Albany Rabbi Assaulted by Shul President , Followed by Riots

I love shul politics, especially of the historical variety.

In 1846 a young Bohemian immigrant named Isaac Mayer Wise (1819-1900) arrived in America and was shortly thereafter appointed the rabbi of Albany's Congregation Beth El. Over the next few years this Yiddish-speaking immigrant underwent a religious metamorphosis and by 1850 his reformist heterodoxy was brought to the fore during a debate in Charleston with M. J. Raphall, New York's guardian of traditional Judaism.

Wise now found himself unwanted by many of his congregants, some of whom were outright hostile toward him. During a hastily organized, eight-hour long meeting on Erev Rosh Hashanah, Wise was fired from his position. Refusing to consent the to the decision of an assembly that violated various constitutional procedures, Wise showed up the next morning for services. His supporters purchased for him the honor of removing the Torah scrolls prior to leining, but when he approached the ark his path was blocked by Louis Spanier, the president. The indignant Spanier punched Wise, igniting a veritable riot in the holy precincts of the synagogue's santuary.

Of course no good hillul hashem is complete without reports in the local papers and a great lawsuit in the secular courts for all to become a matter of public record.

To read about the melee in Wise's own words and as reported in the Albany Evening Atlas, read on (click on images to enlarge):
Wise was vindicated by the courts, which ordered compensation in the sum of one thousand dollars (he never collected it). His friends established a new congregation for him, Anshe Emeth, but four years later he resettled in Cincinnati, where he emerged as the institutional architect of Reform Judaism in America.

You can read more contemporary reports (by his supporters and detractors) in the pages of the Occident and American Jewish Advocate (here, here, here, here, here and here).

For more recent discussions about this episode of American Jewish history, see James G. Heller, Isaac M. Wise: His Life, Work and Thought (New York: Union of American Hebrew Congregations, 1965), pp. 175-204; Naphtali J. Rubinger, "Dissmisal at Albany," American Jewish Archives 24.2 (Nov. 1972), pp. 160-83; Sefton D. Temkin, Isaac Mayer Wise: Shaping American Judaism (Oxford: Litman Library, 1992), pp. 62-75.

For another post on Wise, see my "On Reference Letters and Schnorrers" (click here)."