Jonah Wise

Rabbi Jonah Bondi Wise (February 21, 1881 – February 1, 1959) was an American rabbi and leader of the Reform Judaism movement, who served for over thirty years as rabbi of the Central Synagogue in Manhattan and was a founder of the United Jewish Appeal, serving as its chairman from its creation in 1939 until 1958.

Biography Jonah Wise was born on February 21, 1881, the son of Rabbi Isaac Mayer Wise the founder of Reform Judaism in the United States. He graduated from Hebrew Union College (which had been founded by his father in 1875) and the University of Cincinnati in 1903. He continued his studies at the University of Berlin and the University of Bern.

Rabbi Wise had been selected in 1931 to head the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee, working to restructure the organization's finances in the face of efforts to liquidate the philanthropy which had suffered financially during the Great Depression.

At a 1954 ceremony honoring his fiftieth year as a rabbi, Wise received a proclamation from the Hebrew Union College that described him as "one of the most contributive and distinguished leaders of American Judaism of this generation". Rabbi Solomon Freehof of Pittsburgh, one of 40 religious leaders from the Jewish community and clergyman of other faiths attending the event, recognized Rabbi Wise as "a grand exemplar of 'The American Rabbi'". In his remarks, Rabbi Wise spoke of the American Reform pulpit as "one of the great achievements of the American scene and in the world scene", with a free pulpit that is "unhampered and untrammeled by the inertia of dogma."

Personal He married the former Helen Rosenfeld of Portland, Oregon, on June 23, 1909.