Isaac Mayer Wise

Rabbi Isaac Mayer Wise, c. 1876

Isaac Mayer Wise (March 29, 1819, - March 26, 1900) was a leading nineteenth-century American rabbi, editor, and author, widely recognized as the founder of Reform Judaism in the United States. A skilled and energetic organizer, Wise established numerous institutions, most notably the Union of American Hebrew Congregations, the Hebrew Union College, and the National Conference of American Rabbis.

Born in Bohemia, Wise was educated in Prague and Vienna, receiving his rabbinical degree at 23 and serving as a rabbi in Randnice in today's Czech Republic before emigrating to the United States in 1846. An early supporter of reforms such as mixed-gender seating during synagogue services, he faced trouble in his first congregation in Albany, New York and then established a new reformed synagogue there before moving to Cincinnati, where he would serve for the rest of his life.

In addition to acting as rabbi for Cincinnati's Lodge Street Temple, Wise organized numerous national conferences designed to unite the Jewish congregations of America. He was a prolific writer and editor, publishing numerous books and editing leading Jewish intellectual journals. Although he failed in his dream of uniting American Jews in a single reform-minded body, he succeeded in founding the Union of American Hebrew Congregations (today called the Union for Reform Judaism) in 1873, the Hebrew Union College as a theological seminary for the training American rabbis in 1875, and the Central Conference of American Rabbis as a unifying body of Reform Jews in 1889. All of these institutions remain important intellectual and administrative centers of Reform Judaism today.

Early life

The oldest son of Regina and Rabbi Leo Wise, Isaac was born in Steingrub (now Lomnička), Bohemia. He received his early Hebrew education from and his father, who a school-teacher, his grandfather, a physician. A brilliant student, in his studied Talmud and the Hebrew Bible at various schools, later continuing his Hebrew and secular studies in Prague and the University of Vienna.

Wise received his rabbinical degree at the age of 23 from the Prague bet din. At 25, he married Therese Bloch, who would become the mother of his ten children. In 1843, he was appointed rabbi at Radnitz (now Radnice, near Pilsen), where he remained for about two years.

In 1846, Wise emigrated to the United States, arriving in New York on July 23. In the following October, he was appointed rabbi of the Congregation Beth-El of Albany, New York and immediately began working for reforms in the synagogue service. His was the first Jewish congregation in the United States to introduce family pews, a radical break with the custom of separate seating for men and women. He also eliminated the chanting of the prayers and the traditional Torah reading in Hebrew. A mixed choir and the institution of confirmation were among the other innovations introduced by Wise. He even went so far as to count women in forming a minyan, or religious quorum.

Such reforms did not sit well with the more conservative members of the congregation, however, and in 1850 a fistfight between Wise and the synagogue's president caused a split in the Albany community. Wise's supporters then formed of a new, congregation, Anshe Emeth, in which his reforms were accepted. He remained with this congregation until April, 1854, when he became rabbi of the Bene Yeshurun congregation of the Lodge Street Synagogue of Cincinnati, Ohio, where he would remain for the remaining 46 years of his life.

Views

Wise was deeply inspired by the potential of America, not only as a religious haven for Jews, but as a workshop in which an entirely new religious culture could emerge. Unlike European Jewish reformers, he did not envision Judaism conforming to mainstream Gentile culture so much as he hoped for a reformed Judaism that could inspire America and the world. He even believed during one phase of his career that the new Judaism would make many Gentile converts and overtake Christianity as America's most popular faith. As a believer in the universal mission of Judaism—and living before the horrors of the Holocaust—he opposed Zionism, believing it was the mission of Jews to serve and transform their countries, not establish a Jewish state in Palestine. Paralleling this attitude, he was a courageous exponent of equal treatment for Jews in the political arena.

Although far from a traditionalist in matters of Jewish law and custom, Wise did not go so far as some reformers in his attitude toward the Bible. In Albany, he insisted that members of his synagogue board close their stores on the Sabbath. He thus faced opposition both from traditional Jews and radical reformers. He nevertheless worked tirelessly for unity.

