Bertram Korn, who had his Bar Mitzvah in KI when Fineshriber reintroduced the ceremony, enlisted as a chaplain in the Navy during the war, serving with the 1st and 6th Marine Divisions in China. At the end of the war, Fineshriber, as a national leader of the reform movement, opposed the creation of a Jewish state in British Palestine, which became Israel in 1948. Fineshriber, a leader among a highly visible minority of Reform Rabbis, resisted the idea of Jews being seen as a nation in need of their own state. He strongly believed that American Jews had to avoid being suspected of having dual loyalties. In essence, he saw himself as an American of the Jewish religion rather than a "Jewish-American." However, when Israel was created in 1948, he modified his anti-Zionist position recognizing the utility of Israel as a haven for Holocaust survivors and other Jewish refugees. In 1947 Fineshriber had presided over the 100th anniversary celebration of KI, which included an address by Governor James H. Duff of Pennsylvania and Justice Horace Stern, a member of KI, who was also the first Jewish judge to serve on the Pennsylvania Supreme Court. In 1949, at age 71, Fineshriber retired, with title Rabbi Emeritus. Two years later, in 1951, the University of Pennsylvania awarded him an honorary Doctor of Laws degree. Fineshriber's successor was Professor Bertram Wallace Korn, who was teaching American Jewish History at Hebrew Union College where he had studied to become a rabbi and later earned a Doctorate in Hebrew letters under Professor Jacob R. Marcus. The arrival of Rabbi Korn signified a change in KI's orientation and its relationship to the larger Reform Movement. This was in part a function of larger changes in the United States brought about by World War II, the GI Bill, and suburbanization. Eventually KI and the reform movement would enthusiastically embrace the modern state of Israel. Before World War II most reform leaders, such as Rabbi Fineshriber, had been skeptical or hostile to the idea of a Jewish state in Israel and had focused their energies on the strengthening of the Jewish community in the United States. They viewed their Jewishness as religious, rather than ethnic. This line of thinking began to change in the 1950s, as more leaders of the Reform movement came to support Israel. This change was complete by the late 1960s. Rabbi Korn would help effectuate this change during his tenure at KI.