Márkus Horovitz

Markus Horovitz ( born March 14, 1844 in Ladany in Tokaj, Hungary, † March 27, 1910 in Frankfurt am Main ) was a Hungarian historian and Orthodox rabbi in Frankfurt am Main, Lauenburg, Gniezno and Poznań.

Life and work

Youth and Education

Markus Horovitz was born the son of an old family dynasty of scholars. His training as a rabbi, he went to in Újhely, verbs, and a renowned rabbinical school in Eisenstadt at Esriel Hildesheim. After high school he followed his teacher Hildesheim and studied philosophy and oriental languages ​​at the universities of Vienna, Budapest and Berlin, received his doctorate in 1871 in Tübingen.

Functions

As a rabbi he worked in Lauenburg and Gniezno. In 1878 he was appointed as an orthodox rabbi of the Jewish community in Frankfurt am Main.

At that time there were strong pointed differences between the Reformed and Orthodox Jews of this community, culminating in the threat of the Orthodox to leave the community and to establish their own, the Jewish religious society should be called. Had during a Prussian law of 1847 stipulated the merger of various religious currents in a community (valid until 1938), created the so-called Lex Lasker in 1876 the possibility of withdrawal for reasons of conscience.

A major reason for the dispute was based on the Reformed or liberal orientation of the Frankfurt main synagogue. The celebrated rite there would not longer follow the Orthodox under the decisive leadership of Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch. The Executive Board of Jewish Communities in Frankfurt saw the appointment of Horovitz an option to avoid the split and called it simultaneously in a so- called ritual Commission. Before taking office Horovitz had made ​​the condition that he not only assimilated the liberal rabbis of the community, but also the overseeing of all religious law institutions have. From the lack of acceptance of the liberal main synagogue on the part of the Orthodox to their requirement was based on the construction of its own Orthodox synagogue. This directly built 1881-1882 on medieval Jewish cemetery in the city building was colloquially called Horovitzsynagoge, after the bordering she 's Square, the former Jewish market, even Börneplatz synagogue. During his tenure Horovitz expanded the already existing Jewish religious school of Frankfurt to two model schools.

Horovitz was one of the founders and directors of the association founded in 1896 Rabbi in Germany and President of the German - Jewish orphanage in Jerusalem. In the spirit of constructive cooperation between the various streams of Judaism, he was also, for example by him with initiated establishment of the Aid Association of German Jews, the association of traditional law-abiding Jews and the Association of German Jews in the B'nai B'rith Order, in whose directors he worked.

Family

Markus Horovitz was the father of eleven children, among them Jacob Horovitz (he was, like his father, a rabbi in Frankfurt am Main ) and the Orientalist Josef Horovitz.

Publications

• Various essays on the origin of the Hungarian Jews, in: Izraelita Közlöny, 1869
• " On the history of the Jewish community in Eisenstadt ", 1869
• " Jose ben Jose ," in: Jewish Press, 1873
• "Frankfurter rabbis ", 4 volumes, 1882-1885, Olms, Hildesheim / New York, 1972, 2nd revised. and ext. Ed, ISBN 3-487-04282-7
• " Jewish doctors in Frankfurt / M. ", Frankfurt am Main 1886
• "Matte Levi ," collection of Talmudic opinion on marriage, Frankfurt am Main 1891
• " The Wohlthätigkeitspflege among the Jews in the Old Frankfurt " Frankfurt am Main 1896
• "On the statistics of the Jewish population in the Old Frankfurt " Frankfurt am Main 1896
• " The Frankfurt rabbi Assembly of 1603 ", Frankfurt am Main 1897
• " The inscriptions of the old cemetery of the Jewish community in Frankfurt " Frankfurt am Main 1901
• " From Liszka to Berlin ", publisher J. Kauffmann, Frankfurt am Main 1914

Reputation

As an Orthodox rabbi of the Jewish community in Frankfurt am Main Horovitz became renowned because he had succeeded, on the one hand to enforce against the liberal Jews, but at the same time to prevent the secession of a part of the Orthodox. He preserved the unity of the Frankfurt community, as it came to a split in other German cities. He put in practical work to demonstrate that a coexistence of different religious currents and rites is possible if all the appropriate space and respect given is. His work was therefore considered by many other Jewish communities in Germany as exemplary. He is considered by many Jews today as a representative of a united Jewry.

Tomb

Rabbi Horovitz was buried in the Jewish cemetery on Rat- Beil -Straße in Frankfurt am Main. The speeches on the occasion of his funeral and interment were at the time published.