Morais, Sabato, 1823-1897

Sabato Morais (Hebrew: שבתאי מוראיס; April 13, 1823 – November 11, 1897) was an Italian-American rabbi, leader of Mikveh Israel Synagogue in Philadelphia, pioneer of Italian Jewish Studies in America, and founder of the Jewish Theological Seminary, which initially acted as a center of education for Orthodox Rabbis. Morais was born in Livorno, Italy. In 1850, owing to the withdrawal of Isaac Leeser, the pulpit of the Mikveh Israel Synagogue congregation at Philadelphia, became vacant, and Morais was an applicant for the post. He arrived in Philadelphia on March 17, 1851, and was elected April 13 following, the synagogue services in the interval being conducted by him. In 1855 he married Clara Esther Weil, who died in 1872, leaving seven children. From the date of his installation as hazzan until his death his influence was a continually growing power for traditional (Orthodox) Judaism. The synagogue formerly (c.1906) occupied by the Mikveh Israel congregation was built and consecrated during his incumbency.

Though his ministry covered the period of greatest activity in the adaptation of Judaism in America to changed conditions, he, as the advocate of Orthodox Judaism, withstood every appeal in behalf of ritualistic innovations and departures from traditional practice, winning the esteem of his opponents by his consistency and integrity. His sermons covered a wide scope of thought and action, and he showed the loftiness of his spirit when, in spite of congregational opposition to the expression of his views during the American Civil War, he continued, both in prayer and in his discourses, to show his warm sympathy with the cause of the slave. In appreciation of his attitude during these trying times the Union League Club of Philadelphia placed him on the roll of its honorary members.When, in 1867, Maimonides College was established in Philadelphia, Morais was made professor of the Bible and of Biblical literature, and he held the chair during the six years that the college existed. For a number of years thereafter he felt the urgent need of an institution for the training of Jewish ministers on historical and traditional lines, and the declarations of the Pittsburg Conference in 1885 urged him to immediate action. After a considerable agitation of the subject he succeeded, in conjunction with a few others, in establishing (January, 1886) the Jewish Theological Seminary at New York.

Sabato Morais (1823 -1897) was an Italian-born Sephardic teacher and cantor, the minister of Philadelphia's Spanish and Portuguese Congregation Mikveh Israel for nearly half a century, a politically active republican and opponent of slavery, a master Hebraist and pioneer of Italian and Sephardic Jewish Studies in the United States, and the founder of the Jewish Theological Seminary in New York City.