Rabbi Joseph Silverman (1860 – 1930), born in Cincinnati, Ohio, was a prominent Reform movement rabbi and author in the United States. He attended the University of Cincinnati and received a Doctor of Divinity from the Hebrew Union College in 1887, from which he received his rabbinic ordination three years earlier. He was Rabbi of Temple Emanu-El, Dallas, Texas, September 1884 to June 1885; rabbi of Congregation B'nai Israel, Galveston, Texas July, 1885 to February 20, 1888. While in Texas he was a circuit preacher to the Jewish communities in the vicinity of Dallas and Galveston, and aided in organizing many Sabbath schools and congregations. At the beginning of 1888, Silverman received an offer from Temple Emanu-El in New York City to serve as a rabbi of the leading Reform congregation in America. Silverman started at Temple Emanu-El on March 1, 1888, succeeding rabbi Gustav Gottheil. He was the first American born rabbi to serve in New York City. During the years of his career in New York, 1888-1922 he was also president (1900–1903) of the Central Conference of American Rabbis, the Eastern Council 1918- and was founder and president of the Emanu-El Brotherhood. He helped organize the Religious Congress of the World's Fair in Chicago, 1893, where his address on this occasion was titled, "The Popular Errors About the Jews." Silverman published many articles and books, including A Catechism on Judaism (1886) and The Renaissance of Judaism (1918). He was consulting editor of the Jewish Encyclopedia (Funk & Wagnalls). An article from The New York Times on April 21, 1912, quoted Silverman at a memorial service for victims of the RMS Titanic disaster as saying "Not God was responsible for this great disaster but the imperfection of human knowledge and judgment."