[1] He moved to Cincinnati, Ohio, with his family in 1854, where his father became rabbi of what later became known as the Isaac M. Wise Temple.
[2] In 1863, during the American Civil War, Wise briefly served in the River Flotilla of the United States Navy.
At Du Toit's Pan, he opened a new digging initially called New Rush and later became the famous Colesberg Kopje in the Kimberley district.
He went to Washington, D.C., several times to protest Russian exclusion of American Jews who wanted to visit that country, and in 1882 he helped around 150 Jewish immigrants settle on Kansas farm lands.
[8] Wise died at his home in the Hotel Alms on January 27, 1933, within a week of his wife's death.