Maurice Henry Harris

Background

Maurice Harris was born on November 9, 1859, in London, England, the son of the Rev. Henry L. and Rachel (Levy) Harris. He was the brother of Isidore Harris, who became the scholarly minister of the Berkeley Street Synagogue in London.

Education

Maurice studied at the Emanu-El Theological Seminary. Later he studied also at Columbia College, receiving the degrees of A. B. in 1887; A. M. in 1888; and Ph. D. in 1889.

Career

At nineteen Maurice Harris emigrated to the United States. In 1883 he became student preacher of an obscure synagogue, the Hand in Hand, which met over a store on East 116th Street, and with this congregation, the only one he ever served during his forty-seven years of ministry, Harris was associated until his death. In 1884 he was ordained by Rabbi Gustav Gottheil.

Harris progressively led his congregation away from the orthodox traditions of the Hand in Hand Synagogue until it became one of the leading reform synagogues of the metropolis, Temple Israel. Through all the factional struggle which that transition involved, he retained the respect and the love of all his congregation. Greatly interested in social work, he was the founder (1905) and president of the Federation Settlement on East 106th Street, in a poor and congested neighborhood, and engaged in active work for the Jewish Protectory and Aid Society, which later became the Jewish Board of Guardians. In the rabbinical field he served as president of the New York Board of Jewish Ministers.

Though Harris was at first opposed to Zionism, his visit to the Holy Land in the summer of 1921 gave him an understanding insight into the nature of Jewish aspiration and achievement in Palestine, and one of the results of that journey was his organization in America of an annual campaign among the children in American Jewish religious schools for the provision of school lunches for poor Jewish children in Palestine. This work, sponsored by the (American) Women’s Zionist Organization, Hadassah, grew steadily in scope under Harris’ direction, and after his death a model experimental station in school dietetics was established in Palestine in his memory.

Harris was a clear and painstaking writer. His principal publications were religious textbooks, among which may be mentioned Judaism and the Jew (1925) and his popular series of volumes of Biblical and post-Biblical Jewish history: The People of the Book (3 vols. , 188690); A Thousand Years of Jewish History (1904); the History of the Mediceval Jews (1907); and Modern Jewish History (1910).

Achievements

• Maurice Harris was famous as one of the founders of the Jewish Institute of Religion, and one of its trustees from its foundation. His extensive library was given by his widow for the most part to that institute and to the Hebrew University in Jerusalem.

Works

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  • A Thousand Years of Jewish History From the Days of Alexander the Great to the Moslem Conquest of Spain

    (When the impatient youth demands, like the heathen from H...)

  • Modern Jewish History from the Renaissance to the World War
  • Hebraic Literature: Translations from the Talmud, Midrashim and Kabbala

    (Hebraic Literature by Various)

Membership

Harris was president of the Association of Reform Rabbis of New York.

Personality

Harris' sermons, always carefully prepared and delivered with engaging simplicity and modesty, reflected extensive reading, sincerity, innate kindliness of judgment, and interest in human problems. He was essentially a lover of mankind. His relations with his congregation were beautifully intimate and fatherly, and his benign, pacific, and gentle nature drew to him the affection and good will of all of his people.

Connections

On August 14, 1888, Harris married Kitty Green of London, who bore him one son and two daughters.

Father:

Henry L. Harris

Mother:

Rachel (Levy) Harris

Spouse:

Kitty (Green) Harris

Brother:

Isidore Harris