This is a portrait of Rabbi Isaac Mayer Wise. Wise (1819–1900) is shown with a white bow tie, glasses on the top of his head, and a bushy moustache.
Wise was a major figure in the American Reform movement. Born as Isaac Mayer Weiss in Bohemia (now the Czech Republic), he studied Torah and Talmud with his father and grandfather and at university. He was ordained as a rabbi in 1842, but due to difficulties in Jewish life in his country, he immigrated to the United States in 1846, where he changed his name to Wise. Wise first served as a rabbi in Albany, New York where he implemented reforms such as men and women sitting together during prayer services, confirmation ceremonies instead of bar mitzvah, and choral singing. Not everyone in his congregation was pleased with the reforms, and he was dismissed in 1850. After a few years, Wise moved to Cincinnati, Ohio to lead a Reform congregation and stayed there the rest of his life. In Cincinnati Wise sought to unify the various Reform congregations in the country. In 1873, he organized the Union of American Hebrew Congregations (which became the Union for Reform Judaism in 2003) and founded the Hebrew Union College in 1875, which was the first Jewish seminary in America. In 1889, Wise created an organisation of Reform rabbis called the Central Conference of American Rabbis.
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Reform Judaism – Reform Judaism, which was started in Germany and was introduced to the United States in the mid-1800s, is the largest Jewish denomination in the United States. Rabbi Isaac Mayer Wise (1819–1900) was an early leader in the Reform movement and is credited with founding most if its institutions and writing the first Reform prayer book. Wise spent most of his career in Cincinnati, Ohio, which houses the main campus of the Hebrew Union College. Reform Judaism views the Torah as an historic work that was written by people but was divinely inspired. It claims that the Torah holds timeless truths and messages but must be adapted to suit the times of the day. In Reform Judaism, the individual, after studying the tradition, chooses to observe the laws that they believe bring them closer to God. Reform Judaism stresses egalitarianism and social action. Sally Priesand, the first woman rabbi ordained in America, was ordained by the Reform movement in 1972. In 1983, the Reform movement adopted a resolution that declared a person Jewish if either parent was Jewish and the person makes “appropriate and timely public and formal acts of identification with the Jewish faith and people.” This is a departure from other traditional branches of Judaism that define a Jew as someone born to a Jewish mother. Reform Judaism is known for welcoming interfaith families and members of the LGBTQ community. Social action and Tikkun Olam (repairing the world) are hallmarks of Reform Judaism, and Reform Jews work extensively to bring peace, freedom, and justice to all people.
Jewish Community of the United States – At the time of the American Declaration of Independence in 1776, between 1,500 and 2,500 Jews were living in the United States, most of them Sephardi. In the middle of the nineteenth century, a wave of German Jews, largely secular and educated, arrived in the United States. Another wave of immigration arrived from Eastern Europe, a result of pogroms and the difficult economic situation in these countries . Most of these new immigrants were Ashkenazi and spoke mainly Yiddish. They arrived, believing that the United States was a “goldene medina,” a country of gold, but the reality was hard. Many of the newcomers worked as manual labourers in difficult conditions, such as in the sweatshops in New York’s Lower East Side. By the beginning of the twentieth century, more than a million Jews lived in the United States, most of them in New York City. Despite immigration quotas, by 1940 the American Jewish population numbered more the 4.5 million. While the first generation of immigrants lived in close-knit Yiddish-speaking communities, the next generation integrated quickly and, in many cases, assimilated into American society and became prominent in many areas of American life. Today American Jews are extremely influential in American politics, business, academia, and culture. Over the last few decades Jews from many countries, such as Russia, Iran, and Israel, have arrived in the United States. The American Jewish community is the second largest Jewish community in the world, numbering between 5.5 and 7 million people. More than 2 million Jews live in New York, making it the city with the largest Jewish population in the world. Half of American Jews consider themselves religious, and there are many Jewish organisations and institutions in the country.
