Rice, Abraham Joseph

LC control no.	n 86044800
Descriptive conventions	rda
Personal name heading	Rice, Abraham Joseph *Browse this term in* LC Authorities or the LC Catalog
Variant(s)	Reiss, Abraham Joseph
Birth date	[1800,1802]
Death date	1862
Profession or occupation	Rabbi Talmudist
Found in	Sharfman, I. H. The first rabbi, 1987: CIP pub. info. (Abraham Joseph Rice, first ordained rabbi to settle in U.S.) English Wikipedia website, viewed Mar. 24, 2017 (Abraham Joseph Rice (born Reiss) (c. 1800--1862) was the first ordained rabbi to serve in a rabbinical position in the United States. Rice was born in 1800 or 1802 at Gochsheim, near Schweinfurt, Lower Franconia. He studied at the Würzburg yeshivah, and was ordained by Rabbi Abraham Bing. He later continued his studies at the yeshivah of Rabbi Wolf Hamburger in Fürth, and then headed a small yeshivah in the village of Zell, near Würzburg. In the 1830s he married Rosalie Leucht, and in 1840 they immigrated to the U.S. After a brief attempt at reviving the Jewish community in Newport, R.I., he accepted an appointment as the first rabbi of Congregation Nidche Israel in Baltimore, Md. Rice usually delivered his sermons in German, later occasionally in English. Rice was known throughout the U.S. and Germany as a learned Talmudist, and as the only ordained rabbi in the country he was asked to decide many questions of halacha. In 1845 he established a Hebrew school, one of the earliest in the U.S.)
Associated language	ger eng