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In 1819, a new prayerbook was published in Hamburg that contained the first comprehensive Jewish Reform liturgy. The changes from the traditional Ashkenazi prayerbook contained in the new Siddur unleashed a Europe-wide controversy, which became known as the Hamburg Temple Dispute and treated numerous questions of worship that were also in the foreground of later religious debates over modernization. The Hamburg Temple Dispute marks the beginnings of pluralism in Judaism, which has continued to the present day. 1. The reform of the Hamburg prayerbookIn December 1817, 65 Hambur…

1819 wurde in Hamburg ein neues Gebetbuch veröffentlicht, das die erste umfassende jüdische Reformliturgie enthielt. Die im neuen Siddur enthaltenen Änderungen des traditionellen aschkenasischen Gebetbuchs lösten eine europaweit geführte Kontroverse aus, die als Hamburger Tempelstreit bekannt wurde und zahlreiche Kultusfragen verhandelte, die auch in den späteren religiösen Modernisierungsdebatten im Vordergrund standen. Im Hamburger Tempelstreit lassen sich die Anfänge einer Pluralisierung des Judentums erkennen, die sich bis in die Gegenwart fortsetzt.1. Die Re…

[English Version] Rapoport, Salomo Juda Löb (Akronym: Shir; 17.5. oder 1.6.1790 Lemberg – 16.10.1867 Prag). R. folgte 1837 einem Ruf als Rabbiner nach Tarnopol, Galizien. Die Prager jüd. Gemeinde setzte ihn 1840 als Ersten Oberjuristen ein und ernannte ihn 1860 zu ihrem Oberrabbiner. Unter dem Einfluß N. Krochmals nahm R. in jungen Jahren die Ideen der jüd. Aufklärung auf. Rel. streng gesetzestreu, wandte er sich ebenso gegen den Antirationalismus des osteur. Chassidismus wie gegen die jüd. Reform, d…

[German Version] (Sep 30, 1801, Prague – Feb 13, 1875, Wrocław [Ger. Breslau], Poland). Frankel spent his youth in Prague, earned his doctorate at the University of Pest, and worked from 1832 initially as a district rabbi in Leitmeritz (Bohemia). In 1836 he was appointed chief rabbi in Saxony. In 1854 he assumed leadership of the newly founded Jewish Theological Seminary in Breslau, where he taught until his death. During the 1840s, Frankel formulated his moderate understanding of positive historical Judaism between the positions of Jewish orthodoxy (Judaism: III…

[German Version] (Jun 20, 1808, Hamburg – Dec 31, 1888, Frankfurt am Main), grew up in Hamburg. After studying for a short time in Bonn, he took over the regional rabbinate in Oldenburg. Further career stations in Emden and Mikulov [Nikolsburg] (Moravia) followed until 1851, when he accepted an appointment as rabbi of the orthodox Israelitische Religionsgesellschaft (“Israelite Religious Society”) in Frankfurt am Main. Hirsch formulated fundamental views of the so-called Neo-orthodoxy by explainin…

[German Version] (Jun 6, 1858, London – Jul 9, 1938, London), studied in various places, including Berlin, where he began training as a rabbi at the Hochschule für die Wissenschaft des Judentums. Montefiore, who came from a prosperous ¶ family, involved himself throughout his life both in philanthropic projects and in projects relating to Jewish religion. In 1902 he became one of the initiators of the Jewish Religious Union, an association of English followers of Reform Judaism. In 1926 the newly founded World Union for Progressive Judaism elected Montefiore as its president. Montefior…

[German Version] In spite of later attempts to gain a foothold in Israel and in other countries, the initial shaping of Conservative Judaism took place in the specific context of American Jewish society (North America: II), where it established itself as a religious movement. At the same time, however, conservative Judaism can also point to historical roots in European Judaism (III). As early as the 1840s, when German Judaism was engaged in intensive debates regarding ¶ the modernization of faith and of its practical forms of expression, Rabbi Z. Frankel had alre…

[German Version] (Jun 11, 1881, Švencionys, Lithuania – Nov 8, 1983, New York). Kaplan spent his early childhood years in the traditional Jewish world in Lithuania. In 1889 he emigrated to New York with his parents, where after religious and academic studies he initially served as a rabbi (Rabbis). In 1909 he was invited to join the faculty of the Jewish Theological Seminary, where he taught for more than half a century. Starting from a conceptual definition that sought to understand Judaism as an…

[German Version] (acronym: Shir; May 17 or Jun 1, 1790, Lemberg – Oct 16, 1867, Prague). In 1837 Rapoport accepted a call to become rabbi in Tarnopol, Galicia. The Prague Jewish community installed him in 1840 as their senior lawyer and in 1860 appointed him their chief rabbi. As a young man Rapoport accepted the ideas of the Jewish Enlightenment, under the influence of N. Krochmal. He was strictly faithful to the Law, opposing both the anti-rationalism of east European Hasidism and the Jewish ref…

[German Version] (May 11, 1820, Halberstadt – Jul 12, 1899, Berlin). After completing his university studies in 1846, Esriel (or Israel) Hildesheimer returned to his birthplace as a private scholar. In 1869, the newly ¶ founded Jewish separatist congregation in Berlin (Adass Jisroel) called him from Eisenstadt (Austria), where he had served as rabbi from 1851, to be their religious leader. Equally renowned for his social commitment and his contributions as a talmudic scholar, Hildesheimer was one of the spokesmen in Germany for O…

[German Version] (1806, Kempen – Aug 22, 1860, Berlin). Holdheim soon showed great talent during his talmudic studies, although it took him a long time to appreciate the world of European literacy. After aca-¶ demic studies in Prague and Berlin, he held rabbinates in Frankfurt an der Oder (1836–1840) and Mecklenburg-Schwerin (1840–1847). In 1847, Holdheim accepted an appointment at the newly founded Reformed Jewish community in Berlin. He advocated a radical reconfiguration of religious practice by attempting to dissociate the H…

[German Version] (Aaron; Jun 26, 1821, Drslowitz – Dec 28, 1893, Vienna), grew up in Moravia and began university studies in Leipzig in 1842. After 1845, he was a preacher in the Jewish congregation there. Jellinek left Saxony in 1857 following a call to Vienna, where he then fulfilled the same function. Dedicated to developing a genuinely Jewish homiletics based on traditional exegetical literature, Jellinek was one of the most influential Jewish pulpiteers in the 19th century. In the still young…

[German Version] (Oct 17, 1768, Halberstadt – Sep 14, 1828, Berlin), came to Braunschweig as a young man. There he succeeded his father-in-law as the ducal Kammeragent and regional rabbi for the Weser district in 1794/1795. In the Westphalian consistory of Israelites, ¶ established on the French model, Jacobson held the office of chairman from 1808. Influenced by Enlightenment ideas, Jacobson was involved early on in the modernization of Jewish school education. His ideas for reconfiguring synagogue worship, which he was able to realize …