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Who was the first person to receive smicha/ordination in America?

torahmike
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    Going to be hard to track it down, but certainly we can start with some ideas and then see if anyone will go backwards from there. Thinking back to some European-born rabbis who moved to America ... Did Rabbi Dr. Ilowy of New Orleans "ordain" anyone? How about Rabbi Rice of Baltimore? The Ridbaz of Chicago? Rabbi Jacob Joseph of New York? I assume the Meitscheter Illui signed on semicha certificates ... (Let's assume we are talking Orthodox semicha here! What gets tricky is that the Orthodox/Conservative line had been blurry at one point ...) – Shalom Apr 21 '23 at 21:40
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    This is history of Judaism. Please don't close as off-topic. – Isaac Moses Apr 21 '23 at 22:49
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    Rabbi Abraham Joseph Rice was the first ordained rabbi in America. However, he was not ordained in America, rather in Europe from where he emigrated. – ezra Apr 22 '23 at 01:25
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    @ezra right. Have to go through the earliest ordained rabbis who lived in America, then figure out if any of them gave ordination. At the very least, start with the first class of graduates from Yeshivas R' Yitzchak Elchanan. – Shalom Apr 23 '23 at 10:49

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It seems the first one was Joseph Hertz, who received it at JTS (which was at the time, Orthodox) in 1894.

Source https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Hertz

torahmike
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  • First JTS graduate, interesting ... presumably that included a semicha? Any idea who signed it? – Shalom May 01 '23 at 00:35