" 

 : I was noticing sentences like: ""Quite haphazardly, he instituted a major innovation when introducing family pews in 1851, after his Albany congregation purchased a local church building and retained sitting arrangements, a feature unknown in synagogue design until then."" and ""The Eastern Europeans came from backward regions, and had a pronounced ethnic tinge and a self-consciousness of a national minority, while the natives were assimilated and long accustomed to civil equality."" 
 : 
 : So, both florid and not completely NPOV. 
 : 
 :It sounds as if it were lifted from something written in the early-to-mid twentieth century, though a quick Google search didn't turn up anything. 
 : 
 :  "