Stephen Samuel Wise

Stephen Samuel Wise (1874-1949), American Jewish religious leader and Zionist, played an important role in Jewish communal affairs.

Stephen S. Wise was born on March 17, 1874, in Budapest, Hungary, into a family with a long tradition of rabbinic leadership. He was brought to the United States in 1875. After graduating from Columbia University in 1892, he pursued postgraduate studies at Oxford and rabbinical studies in Vienna, where he was ordained by the chief rabbi of Vienna. He received his doctorate from Columbia in 1902. In 1900 he married Louise Waterman. Wise's scholarly work included an English translation (1901) of the Book of Judges for the Bible published by the Jewish Publication Society of America in 1917.

Wise's first ministerial post was Congregation Bnai Jeshurun in New York City (1893-1899). He then became rabbi of Temple Beth Israel in Portland, Ore. In 1906 he returned to New York City and founded the Free Synagogue, of which he was spiritual leader until his death. Feeling a need for a seminary in New York to train students for the liberal rabbinate, Wise founded the Jewish Institute of Religion in 1922 and served as its president until it merged with Hebrew Union College in 1948.

Political Activist

Wise's career was marked by a long and distinguished record of service to the American public. In Oregon he had been active in civic affairs and served as commissioner of child labor. In New York City he became active in efforts to improve municipal government and served as a member of the City Affairs Committee. He fought to better the lot of the workingman and was a founder of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. Active in interfaith activities, he inaugurated, with his close friend Protestant minister John Haynes Holmes, a series of nonsectarian services. Wise participated actively in various presidential campaigns, supporting Woodrow Wilson and Franklin Roosevelt. He was appointed to the President's Advisory Committee on Political Refugees (1940) and to the President's Commission on Higher Education (1946). He numbered among his friends the Supreme Court justices Benjamin Cardozo and Louis Brandeis, both of whom worked with Wise in the Zionist movement.

It was in the area of Jewish communal affairs that Wise made his greatest contributions. He was a lifelong Zionist and devoted much time to the development of a Jewish state in Palestine. In 1897 he was among the founders of the Federation of American Zionists. In 1898 he attended the Second Zionist Congress in Basel and met—and was greatly influenced by—Theodor Herzl, founder of the Zionist movement. Herzl appointed him American secretary of the Zionist Organization. Wise first visited Palestine in 1913, returning again in 1922 and 1935. In 1914, with Brandeis, he established the Provisional Committee for General Zionist Affairs. In 1918 he was elected to a 2-year term as president of the Zionist Organization of America and served a second term in 1936.

Zionist Leader

As a leader of the Zionist movement, Wise represented the movement on many historic occasions. He advised Woodrow Wilson with regard to the British government's Balfour Declaration, which supported the establishment of a Jewish state in Palestine (1917). He attended the Paris Peace Conference (1918) and the London Conference of Arabs and Jews (1939). Also, he testified before the Anglo-American Commission of Inquiry on Palestine (1946). When British policy in Palestine during the 1930s and 1940s became increasingly anti-Jewish, Wise fought against it, and as early as 1930 he had written The Great Betrayal, with Jacob de Haas. In 1947 Wise fought for the adoption of the Palestine Partition Plan, which brought about the establishment of the State of Israel in 1948.

In 1916, together with Brandeis and others, Wise founded the American Jewish Congress, and in 1936 he founded the World Jewish Congress. He served both congresses as president until his death. In the 1930s he played a leading role in mobilizing American opposition to the Nazis and in focusing attention on the Jewish refugee problem created by Nazi persecution. During the 1940s he brought reports on the Nazi efforts to exterminate European Jewry to public attention. Wise died on April 19, 1949.

Further Reading

The main source of information on Wise is his autobiography, Challenging Years (1949). This is supplemented by two collections of his correspondence: Personal Letters, edited by Wise's children, Justine Wise Polier and James Waterman Wise (1956); and Stephen S. Wise: Servant of the People, selected letters edited by the Protestant clergyman Carl Hermann Voss (1969). Voss also wrote an account of Wise's friendship with John Haynes Holmes, Rabbi and Minister (1964).

