Wise, Stephen S.

Wise, Stephen S. (1874–1949), rabbi, reformer, Zionist leader.Born in Hungary, Wise came to America as an infant with his family. He graduated from the College of the City of New York in 1891 and received a Ph.D. in Semitic Studies from Columbia in 1901. Ordained as a rabbi, he held pulpits in New York and Oregon before establishing the Free Synagogue in New York City in 1907. Nominally a part of the Reform movement, the Free Synagogue stood for absolute freedom of the pulpit, a radical notion at a time when many synagogue trustees essentially told their rabbis what to preach. A great pulpit orator, Wise preached nearly every Sunday morning for more than forty years to packed audiences in Carnegie Hall, often dealing with the burning issues of the day.

Wise sought to make so‐called classic Reform Judaism more responsive to modern Jewish needs. He founded the Jewish Institute of Religion in 1923 as a liberal seminary emphasizing social work as well as religious training. It was the first rabbinical seminary to admit women. By the end of his life, Wise had seen his ideas triumph within the Reform movement.

An early recruit to Zionism (the drive to re‐create a Jewish homeland in Palestine), Wise dropped out of the movement to concentrate on his Free Synagogue but returned during World War I as an aide to Louis Brandeis. He remained an active Zionist leader thereafter.

Embracing a Jewish version of the Social Gospel, Wise played a leading role in reform politics in Portland and in New York, where he tackled the corrupt Tammany Hall machine, New York City's Democratic organization. After opposing Franklin Delano Roosevelt when he ran for governor of New York, Wise became one of President Roosevelt's most vocal supporters. Wise has been criticized because, not wishing to embarrass Roosevelt, he did not push for greater American resistance to Nazi Germany and the Holocaust.
See also Judaism; Religion.

Bibliography

Melvin I. Urofsky , A Voice that Spoke for Justice: The Life and Times of Stephen S. Wise, 1982.

Melvin I. Urofsky