Softcover, 152- 178 pages, 12mo, 18 cm. This volume only, but complete for 1916-1917, including much on WW I and Zionism. “Wise was born in Budapest in the Austro-Hungarian Empire, the son and grandson of rabbis…. In 1900 he launched his career as the rabbi of Congregation Beth Israel in Portland, Oregon; typical of the activists of the Progressive Era, he attacked ‘many of the social and political ills of contemporary America. ’ In 1893, he was appointed assistant to Rabbi Henry S. Jacobs of the Congregation B'nai Jeshurun, New York City, and later in the same year, minister to the same congregation. In 1906, concerning another rabbinical appointment, Wise made a major break with the established Reform movement over the ‘question whether the pulpit shall be free or whether the pulpit shall not be free, and, by reason of its loss of freedom, reft of its power for good’; in 1907 he established his Free Synagogue, starting the ‘free Synagogue’ movement. Rabbi Wise was an early supporter of Zionism, and his support for, and commitment to Political Zionism was very atypical of Reform Judaism, which was historically and decidedly non-Zionist since the Pittsburgh Platform in 1885. He was a founder of the New York Federation of Zionist Societies in 1897, and led in the formation of the national Federation of American Zionists (FAZ) , a forerunner of the Zionist Organization of America. At the Second Zionist Congress (Basel, 1898) , he was a delegate and secretary for the English language. Wise served as honorary secretary of FAZ, in close cooperation with Theodor Herzl until the latter's death in 1904. Wise, joining U. S. Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis, Felix Frankfurter, and others laid the groundwork for a democratically elected nationwide organization of 'ardently Zionist' Jews, 'to represent Jews as a group and not as individuals'. In 1918, following national elections, this Jewish community convened the first American Jewish Congress in Philadelphia's historic Independence Hall” (Wikipedia, 2010). SUBJECT(S): Jewish sermons, American. Other Titles: Sermons and addresses. Very good condition. (mx-31-12)