Sabato Morais (Hebrew: שבתאי מוראיס; April 13, 1823 – November 11, 1897) 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.

He 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.

Owing to his unfamiliarity with English he was unsuccessful and returned to his home, but in the following year (1846) he accepted an invitation to become Hebrew master of the Orphans' School of the same congregation.

During this period he formed a close friendship with Joseph Mazzini, and that patriot's struggle for Italian freedom was warmly seconded by Morais.

In 1850, owing to the withdrawal of Isaac Leeser, the pulpit of the Mikveh Israel Synagogue congregation at Philadelphia, became vacant, and Morais was an applicant for the post.

For a number of years thereafter he felt the urgent need of an institution for the training of Jewish ministers on historical and traditional lines, and the declarations of the Pittsburg Conference in 1885 urged him to immediate action.

The directors of that body have fittingly recognized his memory by naming the chair of Biblical literature and exegesis "the Sabato Morais professorship."

In his own home he gathered about him a small band of young men whom he instructed in Hebrew, Talmud, and Jewish history, and in whom he inspired a zealous love for Judaism which has had a very marked effect upon the character not only of his pupils (among them Isaac Husik), but of the community[which?]

The strong conservatism of the Jews of Philadelphia and the warm interest in the higher things of Judaism evinced by the younger men of that city may be in a large measure directly traced to the influence of Sabato Morais.