Felix Coblenz

Rabbi Felix Coblenz (1863–1923)

Grave in the Jewish cemetery in Berlin-Weißensee

Felix Coblenz (born December 30, 1863 in Ottweiler ; died September 3, 1923 in Berlin ) was a German educator and rabbi .

Life

Felix Coblenz was born as the third son of the married couple Manuel Coblenz and Henriette Aurbohr in Ottweiler / Saar. His brother Bonnevit / Bernhard Coblenz was appointed director of the public Jewish school in Cologne in 1901, and he was the first Jew to take over the management of a public Jewish school in Germany.

After attending the Jewish primary school in his home town and the Progymnasium in St. Wendel , Coblenz went to the renowned Marks-Haindorf Foundation in Münster in 1878 . There he received training as a teacher, which lasted until 1881. That year he passed his first teacher examination, followed by the second in 1884. From 1892 Felix Coblenz studied for six semesters at the seminar for oriental languages ​​of the Friedrich Wilhelms University in Berlin . At the same time he attended the College for the Science of Judaism , where he was prepared for the rabbi profession. In 1895 he received his doctorate from the University of Zurich .

In 1882 Coblenz went to the newly founded Jewish elementary school in Siegen , where he had his first permanent position as a teacher. On April 1, 1889, he took up his new post as a teacher and rabbi in Bielefeld , where he was the community's preacher until 1916. On July 26, 1904, in Bielefeld, he married Ida Katzenstein (January 8, 1884 - died in the USA) and thereby gained access to the higher Jewish class of Bielefeld. He also initiated the construction of the Bielefeld synagogue, which was inaugurated in 1905. During this time he founded the Association of Synagogue Communities in Westphalia and a regional commission for the creation of a curriculum for the joint religious instruction of Christians and Jews. In 1917 he moved to the Jewish Reform Congregation in Berlin .

Coblenz was, like Moritz Meier Spanier , with whom he was connected by an intimate friendship, convinced of the united dual nature of German Jewry . The spirit of the Marks-Haindorf-Stiftung, which succeeded in fusing Prussian allegiance to the King, German patriotism and Jewish tradition, as expressed in the poems of Jakob Loewenberg , was also Coblenz's personal conviction. He also worked in the German capital.

Felix Coblenz died on September 3, 1923 in Berlin.

“We do not let ourselves be torn away by those whose culture is ours, whose language we speak as our mother tongue and whose misery and hardship we experience as our personal suffering. The soil on which we were born and raised and in which we want to be buried one day is the holy mother soil of our German fatherland. "

- 1918 in a sermon in Berlin

Works

About the praying self in the psalms

• The professional and social position of the Jewish teacher . Lecture given at the conference of the Association of Jewish Teachers in Rhineland and Westphalia, in Düsseldorf on May 21, 1888. H. Montanus, Siegen 1888. Digitized on UB Frankfurt a. Main
• About the praying ego in the psalms; a contribution to the explanation of the Psalter . M. Schmersow, Kirchhain N.-L. 1896 (dissertation).  Digitized at www.archive.org
• Sermons held in the synagogue in Bielefeld . S. Calvary, Berlin 1904.
• Sermons held in the synagogue in Bielefeld. New episode . J. Kauffmann , Frankfurt am Main 1907.  Digitized at www.archive.org
• Mr. Dr. Jacob as a critic. Sober lighting . Printed by: CG Naumann, Leipzig 1908. Digitized on UB Frankfurt a. Main
• As an introduction to religious education . Leipzig 1908. Digitized on UB Frankfurt a. Main
• Textbook of the Jewish Religion . Leipzig 1908. Digitized on UB Frankfurt a. Main
• Sermons held in the synagogue of the Jewish. Reform community in Berlin . Philo Verlag, Berlin 1926. Digitized on UB Frankfurt a. Main

literature

• Hans Ch. Meyer: From the history and life of the Jews in Westphalia . Ner-Tamid-Verla, Frankfurt am Main 1962.
• Arndt Kremer: German Jews - German language. Jewish and anti-Jewish language concepts and conflicts 1893–1933 . De Gruyter, Berlin 2007, ISBN 978-3-11-019603-0 (cf. Diss., University of Cologne 2006).
• Biographical handbook of the rabbis. Part 2: The rabbis in the German Empire 1871–1945. Edited by Michael Brocke et al. Julius Carlebach. De Gruyter Saur, Berlin 2009, ISBN 978-3-598-24874-0 , pp. 130 f. No. 2078. ( online at Google Books )
• Hans-Joachim Hoffmann: “I gave into your heart to teach” - Samuel Levy (1805–1879) and Dr. Felix Coblenz (1863-1923) . In: Life paths of Jewish fellow citizens . Published by the Neunkirchen / Saar district, Ottweiler 2009, ISBN 978-3-938381-21-2 , pp. 21-94
• Moritz Meier Spanier: Rabbi Dr. Felix Coblenz in memory . In: Jüdisch-Liberale Zeitung, October 5, 1923 (obituary) Compact Memory UB Frankfurt a. Main
• North: Felix Coblenz's services to liberal Judaism . In: Jüdisch-Liberale Zeitung, December 28, 1923 (obituary) Compact Memory UB Frankfurt a. Main
• Felix Coblenz in the rabbis' biographical portal at www.steinheim-institut.de. Accessed September 24, 2018.

Web links

Commons : Felix Coblenz  - Collection of images, videos and audio files