Bidspirit auction | (AMERICA). (Liturgy). Minhag America -

(AMERICA). (Liturgy). Minhag America - The Daily Prayers, for American Israelites, Revised in Conference. With: Select Prayers for Various Occasions In Life. Edited by Isaac Mayer Wise. Hebrew and English on facing pages. pp. (2), 271, (1 blank); 48. Original boards, worn. 8vo. Singerman 2337. Cincinnati, Bloch & Company, 1872. The first Reform Prayer-book Printed in America. Born in Steingrub, Bohemia, Isaac Mayer Wise (1819-1900) immigrated to America in 1846. At first a rabbi in Albany, he moved to Cincinnati in 1854. There he successfully 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. Erased were all references to Jewish particularism, the Return to Zion and a reinstitution of the Temple rites.