The Divine Service

Tefilot bene Yeshurun le-Yom ha-kipurim ke-fi minhag Amerikah. The Divine Service of American Israelites for the Day of Atonement. Edited by Isaac Mayer Wise.
Cincinnati: Bloch Publishing Company, 1866. (30101)

This nineteenth-century book for Yom Kippur services was printed by the world’s oldest continuously-operating Jewish publishing house. Founded in Cincinnati in 1854 by Edward H. Bloch (1829–1906), the firm specialized in Jewish liturgies edited by Bloch’s brother-in-law, Rabbi Isaac Mayer Wise. Bridwell Library's copy, inscribed with directions such as "open ark," belonged to Levi A. Olan (1903–1984), Senior Rabbi of Temple Emanu-El in Dallas from 1949 to 1970. Rabbi Olan received his rabbinical ordination in 1929 from Hebrew Union College in Cincinnati, and soon after moving to Dallas he became deeply involved in the spiritual life of this community. His weekly radio program discussed the role of religion in bringing an end to racial segregation and abuses of civil rights. A respected scholar who became president of the Central Conference of American Rabbis in 1968, Rabbi Olan was also a visiting lecturer at Perkins School of Theology and a devoted supporter of Bridwell Library.