Background
Samuel Myer was born on January 4, 1804 at Leeuwarden, in the Netherlands. In 1814, his father, Myer Samuel Isaacs. Four of the five his sons, including Samuel, entered the rabbinate.
Samuel Myer was born on January 4, 1804 at Leeuwarden, in the Netherlands. In 1814, his father, Myer Samuel Isaacs. Four of the five his sons, including Samuel, entered the rabbinate.
While a young man in England, Samuel was the head of the Neveh Zedek orphan asylum. In 1839 he was called to New York to be rabbi of the B'nai Jeshurun Synagogue. Eight years later, he became the spiritual leader of Congregation Shaaray Tefila, a secession group from B'nai Jeshurun, and remained its minister until his death.
Samuel Isaacs was largely responsible for making unorganized New York Jewry a coherent, articulate community. He consecrated thirty-eight synagogues, including the first ever built in Illinois. His influence as a community organizer and as an exponent of historic Judaism was most widely spread, however, through the Jewish Messenger, a weekly organ of orthodox Judaism founded by him in 1857, and merged into the American Hebrew in 1903.
He died in 1878
Samuel Myer Isaacs was the first rabbi in New York to introduce regular English sermons into the service, sermons in which for the most part he urged the necessity of preserving historic Jewish tradition, and he soon became, second only to Isaac Leeser in Philadelphia, the most influential orthodox rabbi in the country. As an outcome of the Mortara case, he helped create the Board of Delegates of American Israelites to defend the rights of Jews. He was one of the founders in New York of the Jews' (later Mt. Sinai) Hospital, the Hebrew Free School Association, and the United Hebrew Charities, and was influential in the establishment of Maimonides College in Philadelphia.
(Excerpt from The Old Guard: And Other Addresses He was b...)
Isaacs battled uncompromisingly in defense of traditional Judaism against the increasing inroads of Reform Judaism.
As an ardent abolitionist, his denunciations of slavery cut off his Southern subscribers. Thereupon he wrote: "We want subscribers, for without them we cannot publish a paper, and Judaism needs an organ; but we want much more truth and loyalty, and for them, we are ready, if we must, to sacrifice all other considerations".
Integrity, fearlessness, and conscientiousness were outstanding characteristics of Isaacs and won the admiration of the very Reform Jews whose principles it was his life's work to combat. Though zealously loyal to his own religious principles, he showed a tolerance which sprang from a ready, genial humor, and an abounding benevolence.
Quotes from others about the person
His religious devotion, high ability, warm sympathy, and sterling, unblemished character, won for him a general esteem characterized in the following editorial comment: "Mr. Isaacs during his long and busy life, did perhaps more than any other one man in New York to make the name of a Jew respected, and to reflect credit upon the Jewish Synagogue and the Jewish ministry".
Isaacs married Jane Symmons of London. Among his children were Judge Myer S. Isaacs, president of the board of delegates of American Israelites, one of the originators and organizers of the United Hebrew Charities of New York City, and president of the Baron de Hirsch Fund, Isaac S. Isaacs, a lawyer and a prime mover in organizing the Young Men's Hebrew Association of New York, and Abram S. Isaacs.