Prayer-book and union

In 1847, Wise became part of a four-person bet din which attempted serve as an informal advisory committee to the Jewish congregations throughout the United States. At a meeting held in the spring of 1847, he submitted to the bet din the manuscript of a new prayer-book, to be entitled the Minhag America. As with many of Wise's proposals, the Orthodox strongly criticized it for being too liberal, while some in the Reform movement felt it was far too traditional. After a conference in Cleveland in 1855, an edited version of the work was adopted by most of the congregations of the western and southern states.

As early as 1848, Wise issued a call to the "ministers and other Israelites" of the United States, urging them to form a union which might put an end to the prevalent religious anarchy in the Jewish community. His call appeared in the columns of the Occident, the leading Jewish journal of the time, and was seconded by its editor, Isaac Leeser. Wise suggested that a meeting be held in the spring of 1849 at Philadelphia to establish a union of the Jewish congregations of the entire country.

This meeting did not take place, but Wise continued tirelessly advocating it, especially after he established his own weekly newspaper, The Israelite (July 1854, restyled The American Israelite in 1874). He also founded Die Deborah as a German language sister publication. His persistence in calling for a union of Jewish congregations finally achieved its goal in 1873, 25 years after he had first broached the idea, when the Union of American Hebrew Congregations was organized at Cincinnati.

Hebrew Union College

Earnest as he was in proclaiming the necessity for union among the congregations, Wise was equally energetic in insisting on the need of a theological seminary for the training of rabbis for American pulpits. In his Reminiscences he gives a vivid picture of the incompetency of many of the men who posed as spiritual guides of the Jewish congregations during the early days of his residence in the United States. He had scarcely arrived in Cincinnati when he set to work to establish a college in which young men could receive a Jewish theological education. He enlisted the interest and support of a number of influential Jews of Cincinnati and adjacent towns, and in 1855 founded the Zion Collegiate Association.

The venture, however, proved a failure, and the society did not succeed in opening a college. Not daunted, Wise launch a literary campaign to gain support for the idea. As with his plan for a union of American Jewish congregations, he pushed his proposal for a seminary in the columns of his publications. His perseverance in this matter was likewise crowned with success when, on October 3, 1875, the Hebrew Union College opened its doors for the reception of students, four of whom were ordained eight years later.

His hopes for the seminary as a unifying force in American Judaism, however, would not be fulfilled. In 1883, at the banquet celebrating the first graduating class of rabbis from HUC, a major schism erupted when it was learned that those in charge of the menu planned to serve shrimp, a non-kosher food. This event intensified the brewing conflict between the radical and conservative reformers and further alienated the Orthodox from Wise's program.

Wise later presided at a conference in Pittsburg which produced the so-called Pittsburg Platform, outlining the basic principle of Reform Judaism. However, the more traditional rabbis among the modernist Jews could not go along with its abandonment of many aspects of Jewish law. As a result, in 1887, the Jewish Theological Seminary was founded, as the intellectual center of Conservative Judaism, more or less formalizing the split between the main factions of non-Orthodox American Jews.

Rabbinical Conferences

File:Plum Street Temple Cincinnati.JPG

The Plum Street Temple in Cincinnati, built by Wise's congregation in 1866

The first outcome of Wise's agitation for union among the Jews was the Cleveland Conference of 1855 convened at his initiative. This conference failed in its goal of uniting the rabbis of all parts of the country in a bond of fellowship giving rise to strained relations between Wise and his followers on one side and prominent rabbis from the eastern part of the country on the other. These differences were partly settled during the rabbinical conference of Philadelphia (1869), which Wise attended. A New York conference of 1870, and a Cincinnati conference of 1871 were efforts in the same direction. However, a controversy ensuing from the 1871 meeting served only to widen the breach.

Forever the unionist, Wise was not discouraged. He continued agitating for a synod which was to be the central body of authority for American Judaism. In 1881 he submitted to the meeting of the Rabbinical Literary Association a report urging the formation of a council, but the idea was not adopted.

Despite the disappointment of split that emerged after the Pittsburg Platform was adopted, Wise lived to see the establishment of the Central Conference of American Rabbis in 1889. It would become one more enduring offspring of his tireless energy and unfailing perseverance. During the last 11 years of his life he served as president of the conference, making him, in effect, the founder of Reform Judaism in the US. His commitment to union was such that in 1894, when the Union Prayer-Book was published by the CCAR, he voluntarily retired the Minhag America from his own congregation.

