Isaac Mayer Wise

American religious leader

• Born: March 29, 1819
• Birthplace: Steingrub, Bohemia, Austrian Empire (now Lomnička, Czech Republic)
• Died: March 26, 1900
• Place of death: Cincinnati, Ohio

As a pioneering Reform rabbi with the avowed goal of uniting American Jewry, Wise became the greatest organizer of Reform Jewish institutions. He was the architect of and prime mover in the establishment of the Union of American Hebrew Congregations, Hebrew Union College, and the Central Conference of American Rabbis, and he served as the first president of each of those three organizations.

Early Life

Isaac Mayer Wise was the oldest surviving son of Regina and Leo Weiss. At the age of four, he began his studies under the direction of his father, an impoverished teacher who had his own primary school. By the age of six, it was clear that he was a prodigy; he was studying the Bible and the Talmud. By the age of nine, after having learned everything his father could teach him, he went to study with his grandfather, a physician well steeped in Jewish learning. In 1831, when twelve and after the death of his grandfather, he went to Prague to study in a school famous for instruction in the Talmud. He then became an outstanding student in Prague. In 1835, Wise journeyed to Jenikau and enrolled in Bohemia’s most famous rabbinical school, headed by Rabbi Aaron Kornfield. At Kornfield’s school, Isaac Mayer studied secular as well as religious topics. He completed his formal education by attending the University of Prague for two years and the University of Vienna for one year, during which time he also worked as a tutor.

After officially becoming a rabbi in 1842, at the age of twenty-three, Wise accepted a rabbinical position in Radnitz, Bohemia. In May, 1844, he married Theresa Bloch, a former student, with whom he had ten children during thirty years of happy marriage. Continuing to study and to advance intellectually, he was greatly influenced by Gabriel Kiesser, the great jurist and parliamentarian, who heightened his awareness of nature and the need for political liberalism. He was also greatly influenced in religious liberalism by Samuel Hirsch. Attending a rabbinical conference in Frankfurt in 1845, Wise met, spoke with, and listened to four noted religious thinkers, Abraham Geiger, Samuel Adler, Zacharias Frankel, and David Einhorn, all of whom severely questioned many aspects of traditional Judaism and laid the basis for Reform.

Wise soon realized that Radnitz was too small and isolated for him. Believing the United States to be a place where Jews would be receptive to the idea of Judaism as an evolving faith open to liberal and rational thinking consistent with the Enlightenment, he decided to emigrate to the New World. With his wife and young daughters, he began a sixty-three-day voyage in May, 1846, arriving in New York on July 23.

Life’s Work

Isaac Mayer Wise served as rabbi of Congregation Beth-E1 in Albany, New York, for four years. In his desire to improve public worship, he introduced numerous reforms, including mixed pews for men and women, the full inclusion of women in the synagogue, choral singing, and confirmation as a replacement for the Bar Mitzvah. Although continually facing opposition from the more traditionally oriented, Orthodox element in his congregation, Wise continued to advocate and pursue changes and reforms in both faith and practice. In 1847, he originated the idea of a single ritual for the American Jewish community. In 1848, he called for a rabbinical meeting the next year to establish a union of congregations; this first call for a meeting failed. Having become a regular contributor to two American Jewish publications, Wise continued writing as well as arguing orally the merits of this union proposal.

Wise, in 1850, accepted an offer to become the rabbi of Beth Elohim in Charleston, South Carolina, an avowedly Reform congregation. He changed his mind, however, and finally refused the offer. Opposition to his Reform ideas increased at Congregation Beth-El. On the morning of the eve of Rosh Hashanah (the beginning of the High Holy Days) in 1850, he was dismissed as rabbi at a rump meeting of the board of directors. At services the next day, a riot broke out. Shortly thereafter, a minority of the Beth-El congregation left with Wise and established a new synagogue, Anshe Emet (men of truth). Anshe Emet was a congregation committed to Reform, the fourth such in the United States; the other Reform congregations were in Charleston, Baltimore, and New York.

