environment, Kaplan and a group of followers founded the Society for the Advancement of Judaism (SAJ) in 1922. Its goal was to give rabbis the opportunity to form new outlooks on Judaism in a more progressive manner. Kaplan was the leader of the SAJ until 1945, when Eisenstein took over. In 1935, Kaplan published his book, Judaism as a Civilization: Toward a Reconstruction of American Jewish Life. It was this book that Kaplan claimed was the beginning of the Reconstructionist movement. Judaism as a Civilization suggested that historical Judaism be given a "revaluation… in terms of present-day thought." Reconstructionism was able to spread with several other forms of literature, most notably the New Haggadah (1941) which for the first time blended Kaplan's ideologies in Jewish ceremonial literature. Although Kaplan did not want Reconstructionism to branch into another Jewish denomination, it was on the inevitable track of becoming one. At the Montreal conference in 1967, Reconstructionist leaders called for a rabbinical school in which rabbis could be ordained under the Reconstructionist ideology and lead Reconstructionist congregations. By the fall of 1968, the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College was opened in Philadelphia. Along with the establishment of the college, the Reconstructionist Rabbinical Association formed, which gave rabbis a strong network in the religious leadership of Reconstructionism. The founding of these institutions were great strides in its becoming the fourth movement in North American Judaism (Orthodox, Conservative and Reform being the other three). Reconstructionist Judaism is the first major movement of Judaism to originate in North America; the second is the Humanistic Judaism movement founded in 1963 by Rabbi Sherwin Wine. Theology Kaplan believed that, in light of advances in philosophy, science and history, it would be impossible for modern Jews to continue to adhere to many of Judaism's traditional theological claims. In agreement with Orthodox theology (articulated by prominent medieval Jewish thinkers including Maimonides), Kaplan affirmed that God is not anthropomorphic in any way. All anthropomorphic descriptions of God are understood to be metaphorical. Kaplan's theology went further to claim that God is neither a personal nor conscious being; God cannot relate to or communicate with humanity in any way. Kaplan's theology defines God as the sum of all natural processes that allow people to become self-fulfilled. To believe in God means to accept life on the assumption that it harbors conditions in the outer world and drives in the human spirit which together