- Abraham Rice
Rabbi Abraham Rice (Reiss) (b. 1800 at
Gagsheim , nearWürzburg ,Bavaria - d.Oct. 29 , 1862 inBaltimore, Maryland ) was the first serving ordainedrabbi in theUnited States .As a young student he was placed in the care of Rabbi
Abraham Bing ofWürzburg , by whom he was ordained rabbi; he afterward studied under RabbiWolf Hamburger . In 1840 he emigrated to theUnited States , and was called as the first rabbi of Congregation Nidche Israel inBaltimore . He held this position until 1849, when he resigned and became a merchant. About this time, he founded a small congregation, of which he officiated gratuitously as rabbi and reader of theTorah . He lived in retirement until 1862, when he was again induced to accept the position of rabbi to the Baltimore Hebrew Congregation; but he filled the position for a short time only, his death occurring in the fall of the same year.Rice usually delivered his sermons in German, later occasionally in English. He was a rabbi of the old school, known throughout the United States and Germany as a learned Talmudist, and was recognized as an authority in ritual matters. He was an uncompromising opponent of
Reform Judaism .In 1845, he established a
Hebrew school, one of the earliest in the United States, and in the same year he opposed the retention of "piyyutim " in the prayers. About this time he urged "upon the Jews of the United States the great importance of selecting a spiritual chief or "bet din ", for the purpose of regulating all our spiritual affairs, etc.; . . . it is surely necessary to prevent the uninitiated from giving their crude decisions, which are but too well calculated to do permanent injury to our faith" (letter in "Occident "). A few of Rice's sermons were published in the "Occident ", and a large number remain in manuscript. He had a great and lasting influence on the Jewish community of Baltimore.References
* [http://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/view.jsp?artid=274&letter=R "Abraham Rice"] at the
Jewish Encyclopedia . Accessed2007-08-04 .
*Goldman, Yosef . "Hebrew Printing in America, 1735-1926, A History and Annotated Bibliography " (YGBooks 2006). ISBN 1599756854.
Wikimedia Foundation. 2010.