Additional Sources

Shapiro, Robert Donald, A reform rabbi in the progressive era: the early career of Stephen S. Wise, New York: Garland Pub., 1988.

Urofsky, Melvin I., A voice that spoke for justice: the life and times of Stephen S. Wise, Albany: State University of New York Press, 1982.

Voss, Carl Hermann, Rabbi and minister: the friendship of Stephen S. Wise and John Haynes Holmes, Buffalo, N.Y.: Prometheus Books, 1980. □

WISE, STEPHEN SAMUEL 1874-1949

Rabbi

Productive Career

Stephen S. Wise came to the United States as a child when his father, also a rabbi, accepted a congregation in New York City. He graduated from the City College of New York and took a Ph.D. at Columbia University. He served a series of congregations, including one in Portland, Oregon. He returned to New York and in 1907 founded the Free Synagogue of New York, where he spent the rest of his career as a leading rabbi in Reform Judaism and a leading reformer in New York politics, He founded the Jewish Institute of Religion, now a part of the Hebrew Union College.

Zionism

Wise was one of the first Reform rabbis to champion the cause of Zionism, the return of Jews to Palestine. He helped found the Federation of American Zionists in 1897 and served as its first secretary. He also helped organize its successor, the Zionist Organization of America,

Against Nazism

When Adolf Hitler came to power in Germany in 1933, Wise attempted to encourage and organize opposition to the Nazis' anti-Semitic actions. In March 1933 he organized a mass meeting in Madison Square Garden that attracted an estimated twenty-two thousand people inside the building and another thirty thousand outside. The meeting was addressed by Wise and former governor of New York Al Smith, Sen. Robert Wagner, and Bishops William Manning of the Episcopal Church and Francis McConnell of the Methodist Episcopal Church. Wise helped organize a boycott of German products and worked in vain to stop American participation in the Olympic Games, which were held in Berlin in 1936.

Jewish Immigration

As Nazi persecution of German Jews intensified, Rabbi Wise attempted to ease immigration to the United States over vigorous opposition. This opposition came in part from concern about bringing new workers into the country when unemployment remained high, but many opponents simply did not want to allow the immigration of Jews. Jewish emigration from Germany increased during the decade, rising from 1,372 in 1933 to 5,800 in 1937.

Seeking a Jewish Refuge

As it became clear that the Western democracies would not offer a refuge for the victims of Nazi persecution, Rabbi Wise intensified his Zionist efforts. In response to Jews who feared that Zionism stoked domestic anti-Semitism by suggesting that Jews were divided in their national loyalties, Rabbi Wise responded, "I have been an American all my life, but I have been a Jew for four thousand years."

Sources:

Carl H. Voss, Rabbi and Minister: The Friendship of Stephen S. Wise and John Haynes Holmes (New York: Prometheus, 1980);

Stephen S. Wise, The Challenging Years (New York: Putnam, 1949).

Stephen Samuel Wise 1874-1949, American Reform rabbi and Zionist leader, b. Budapest, grad. College of the City of New York, 1891, Ph.D. Columbia, 1901. He served as a rabbi in New York City (1893-1900) and in Portland, Oreg. (1900-1906). Returning to New York, he founded (1907) the Free Synagogue, of which he was rabbi until his death. Wise worked for labor reforms, world peace, alleviation of the problems of the Jewish minorities in Europe, and relief for refugees. He was one of the foremost leaders of Zionism and Reform Judaism. Among the many organizations in which he was active were the American Jewish Congress, the World Jewish Congress, and the Zionist Organization of America. He founded (1922) the Jewish Institute of Religion for the training of a modern rabbinate and of Jewish educators and community workers. His writings include The Great Betrayal (with Jacob De Haas, 1930), As I See It (1944), and his autobiography, Challenging Years (1949).

Bibliography: See his personal letters (ed. by his children, J. W. Wise and J. W. Polier, 1956).

Wise, Stephen Samuel (1874–1949) Hungarian-born US rabbi of Reform Judaism and leader of the Zionist movement. In 1907 he founded the Free Synagogue in New York to create a pulpit free from restraints, stressing democracy. He was a founder of the Zionist Organization of America and of the American Jewish Congress. In 1922 he founded the Jewish Institute of Religion in New York.