Isaac Mayer Wise

Wise, Isaac Mayer (1819–1900), religious leader, Jewish rabbi, and founder of the Reform Judaism movement in the United States. He helped organize the Union of American Hebrew Congregations (1873). Two years later Wise founded a school in Cincinnati to train rabbis, Hebrew Union College (1875), at which he served as president. The Central Conference of American Rabbis (founded in 1889) was headed by him until 1900. He came to the United States (1846) from his birthplace of Bohemia, an area of modern-day Czechoslovakia.

See also: Judaism.