born March 17, 1874, Budapest, Hung., Austria-Hungary
died April 19, 1949, New York, N.Y., U.S.
Hungarian-born U.S. Reform rabbi, political activist, and Zionist leader.
His family immigrated to the U.S. when he was an infant. He earned his Ph.D. at Columbia University in 1901 and was trained as a rabbi. In 1907, after declining a post at an influential congregation because of inadequate assurances of free speech in the pulpit, he founded the Free Synagogue. In 1898 he attended the Second Zionist Congress and helped found the Zionist Organization of America. A prominent member of the Democratic Party, he helped win U.S. government approval of the Balfour Declaration . In 1922 he founded the Jewish Institute of Religion, a seminary for liberal rabbis, which merged with Hebrew Union College in 1950.