Wise, Isaac Mauer. The Cosmic God, A Fundamental Philosophy in Popular Lectures.

(AMERICAN JUDAICA)

Office American Israelite and Deborah

Cincinnati

1876

Frontispiece photographic portrait of the author.

Singerman 2603

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 The Hebrew Union College. Wise was an articulate writer and converant with all the contemporary theologians and philosophers. His demolition of Darwinism is especially noteworthy (See pp. 47-69). He states that " from a moral point of view the Darwinian hypothesis on the descent of man is the most pernicious that could possibly advanced…it robs man of his dignity…" (p. 50)