Stephen Samuel Wise

Zionist Leader

• Born: March 17, 1874
• Birthplace: Budapest, Austro-Hungarian Empire (now in Hungary)
• Died: April 19, 1949
• Place of death: New York, New York

American religious reformer and rabbi

One of the most influential rabbis in U.S. history, Wise was a social and moral reformer, a Zionist, a leader in Jewish-Christian relations, and the founder of the Free Synagogue. Also, he was peripherally involved in the founding of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) in 1909 and the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) in 1920.

Areas of achievement Religion and theology, church reform, social reform

Early Life

Stephen Samuel Wise was born in Budapest in the Austro-Hungarian Empire (now Hungary). He moved to the United States as a one-year-old infant with his parents, Aaron and Sabine De Fischer Wise. His paternal grandfather, the Reverend Joseph H. Wise, had been a well-known Hungarian rabbi. After the death of her husband, Stephen’s paternal grandmother went to Palestine to pray, die, and be buried in a grave facing the site of the Holy of Holies rather than opting to join her only surviving son, Aaron, in the United States. Her example no doubt influenced Stephen’s later Zionism.

On arriving in the United States, Aaron settled his family in New York City, where he became rabbi of Temple Rodeph Sholem. He served there until his death in 1896. Stephen later paid tribute to his father as the one who had enabled him to see that the rabbinate was a noble and high calling. Wise earned a bachelor of arts degree from Columbia University in 1892 and then received private rabbinic training. He was ordained by Adolf Jellineck of Vienna. His first appointment was at the Conservative B’nai Jeshurun Temple in New York City, where he served from 1893 to 1900. During this period he first identified himself with the Zionist movement. He also continued his education, receiving his Ph.D. from Columbia University in 1901.

In 1900 Wise married Louise Waterman. In that same year he received a call to become rabbi of a Reform congregation in Portland, Oregon. He accepted the call and served there until 1906. The congregation more than doubled in size during his stay and became known for its generous contributions to Jewish causes. However, the young rabbi’s vision did not stop at the doors of his synagogue. He tirelessly devoted his energies and abilities to works of social reform. On arriving in Oregon, he quickly recognized that child labor was one of the unchecked evils of that state. There was no law regarding this practice on the statute books. Rabbi Wise drafted a law of such high caliber that it made Oregon a leader in child labor legislation. He was one of the founders of the Oregon State Board of Charities and Correction and was its first vice president. He also worked for the recognition of the importance of the Juvenile Court, the institution of the indeterminate sentence, and the parole of first offenders.

In addition to his congregational duties and his service to the state of Oregon, Wise was responsible for establishing, in the city of Portland, the People’s Forum, reminiscent in many ways of the old New England town meeting. At the weekly meetings of the People’s Forum, matters of civic interest were brought to a free platform for discussion. Rabbi Wise’s service as founder and president of the forum brought him an invitation to become one of the members of Portland’s executive Board of Nine, in whom, under the mayor, the municipal government of the city was vested.

Life’s Work

News of Wise’s groundbreaking reform work trickled back to New York City. In 1905 he was invited to preach a series of sermons in Temple Emanu-El, New York’s greatest and richest synagogue. The sermons would enable the trustees to determine whether to recommend him for the position of rabbi. The trustees proposed to extend a call to him, but one clause in the offer drew Wise’s attention and elicited a reply that attracted nationwide attention. The clause stated that the pulpit of Temple Emanu-El “shall always be subject to, and under the control of the Board of Trustees.” When, in answer to his frank question concerning the meaning of this condition, he was given the equally frank answer that “should the rabbi in his sermons or addresses offend the opinion of the lay heads of the congregation, he would be expected either to retract the offending remarks or to maintain a discreet silence on the subject thereafter,” Wise declined the pulpit in an open letter to the congregation of Temple Emanu-El. The letter, which became a classic defense of free speech in the pulpit, stated,

The chief office of the minister . . . is not to represent the views of the congregation, but to proclaim the truth as he sees it . . . A free pulpit, worthily filled, must command respect and influence; a pulpit that is not free, howsoever filled, is sure to be without potency or honor. A free pulpit will sometimes stumble into error; a pulpit that is not free can never powerfully plead for truth and righteousness. In the pursuit of the duties of his office, the minister may from time to time be under the necessity of giving expression to views at variance with the views of some, or even many, members of the congregation. Far from such difference proving the pulpit to be in the wrong, it may be, and ofttimes is, found to signify that the pulpit has done its duty in calling evil evil and good good. . . . Difference, and disquiet, even schism at the worst, are not so much to be feared as the attitude of the pulpit which never provokes dissent because it is cautious rather than courageous, peace-loving rather than prophetic, time-serving rather than right-serving.

Thus it was that Wise lost his opportunity to become rabbi of the richest synagogue in New York City. Yet some Jews of influence responded favorably to his insistence on religious freedom within the synagogue. With their support, he founded the Free Synagogue in New York in 1907, which emphasized a free pulpit and the preaching of a vital and prophetic Judaism. Its constitution states,

Believing that the power of the synagogue for good depends in part upon the inherent right of the pulpit to freedom of thought and speech, the founders of the Free Synagogue resolve that its pulpit shall be free to preach on behalf of truth and righteousness in the spirit and after the pattern of the prophets of Israel.

