Abraham Rice

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Rabbi Abraham Rice (Reiss) (b. 1800 at Gagsheim, near Würzburg, Bavaria - d. Oct. 29, 1862 in Baltimore, Maryland) was the first serving ordained rabbi in the United States.

As a young student he was placed in the care of Rabbi Abraham Bing of Würzburg, by whom he was ordained rabbi; he afterward studied under Rabbi Wolf Hamburger. In 1840 he emigrated to the United States, and was called as the first rabbi of Congregation Nidche Israel in Baltimore. He held this position until 1849, when he resigned and became a merchant. About this time, he founded a small congregation, of which he officiated gratuitously as rabbi and reader of the Torah. He lived in retirement until 1862, when he was again induced to accept the position of rabbi to the Baltimore Hebrew Congregation; but he filled the position for a short time only, his death occurring in the fall of the same year.

Rice usually delivered his sermons in German, later occasionally in English. He was a rabbi of the old school, known throughout the United States and Germany as a learned Talmudist, and was recognized as an authority in ritual matters. He was an uncompromising opponent of Reform Judaism.

In 1845, he established a Hebrew school, one of the earliest in the United States, and in the same year he opposed the retention of piyyutim in the prayers. About this time he urged "upon the Jews of the United States the great importance of selecting a spiritual chief or bet din, for the purpose of regulating all our spiritual affairs, etc.; . . . it is surely necessary to prevent the uninitiated from giving their crude decisions, which are but too well calculated to do permanent injury to our faith" (letter in Occident). A few of Rice's sermons were published in the Occident, and a large number remain in manuscript. He had a great and lasting influence on the Jewish community of Baltimore.