayer Book in 1940 to include more old formulae and authored many responsa, though he always stressed compliance was voluntary. Cohon and Freehof rose against the background of the Great Depression, when many congregations teetered on the threshold of collapse. Growing Antisemitism in Europe led German Liberals on similar paths. Rabbis Leo Baeck, Max Dienemann and Seligmann himself turned to stressing Jewish peoplehood and tradition. The Nazis' takeover in 1933 effected a religious revival in communities long plagued by apathy and assimilation. The great changes convinced the CCAR to adopt a new set of principles. On 29 May 1937, in Columbus, Ohio, a "Declaration of Principles" (eschewing the more formal, binding "platform"), promoted a greater degree of ritual observance, supported Zionism – considered by the Classicists in the past as, at best, a remedy for the unemancipated Jewish masses in Russia and Romania, while they did not regard the Jews as a nation