Background
Cyrus Adler was born on September 13, 1863, in Van Buren, Arkansas, the son of Samuel Adler and Sarah Sulzberger. Cyrus was taken by his family to Philadelphia when he was four, after his father died.
Cyrus Adler gained the first American Ph.D. in Semitics from Johns Hopkins University in 1887.
Cyrus Adler graduated from the University of Pennsylvania in 1883.
(This work has been selected by scholars as being cultural...)
This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1343392500/?tag=2022091-20
(A history of alchemy, the undeveloped chemistry of the Mi...)
A history of alchemy, the undeveloped chemistry of the Middle Ages, characterized by belief in the transmutation of base metals into gold, with special attention to Jewish contributions.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B009OVLEMY/?tag=2022091-20
(A short biography of Albertus Magnus with special attenti...)
A short biography of Albertus Magnus with special attention to his interest in Jewish philosophers.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B009OVDJVI/?tag=2022091-20
Cyrus Adler was born on September 13, 1863, in Van Buren, Arkansas, the son of Samuel Adler and Sarah Sulzberger. Cyrus was taken by his family to Philadelphia when he was four, after his father died.
After graduating from the University of Pennsylvania in 1883, Cyrus gained the first American Ph.D. in Semitics from Johns Hopkins University in 1887.
After graduation, Cyrus Adler taught Semitic languages at Johns Hopkins from 1884 to 1893. He then visited the Far East as special commissioner of the World’s Columbian Exposition and became librarian at the Smithsonian Institute. In the same year he founded the American Jewish Historical Society and served as its president for more than two decades, having played a part in the establishment of the Jewish Publication Society of America, whose committees he chaired and whose Hebrew press he instituted.
Cyrus's commitment to Jewish scholarship was further expressed as editor of the first seven volumes of the American Jewish Year Book, serving from 1899 to 1905, and of a department of the Jewish Encyclopedia, 1901 - 1906.
Adler played a central role in the early reorganization of New York’s Conservative Jewish Theological Seminary of America at the beginning of the 20th century, chairing its board of trustees with Solomon Schechter as its president. After assuming the presidency following Schechter’s death, he led the building campaign for new facilities. Concurrently, he took on the presidency of Dropsie College in Philadelphia, for which he edited the Jewish Quarterly Review, and, eventually the presidency of the United Synagogue of America, having been among its founders in 1913.
An organizer of the American Jewish Commitee, Adler was called to chair its executive, to represent it at the Paris Peace Conference, and to become its president at the beginning of the Great Depression. Adler’s frequent clashes with the American Zionist establishment did not prevent him from participating in the Jewish Agency for Palestine, which was founded in 1929.
Adler’s rare talents of far-reaching vision and tireless, exacting administration combined with his scholarship both in Jewish and general (including governmental) areas of expertise served to make him a pivotal figure in bringing the needs of the American Jewish community to the attention of the philanthropists of his day. The organizational network that he helped to found continues to represent and shape American Jewry today.
(A history of alchemy, the undeveloped chemistry of the Mi...)
(This work has been selected by scholars as being cultural...)
(A short biography of Albertus Magnus with special attenti...)
(The history and theology of Jesus of Nazareth as seen fro...)
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(History of laws enacted against Jews by the Papacy throug...)
(A short biography of Salome Alexandra, the one and only J...)
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Cyrus was a founding member of the Oriental Club of Philadelphia and the Jewish Publication Society.
Adler married Racie Friedenwald of Baltimore in 1905, when he was 42. They had one child, a daughter Sarah.