In 1854, Wise accepted the post of rabbi of Congregation B’nai Jeshuran in Cincinnati and stayed there the rest of his life. Soon after arriving in Cincinnati, he began to publish a weekly, The Israelite, which was later renamed The American Israelite , and a German supplement, Die Deborah. In both publications, he advocated the centralization of Jewish institutions. He also established Zion College, which combined Judaic and secular studies. In 1855, Wise called for a rabbinical synod that, he hoped, would unite American Jewry by developing an overall authority for Judaism in the United States.

Wise’s call prompted the convening of a rabbinical conference in Cleveland, at which an intense debate between Orthodox and Reform rabbis erupted. Desiring to avoid conference failure, Wise sought agreement for a public declaration that would meet the minimal requirements of Orthodoxy but not violate the spirit of Reform. Wise’s carefully worded declaration was finally accepted by the Orthodox and moderate Reform representatives in attendance. In the declaration, Wise stated that the Bible was “of immediate divine origin and the standard of our religion.” He referred to the Talmud as containing the traditional, legal, and logical exposition of the biblical laws that must be expounded upon and practiced “according to the comments of the Talmud.”

Wise, who presided at the conference, was overjoyed with the affirmative vote for the declaration. For him, this signaled a forthcoming union of all congregations in the United States. He believed that Orthodoxy would ultimately bow to a Reform emphasis attached to Jewish tradition. Wise’s joy, however, was short-lived. Orthodox rabbis, at first satisfied, became suspicious of Wise’s intentions. Radical Reform rabbis, led by David Einhorn in Baltimore, violently attacked the declaration as betraying Reform. Wise engaged in vigorous debate with both sides, but the synod idea quickly collapsed from lack of support.

Despite numerous setbacks, Wise continued to advocate a union of congregations, a common prayer book, and a college to train American rabbis. In 1856, he published Minhag America , a modified curtailment of the traditional Hebrew ritual. He wrote extensively and discussed his ideas orally in repeated visits to Jewish communities throughout the United States.

The coming of the Civil War not only deferred Wise’s activities somewhat but also seemed to spark within him a desire to seek a career in national politics. He showed little sympathy for the abolitionist agitation preceding the Civil War and was willing to tolerate slavery rather than risk dissolution of the Union. During the Civil War, he joined the so-called Copperhead Democrats; in 1863, he accepted nomination for election to the Ohio State Senate, but he withdrew from the race because of his congregation’s opposition to his candidacy.

After the Civil War, Wise agitated again for a union of congregations. He attended the 1869 Reform rabbinical conference in Philadelphia and assented to the resolutions adopted there. Soon thereafter, however, he moved away from the substance of those resolutions, realizing that his identifying with too radical a stand would put him beyond his own dream for a comprehensive union of American synagogues under his leadership. During the next few years, Wise carried on spirited debates with the more radical Reform rabbis in the East. He called rabbinic conferences in Cleveland, Cincinnati, and New York, which were boycotted by the radical Reform rabbis he opposed. He also reissued his Minhag America.

In 1873, a part of Wise’s dream became a reality. Delegates from thirty-four Reform congregations convened in Cincinnati on July 8 and organized the Union of American Hebrew Congregations (1873). Wise had wanted a union of all congregations in the United States; this was a union only of Reform congregations, mostly from the South and Midwest. Realizing the impossibility of bringing the Orthodox and Reform together at that time, Wise was happy with this development. He had contributed immensely; he was chosen the union’s first president.

For Wise, the most important task for the union was the establishment of a college to train rabbis. In July, 1875, the union established Hebrew Union College (1875), the first Jewish seminary in the United States; the formal opening occurred in October. Wise became president and taught as a member of the faculty. He spent the remainder of his life working at and on behalf of the college. He shaped its curriculum and supervised its administration; he ordained more than sixty rabbis. He was an excellent teacher. His classroom presentations were substantive and analytical. His kindly face, scholarly appearance, penetrating eyes, and spectacles, often balanced on his forehead, commanded attention. During his years as college president, he was also able to write some of his more scholarly works.

