1. Sabato Morais was an Italian-American rabbi of Portuguese descent, leader of Mikveh Israel Synagogue in Philadelphia, pioneer of Italian Jewish Studies in America, and founder of the Jewish Theological Seminary, which initially acted as a center of education for Orthodox Rabbis.
Sabato Morais was the elder son and the third of nine children of Samuel and Bona Morais.
The Morais family came originally from Portugal, being probably among the large number of Jews who fled thence from the Inquisition.
Samuel Sabato Morais was an ardent republican, at one time undergoing imprisonment for his political views, and his father, Samuel Sabato Morais, was prominently identified with the political movements of his day.
Sabato Morais remained at his home studying and teaching until 1845, when he went to London to apply for the vacant post of assistant hazzan of the Spanish and Portuguese congregation in that city.
In 1850, owing to the withdrawal of Isaac Leeser, the pulpit of the Mikveh Israel Synagogue congregation at Philadelphia, became vacant, and Sabato Morais was an applicant for the post.
Sabato Morais arrived in Philadelphia on March 17,1851, and was elected April 13 following, the synagogue services in the interval being conducted by him.
Sabato Morais's sermons covered a wide scope of thought and action, and he showed the loftiness of his spirit when, in spite of congregational opposition to the expression of his views during the American Civil War, he continued, both in prayer and in his discourses, to show his warm sympathy with the cause of the slave.
When, in 1867, Maimonides College was established in Philadelphia, Sabato Morais was made professor of the Bible and of Biblical literature, and he held the chair during the six years that the college existed.
Sabato Morais was at once made president of the faculty and professor of Bible, holding both posts until his death.
Unquestionably the establishment of the seminary constitutes Sabato Morais' most lasting influence upon Judaism in America.
Sabato Morais was greatly interested in the Alliance Israelite Universelle, and was in constant correspondence with rabbis and scholars in Europe and the Orient.
Sabato Morais wrote classic Hebrew in prose and in verse with ease and elegance.