Isaac Mayer Wise
Rabbi Isaac Mayer Wise was a leader of American Reform Judaism, contributing to Jewish life through community organization and institutional development. Born in Steingrub, Bohemia (now the Czech Republic), he attended yeshiva and university before immigrating to America in 1846. He settled first in Albany, New York, and then Cincinnati, working as a Reform rabbi in both cities. Committed to unifying Jewish congregations and fostering Jewish life in America, Wise founded the Union of American Hebrew Congregations, the Hebrew Union College, the Central Conference of American Hebrew Rabbis, and the first American Jewish newspaper, The Israelite. Among his numerous publications was the first standardized American Jewish prayer book.
Entries in the Posen Library by This Creator
Primary Source
History of the Israelite Nation, from Abraham to the Present Time
Related Guide
Rabbinic Scholarship, 1750–1880
Despite the challenges to the status of rabbinic scholarship beginning in the early modern period, it flourished with figures of coruscating brilliance in Central and Eastern Europe in the latter half of the eighteenth century and the first half of the nineteenth century.