Although Wise preferred one national organization for all American rabbis, he more realistically became the major advocate of a national organization for Reform rabbis. The Central Conference of American Rabbis (CCAR) was formally established in 1889. Wise was elected president and served in that post until he died.

In the last years of his life, Wise, who believed in the universal mission of Judaism, emerged as a great opponent of Zionism and the establishment of a Jewish state in Palestine. In his 1897 presidential address at the CCAR conference in Montreal, he stated his case and won unanimous endorsement of a resolution proclaiming Reform’s rejection of Zionism as being incompatible on many grounds with Judaism.

Having lived a lengthy and productive life, Wise, who remained alert to the end, died quietly in Cincinnati on March 26, 1900.

Significance

Isaac Mayer Wise was the outstanding American Jew and the leading rabbi of his day. Although he failed to achieve his primary goal of uniting all American Jews, he contributed mightily to developing unanimity among Reform Jews and succeeded in adapting Reform Judaism to the society of the New World. He advocated religious reforms in Jewish thought and practice consistent with the democratic liberalism of the nineteenth century, of which he was a product. This often placed him at the center of controversy but, more important, earned for him a place of distinction in Jewish history.

Wise had a worldview, the major aspect of which was that God had established the United States as the symbolic model of nation-state freedom, equality, and brotherhood. Jews and Judaism, he believed, should conform to this divine new order. He felt obligated to point them in that direction. In this concept, Isaac Mayer Wise was an American reformer as well as a Jewish reformer.

Bibliography

Heller, James Gutheim. Isaac M. Wise: His Life, Work and Thought. New York: Union of American Hebrew Congregations, 1965. The most complete biography and critical analysis of Wise. Contains an extensive bibliography.

Knox, Israel. Rabbi in America: The Story of Isaac M. Wise. Boston: Little, Brown, 1957. A good biographical sketch and a thoughtful, incisive analysis of Wise’s ideas and activities within the context of Reform Judaism in the United States.

May, Max Benjamin. Isaac Mayer Wise: The Founder of American Judaism. New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1916. Factual chronicle of Wise’s boyhood in Bohemia and his major accomplishments in the United States. Written by Wise’s grandson, this book attempts limited analysis and contains little judgment.

Sachar, Howard M. A History of the Jews in America. New York: Knopf, 1992. Chapter III, “The Americanization of German Jewry,” includes information on Wise’s ideas and contributions to Reform Jewry. Additional references to Wise are listed in the index.

Temkin, Sefton D. Creating American Reform Judaism: The Life and Times of Isaac Mayer Wise. New York: Oxford University Press for the Littman Library, 1992. Reprint. Portland, Oreg.: Littman Library of Jewish Civilization, 1998. Biography examining Wise’s role in creating a new form of Judaism for American Jews.

Wise, Isaac Mayer. Judaism: Its Doctrines and Duties. Rev. ed. Cincinnati, Ohio: L. Wise, 1872. Along with Pronaos to Holy Writ (below), this book is representative of Wise’s best writing about theology and practice. A popularized, better-written revision of his earlier work, Essence of Judaism, published in Cincinnati in 1861 by O. Bloch and Company.

‗‗‗‗‗‗‗. Pronaos to Holy Writ. Cincinnati, Ohio: Robert Clarke, 1891. A scholarly analysis of the Old Testament, providing good insight into Wise’s thought.

‗‗‗‗‗‗‗. Reminiscences. Translated and edited by David Philipson. Cincinnati, Ohio: L. Wise, 1901. Originally written by Wise and published in German in Die Deborah, these reminiscences were translated and published in English after his death. Highly personal and partial, they are nevertheless rich in detail and useful in understanding Wise.

‗‗‗‗‗‗‗. Selected Writings of Isaac M. Wise. Edited by David Philipson and Louis Grossmann. Cincinnati, Ohio: Robert Clarke, 1900. Contains a short biographical essay of varying quality representing aspects of Wise’s thought.