Jacob Joseph served as chief rabbi of New York City's Association of American Orthodox Hebrew Congregations, a federation of Eastern European Jewish synagogues, from 1888 until his death in 1902. Born in Krozhe, a province of Kovno, he studied in the Nevyozer Kloiz under Rabbi Yisrael Salanter and in the Volozhin yeshiva under the Netziv. In Volozhin, he was known as "Rav Yaakov Charif" because of his sharp mind.

A maggid, also spelled as magid, is a traditional Jewish religious itinerant preacher, skilled as a narrator of Torah and religious stories. A chaplain of the more scholarly sort is called a darshan. The title of maggid mesharim probably dates from the sixteenth century.