Jooish

A Pioneer Of Torah In America, Buried Right Here In Baltimore This past Friday, 5 Cheshvan, marked the yahrzeit of Rav Avraham Yosef Rice (Reiss), zt”l, the first ordained rabbi to serve a congregation in the United States. Rav Rice arrived from Germany in 1840 and became the rav of Baltimore’s Nidchei Israel congregation. At a time when maintaining Shabbos, kashrus and Jewish education in America was an enormous challenge, he worked tirelessly to preserve Torah life. His kever remains in the Baltimore Hebrew Congregation cemetery on Belair Road, 164 years after his passing in 1862. A remarkable piece of Jewish history, right here in our own city.