Stephen Wise
Stephen Samuel Wise (born March 17, 1874 in Budapest , Austria-Hungary ; died April 19, 1949 in New York City ) was an American rabbi and leading Zionist . He founded the World Jewish Congress and was its first president from 1936 to 1949.
Life
Stephen Wise was born in Budapest and came to the United States at the age of 17 months. Like his father Aaron Wise, he wanted to become a rabbi as a child. At the age of 18 he graduated from Columbia University and was ordained by Adolf Jellinek from Vienna in 1893 . He initially took over the post of deputy rabbi in a parish in New York and was able to take over his position after the incumbent's death. In 1900, shortly before his marriage to Louise Waterman , he became rabbi in Portland ( Oregon ) and served there during the next six years. In 1902 he received his doctorate from Columbia University by translating and editing the Improvement of Moral Qualities by Solomon ibn Gabirol . For the Jewish Publication Society he also translated the Book of Judges into English in 1908 .
After meeting Theodor Herzl at the second Zionist Congress in Basel in 1898, Wise became a committed advocate of Zionism. From 1916 to 1919 he was in contact with US President Woodrow Wilson and Edward M. House and, in 1917, worked with Louis Brandeis and Felix Frankfurter on the text of the Balfour Declaration . At the Paris Peace Conference in 1919 he campaigned for Zionist concerns and also represented the cause of the Armenian people. He held leading positions in Jewish organizations in the United States: he was Vice President of the Zionist Organization of America from 1918 to 1920 and President from 1936 to 1938; he was Vice President of the American Jewish Congress from 1921 to 25 and President and President until his death. Honorary President. He also founded the World Jewish Congress in 1936 and led it until his death.
In 1922 he founded the Jewish Institute of Religion , which merged with the Hebrew Union College in 1950 .
Wise was a supporter of the social-liberal direction and participated in 1909 in the founding of the National Association for the promotion of colored people ( National Association for the Advancement of Colored People ) and 1920, the American Civil Liberties Union . He fought for the workers' right to strike and supported a strike against the US Steel Corporation in 1919 and a strike by the Textile Union in Passaic in 1926 . In 1927 he asked for mercy and justice in the case of Sacco and Vanzetti . In 1912 and 1916 he supported the presidential campaign of Woodrow Wilson and later the candidacies of Al Smith ( presidential election 1928 ), Norman Thomas and - from 1936 - Franklin D. Roosevelt .
As a rabbi, he first caused a national sensation in 1906 when, after a few trial sermons in the Temple Emanu El in New York, he refused to accept an offer for a full rabbinical position because his desire for a "free pulpit", ie freedom of speech without taking into account the control activities of the Parish council, was not considered by this. Wises sermons appeared in ten volumes from 1908–1932 under the title Free Synagogue Pulpit: Sermons and Addresses .
His wife, Louise Waterman Wise (d. 1947), a translator and community worker, was influenced by Felix Adler in her youth . In the 1930s she organized provisional admission for thousands of Jewish refugees from Nazi Germany to facilities of the American Jewish Congress .
After Stephen Wise is Kfar Shmuel named, was established in 1950, a moshav in the lowland .
literature
- Encyclopedia Judaica , 1971, Vol. 16, Col. 566-569
Web links
- Literature by and about Stephen Wise in the catalog of the German National Library
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Wise, Stephen |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Wise, Stephen Samuel |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | American rabbi and Zionist |
| DATE OF BIRTH | March 17, 1874 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Budapest |
| DATE OF DEATH | April 19, 1949 |
| Place of death | New York City |