Other achievements

Besides the arduous labors that the organization of these national institutions entailed, Wise was active in many other ways. In 1857, when a new treaty was to be concluded between the United States and Switzerland, he visited Washington as chairman of a delegation to lobby against its ratification unless Switzerland would cease its discrimination against American Jews. In 1856, he protested against a state Thanksgiving proclamation, addressed to the “Christian People" of Ohio," insisting that in the eyes of the government, Ohioans should be considered “neither Christian nor Jewish... but a free and independent people.” In 1862, when General Ulysses S. Grant, issued an order expelling Jews from his department Wise swiftly opposed the move, and during the Civil War, he fought against a ban against Jewish and Catholic chaplains serving in the Union army. On the issue of slavery, however, he took now public stand, while Rabbi Morris Raphall sanctioned it and Rabbi David Einhorn bitterly opposed it.

In Cincinnati, besides officiating as rabbi of his congregation and as president of the Hebrew Union College, he edited the American Israelite and the Deborah. Nor were his activities limited to the Jewish community. He served as an examiner of teachers applying for positions in public schools and was also a member of the board of directors of the University of Cincinnati.

Wise traveled throughout the United States, lecturing, dedicating synagogues, and enlisting the interest of the Jewish communities in his plans and projects.

-Publicaions

Wise was the author of the following works:

• The History of the Israelitish Nation from Abraham to the Present Time, Albany, 1854
• The Essence of Judaism, Cincinnati, 1861
• The Origin of Christianity, and a Commentary on the Acts of the Apostles, 1868
• Judaism, Its Doctrines and Duties, 1872; *The Martyrdom of Jesus of Nazareth: a Historico-Critical Treatise on the Last Chapter of the Gospel, 1874;
• The Cosmic God, 1876;
• History of the Hebrews' Second Commonwealth, 1880;
• Judaism and Christianity, Their Agreements and Disagreements, 1883;
• A Defense of Judaism vs. Proselytizing Christianity, 1889;
• Pronaos to Holy Writ, 1891.

In his early years Wise also wrote a number of novels, which appeared first as serials in the Israelite and later in book form. These were:

• The Convert, 1854;
• The Catastrophe of Eger, The Shoemaker's Family, Resignation and Fidelity, or Life and Romance, and Romance, Philosophy, and Cabalah, or the Conflagration in Frankfort-on-the-Main, 1855;
• The Last Struggle of the Nation, 1856; *The Combat of the People, or Hillel and Herod, 1858
• The First of the Maccabees.

He wrote also a number of German novels, which appeared as serials in the Deborah. He even wrote two plays: Der Maskirte Liebhaber and Das Glück Reich zu Sein.

Legacy

Interior of the Isaac M. Wise Temple

During his lifetime, Wise was regarded as the most prominent Jew in the United States. He possessed a genius for organization and immense spiritual and intellectual resources, as well as a determined and often inflexible will. More than of any of his contemporaries, he left the impress of his personality on the development of Judaism in the United States.

Wise's two most important achievements—the Hebrew Union College and the CCAR—still exist and thrive today as the intellectual and administrative centers of Reform Judaism, respectively. The Plum Street Temple, which he organized in 1866 is noted for its architectural grandeur, and was renamed the Isaac M. Wise Temple in his honor. Numerous other Jewish institutions are also named for him.

References

ISBN links support NWE through referral fees

• JewishEncyclopedia, by Cyrus Adler & David Philipson
• Bibliography: I. M. Wise, Reminiscences, transl. from the German and ed. by David Philipson, Cincinnati, 1901;
• Selected Writings of Isaac M. Wise, with a biography by David Philipson and Louis Grossmann, ib. 1900;
• The American Israelite, 1854-1900, passim, and the Jubilee number, June 30, 1904.

External links

• Works by Isaac Mayer Wise in the German Union Catalogue

This article incorporates text from the 1901–1906 Jewish Encyclopedia, a publication now in the public domain.

• Funeral of Rabbi Wise
• Issac Mayer Wise at Find-a-Grave.com

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