Wise also believed that the synagogue must again become democratically managed and that there could be no synagogue democracy as long as the “pews and dues” system remained. Hence the constitution also states that the Free Synagogue “shall not at any time nor for any reason impose any pecuniary due, tax, or assessment upon its members, but shall be supported wholly by voluntary contributions.”

As was the case with the young Rabbi Wise in Oregon, the mature Wise served far beyond the boundaries of his congregation, championing the causes of interfaith cooperation, social reform, and moral reform in government. He was peripherally involved in the founding of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) in 1909 and the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) in 1920. He and a fellow New York clergyman, John Haynes Holmes, garnered national publicity for their exposure of graft in city administration. Throughout his life, he sought better relations between Christians and Jews.

Wise was both admired and condemned for his discussion of controversial topics, one notable example of which was his series of sermons on “The Life, Teachings, and Death of Jesus the Jew,” which were summarized in the June 7, 1913, issue of Outlook magazine (which Wise founded and edited). Wise not only asserted the Jewishness of Jesus but also and much more controversially claimed for Jews a preeminent right to interpret Jesus.

When the processes of the resurrection of the body of the teachings of Jesus from the tomb of dogmatic Christianity shall have been completed, we of the House of Israel know that a figure will emerge who is our own, long hidden from us rather than by us.

Despite his interfaith and social interests, Wise did not neglect Jewish causes and concerns. In 1922, he established the Jewish Institute of Religion, a seminary offering training for rabbis of all branches of the faith. He was largely responsible for the establishment of the American Jewish Congress (1916) as well as the World Jewish Congress (1936), presiding over both from their inception until his death in 1949.

Perhaps Wise’s best-known Jewish cause was that of Zionism. He was one of the first Jewish leaders in the United States to become active in the Zionist movement. He attended the Second Zionist Congress in Basel, Switzerland, in 1898 and helped to found the Zionist Organization of America in the same year, for which he served as president in 1917 and from 1936 to 1938. As a prominent member of the Democratic Party and an acquaintance of President Woodrow Wilson, Wise influenced the U.S. government toward approval of the Balfour Declaration. He was a leader in the struggle to marshal American public opinion against Adolf Hitler in the 1930’s. However, he was not a supporter of the growing militancy of the Zionist movement during the war years, and this led to difficult conflicts with other Zionist leaders. Happily, at the time of his death in 1949, the state of Israel had just been established, fulfilling a dream that Wise had pursued for half a century.

Significance

Many have considered Wise to be the outstanding rabbi of American Jewish history. Fellow rabbi P. S. Bernstein lauded him as the person who almost single-handedly transformed liberal Judaism in the United States. Finding it “conventional, smug, fettered and barren,” he infused it with new life through “his passion for social justice, his intense love of freedom, and his devotion to the Jewish masses.” It was largely through Wise’s efforts, Bernstein claimed, that the liberal Jewish pulpit was freed, that the rabbis became earnestly concerned with the social and economic implications of their religion, and that the Reform synagogue was democratized in form and spirit.

In addition to the internal reforms he brought to Judaism, Wise gave Jewishness increased visibility in the United States. He brought the destruction of Jews in Europe to the attention of the American government and people. He preached to large audiences, including many non-Jews, in Carnegie Hall. He founded the magazine Opinion, and his name appeared often in the pages of The Christian Century. He spoke about Jesus as a Jew, and both Christians and Jews listened even if all did not agree with what he said. He was a Jew for all people, indelibly Jewish but concerned about the good of all.

Bibliography

Urofsky, Melvin I. A Voice That Spoke for Justice. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1982. This is the only book-length biography of Wise in existence, and fortunately it is a good one. An extensively researched and brilliantly analyzed portrayal of its subject.

Voss, Carl Hermann. Rabbi and Minister. Cleveland, Ohio: World, 1964. This book chronicles the joint endeavors of Wise and Unitarian minister John Haynes Holmes in championing social reforms. Offers insight into an influential Jewish-Christian friendship strong enough to allow differences of opinion on issues that mattered to both.

Wise, James Waterman. Jews Are Like That. 1928. Reprint. Freeport, N.Y.: Books for Libraries Press, 1969. Rather than being a straightforward biography, James Waterman Wise provides a chapter-long character sketch of his father, Stephen S. Wise.

Wise, Stephen Samuel. As I See It. New York: Jewish Opinion, 1944. Contains articles penned by Wise for the magazine Opinion and collected by its editors. Gives the reader an opportunity to hear Wise’s reaction to historical events as they were unfolding. Arranged chronologically within each of five topics: Jewishness, Hitlerism, Zionism, contemporary Jews, and war and its lessons.

‗‗‗‗‗‗‗. Challenging Years: The Autobiography of Stephen Wise. New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1949. Wise’s autobiography reveals much about his personality, telling, as it does, the main stories of his life in his own words. It is less helpful in terms of objective biographical information, but an introductory essay by his daughter and son helps to compensate for that deficiency.