MEYER, MARTIN ABRAHAM

MEYER, MARTIN ABRAHAM (1879–1923), U.S. Reform rabbi and scholar. Meyer, who was born in San Francisco, California, was ordained by the Hebrew Union College in 1901. Meyer served as rabbi of Congregation Beth Emeth, Albany, New York (1902–06); Temple Israel, Brooklyn, New York (1906–10); and Temple Emanuel, San Francisco (1910–23). From 1911 to 1923 he was lecturer in Semitics at the University of California. During World War I, Meyer became a supporter of both Zionism and the movement for an American Jewish Congress. In 1918–19 he served with the Red Cross in France. Meyer, who was associated with several social service organizations in San Francisco, served as president of the Big Brothers movement and the California Conference on Social Work, and as a member of the California Commission of Charities and Corrections (1911–20). He helped to organize small Jewish communities in the area, was director of the Jewish Education Society of San Francisco and of the Pacific Coast branch of the Jewish Chatauqua Society, and was a board member of several national Jewish organizations. Meyer's publications include several articles on the condition of the Jews in Palestine; History of the City of Gaza from the Earliest Times to the Present Day (1907); and the two-volume Methods of Teaching Post-Biblical History and Literature (1915). -BIBLIOGRAPHY: AJYB, 27 (1925/26), 246–59. (Sefton D. Temkin)