Minhag America - Tephiloth B’nei Yeshurun. Gebet-Buch fur den Oeffentlichen Gottesdienst und die Privat-Andacht [daily, Sabbath and holiday prayers]. According to the Custom of America. Prepared by Isaac M. Wise
AUCTION 44 |
Thursday, June 25th,
2009 at 1:00
Fine Judaica: Hebrew Printed Books, Manuscripts, Autograph Letters, Graphic & Ceremonial Art
Lot 19
(AMERICAN JUDAICA)
Minhag America - Tephiloth B’nei Yeshurun. Gebet-Buch fur den Oeffentlichen Gottesdienst und die Privat-Andacht [daily, Sabbath and holiday prayers]. According to the Custom of America. Prepared by Isaac M. Wise
Cincinnati: Bloch & Co 1864
Est: $1,000 - $1,500
PRICE REALIZED $800
Isaac Mayer Wise was born in Steingrub, Bohemia, in 1819 and immigrated to America in 1846. At first a rabbi in Albany, in 1854 he moved to Cincinnati. There he established the institutional structure of American Reform Judaism: the Union of American Hebrew Congregations and Hebrew Union College.
Wise, who desired to publish an “American” prayer book from his earliest years in the country, believed that the acceptance by all American Jews of a single liturgical rite would represent a great step toward unity. This first reform prayer-book retained a Hebrew text and the traditional framework of the liturgy, though certain “objectionable” passages were altered, shortened or excised. See J.G. Heller, Isaac M. Wise; His Life, Work and Thought (1965) pp. 302-5