Zecharias Frankel

Zacharias Frankel ( born September 30, 1801 in Prague, † February 13, 1875 in Breslau) was a player in Bohemia and Germany moderate reformist rabbi, champion of the emancipation of the Jews with the Christians and founding director of the Jewish Theological Seminary in Breslau. He formulated a program of the " historical- positive Judaism " in response to the expanding Reform Judaism and is regarded as the spiritual father of Conservative Judaism, American-style.

Life and work

Childhood and education

Frankel was born in Prague, the eldest son of a probably quite wealthy Jewish family, the many rabbis and scholars belonged. His mother, Esther, was born Fischel (1769-1841) ran a stall with textiles, his father Koppelmann Frankel (1769-1850) a wool trade, but devoted himself mainly to the study of Jewish writings. It was entitled " Morenu ", our teacher, who identified him as a scholar. The strictly religious family lived in the 5th district of outside the ghetto walls. Frankel has won both a Jewish and a secular education. After a study of the Talmud in Prague under Bezalel Ronsburg he went to Budapest, where he passed the Matura examination after two years in 1825. He then studied philosophy, philology and natural science at the University of Pest and completed his studies in 1830 with a doctorate.

Activity as a rabbi

1831 Frankel applied for the post of district rabbi for the Leitmeritzer circuit and was selected by the Austrian Government from several candidates. In the spring of 1832 he took his place and was also local rabbi in Teplice, the same year he married Rosa Mayer, the daughter of a banker Teplice. Frankel's interest was particularly the teaching of religion and in Bohemia at the time not usual modernization of worship.

After the death of Dresdner Rabbi Frankel was proposed at the instigation of his friend and subsequent community leader Bernhard Beer for the post of rabbi in Dresden and elected by both the Jewish community in Dresden as well as the Saxon government in 1836 as chief rabbi of Dresden, at the same time it should also be take care of the Jewish community in the city of Leipzig, which had not participated in his election as Chief Rabbi. 1837 enacted the Saxon Ministry of Culture a " Directive" on state supervision of Culture and Education of the Jewish community, which had been significantly shaped by Frankel, 1853 received the Dresden Jewish community one approved by the state new church constitution, participated in its elaboration Frankel as rabbi of the community had. On the development of the newly inaugural Jewish community in Leipzig Frankel was only marginally involved. 1845 chose the Leipzig " Israelite Religious Community " Adolf Jellinek, also a supporter of the " historical- positive school," a preacher and teacher of religion.

1838 occurred in Saxony a law in force, which canceled many Jews discriminatory provisions without the Jews were treated as Christians. New Jews could in Dresden and Leipzig obtain the local civil rights, which required the performance of subjects and guarantor Reid. The Saxon State Parliament brought in a Frankel an opinion on the question of the so-called " Jew envy " had to do to the Jews in a ceremony degrade until then. Frankel 1839 the Saxon Landtag presented and published 1840 publication "The oath of the Jews in theological and historical relationship " was instrumental in how government circles and the Jewish press stressed that the Jewish oath of citizenship was the Christian equalized. Frankel font zeitigte beyond Saxony effect and formed the basis for the abolition of the degrading " Jew envy " in other German states and in France, but not in Prussia, where they may based on older versions of Moses Mendelsohn. This refuted Frankel 1846 in a good 500-page treatise entitled " The judicial proof by Mosaic - Talmudic rights ...", which he sent to the Prussian King Friedrich Wilhelm IV, and thus procured that of Jews before the court rendered oaths in Prussia were recognized.

Since 1835 there had been in Dresden efforts to build a synagogue in place of various, mostly private prayer rooms. Frankel, who had hardly any influence on the service in the prayer rooms, was a big proponent of a synagogue building. After the hope was shattered, to no tice a centrally located plot of the free city, the Jewish community acquired a plot of land on the edge of downtown near the banks of the Elbe. The foundation stone was laid on the Frankel recalled decades later, took place in June 1838, the synagogue was built according to the plans of Gottfried Semper was inaugurated on 8 May 1840.

Frankel was the first doctorate Bohemian rabbi and one of the first rabbi who preached German. He took part in the 1845 second rabbis meeting in Frankfurt, where he was in favor of more moderate form of innovations than the majority of the participating rabbis, especially in the liturgy were concerned in Hebrew. After the rabbi Assembly had spoken out against the use of Hebrew in the synagogue, Frankel was in a letter dated July 18, 1845 his withdrawal from the rabbi and congregation broke with the reform movement.

An appointment as Chief Rabbi in Berlin, he refused, mainly because the Prussian government did not respond to his demand to recognize the official public and treated like the Christian the Jewish faith, and remained in Dresden until 1854 as director of the newly founded Jewish Theological Seminary in Breslau was appointed, where he worked until his death.

Publications

Frankel has published numerous scientific papers and represented his ideas of the " historical- positive Judaism " as editor of two journals in which he published numerous own posts. From 1844 to 1846 he headed the magazine for the religious interests of Judaism, in 1851 he founded the monthly magazine of history and science of Judaism, which was until 1868 led editorially by him before the historian Heinrich Graetz and Pinkus Fritz Frankl, a Berlin rabbi and Karäerspezialist, the management of the magazine took that persisted with interruptions until 1939.

Aftermath

Frankel critical conservative attitude with which he occupied a position midway between Reform Judaism and Jewish orthodoxy, was in the U.S. as a model for the establishing itself in the 1880s flow of Conservative Judaism ( Conservative Judaism ). The Jewish Theological Seminary, founded in New York in 1886 was named after the first director of Frankel as decisively influenced the Jewish Theological Seminary in Breslau and became the central institution of Conservative Judaism.

In 2012, the Conservative rabbinical seminary Zacharias Frankel Campus Europe was founded as a branch of the " Ziegler School of Rabbinic Studies ," the California-based American Jewish University in Potsdam.

Works (selection)

  • The oath of the Jews in theological and historical relationship (Dresden 1840 2 verbess. Edition 1847). online edition 1840, 2nd edition 1847 online
  • The court proof by Mosaic - Talmudic rights. A contribution to the knowledge of the Mosaic - Talmudic Criminal and Civil Law. In addition to a study of the Prussian legislation regarding the testimony of the Jews. (Berlin 1846). (online)
  • Preliminary studies on the Septuagint (Leipzig 1841). (online)
  • On the Influence of Palestinian exegesis on the Alexandrian hermeneutics (Leipzig 1851). (online)
  • Darche ha - Mishnah: Hodegetik (Introduction) on the Mishnah and the standing in close connection with their books Tosefta, Mechilta, Sifra, Sifri (Leipzig 1859, additions 1867). online Hebrew
  • Mewo ha - Yerushalmi: Introduction in the Jerusalem Talmud (Breslau, 1870). online Hebrew
  • Ahavat Zion, Talmud Yerushalmi ( Part I of Vienna in 1874, Part II, Wroclaw 1875)
  • Dr. Bernhard Beer. A life - time and image (biography of the head of the Jewish community in Dresden, Saxony, portrays the struggles of Jews to improve and secure their legal status in Frankel, Breslau, 1863 ). (online)
  • Seminar programs at the Breslau Jewish Theological Seminary: About Palestinian and Alexandrian writing research ( program opening the seminar on August 10, 1854). (online)
  • Basic lines of the Mosaic - Talmudic marriage law (1859 ). (online)
  • Draft history of the literature of the post-Talmudic responsa (1865 ). (online)
  • To the Targum of the Prophets (1872 )
  • Magazines Journal of the religious interests of Judaism. (online)
  • Monthly Journal for the History and Science of Judaism. (online)
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