JOSEPH, HENRY

JOSEPH, HENRY (1838–1913), first rabbi of the Argentine Republic. Born in England, Joseph arrived in Argentina in 1860 and became a successful businessman. He was very active in organizing the first Jewish institution of the country, the Congregación Israelita de la República Argentina, in 1862. He was elected by the members of the congregation as their "rabbi," and his nomination was approved by the chief rabbi of the French Consistory, Isidor Lazare, in 1882. His election as rabbi originated principally in the need for a religious authority to register Jewish births, marriages, and deaths. Joseph's wife, a Christian, converted to Judaism immediately after his appointment, but his children married out of the Jewish faith. Joseph was very active as a religious and social leader, performed weddings, religious services, and occasionally preached in Spanish to the community of West European Jews in Buenos Aires. In the early 1880s he organized a fund to help the persecuted Jews in Russia. He also was of great help to the first group of East European Jews to arrive in Argentina in 1889. (Victor A. Mirelman) JOSEPH, JACOB JOSEPH, JACOB (1848–1902), rabbi. Jacob Joseph was born in Krozhe, province of Kovno. He studied at the yeshivah of Volozhin under R. Hirsch Leib Berlin and later under R. Israel Salanter, and served the communities of Vilon, Yurburg, and Zhagovy before becoming rabbi and Maggid of Vilna in 1883. Although a brilliant student of Talmud, Joseph was especially known for his homiletical talents. In 1888 he arrived in the U.S. to assume the post of chief rabbi of the Orthodox congregations of Russian Jews in New York City. As he was primarily concerned with the taxed supervision of meat kashrut, much opposition was expressed against him from sectors of the Jewish community who rejected this supervision and objected to the imposition of a kosher meat tax. Although an invalid from 1895, Joseph founded the Bes Sefer Yeshiva (1900), which was renamed the Rabbi Jacob Joseph Yeshiva upon his death. His works include the collection of sermons, Le-Veit Ya'akov (1888) and a contribution to the only issue of the publication Sefer Toledot Ya'akov Yosef be-New York (1889). His funeral procession, said to have been attended by tens of thousands of Jews, occasioned a riot as workmen of the R. Hoe & Co. factory on the East Side pelted the procession with nuts and bolts. Many mourners were injured by the assailants and police. His grandson LAZARUS JOSEPH (1891–1966), who was   born in New York City, was a U.S. public official. He was elected to the state senate in 1934, and became a financial adviser to Governor Herbert H. Lehman. After serving six terms, he was elected New York City controller in 1946 and remained in office until 1954. Joseph was active on behalf of the United Jewish Appeal and the Federation of Jewish Philanthropies of New York. -BIBLIOGRAPHY: A.J. Karp, in: AJHSP, 44 (1955), 129–98; The American Hebrew, 71 (1902), 497–9. (Edward L. Greenstein)