ABSTRACT
The text below is an excerpt from a series of essays by Isaac Mayer Wise, considered the father of American Reform Judaism and a leading spokesperson for American Jewry in the nineteenth century. The essays appeared in The Israelite, a national newspaper that Wise edited and used as a platform to disseminate his ideas on Judaism. The central theme of the essays is a powerful critique of the corrupting influence of wealth on American society. Antebellum America witnessed a rapidly growing industrial economy, which created unprecedented affluence. This new wealth, however, had its critics. Wise was one of many religious voices who protested against the new emphasis on material goods or what was called at the time “mammonism.” Wise did not offer a wholesale critique of capitalism, he was not a “leveler” or a socialist—someone who advocated for a redistribution of wealth or an elimination of classes—rather he was a moralist who argued passionately against the excesses of the new materialism.
