Jacob Mendes de Solla

Born in Amsterdam into the Dutch Sephardic community, Jacob Mendes de Solla was ordained as a rabbi in 1841 and completed his doctorate in theology. He served as a pulpit rabbi in Baltimore, Jamaica’s Montego Bay, Philadelphia, and Quincy, Illinois, before moving to Curaçao in 1876 to lead congregation Temple Emanu-El, a Reform break-off of the Mikve-Israel Synagogue. Mendes de Solla organized a program to prepare students from all congregations in Curaçao for rabbinical studies, introduced the egalitarian confirmation ritual to his congregation, and published a number of books and articles. He returned to the United States in 1881 as a teacher and traveling rabbi; he died in Denver.