Adolf Jellinek

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Adolf Jellinek, around 1860

Adolf (Aron) Jellinek (born October 29, 1820 or June 26, 1821 in Draslowitz (Czech: Drslavice) near Ungarisch Brod , Moravia ; died December 28, 1893 in Vienna ) was a Jewish scholar, liberal rabbi and well-known preacher in Leipzig and Vienna.

He was a supporter of the “ Science of Judaism ” and wrote numerous works on Jewish religious philosophy, in particular on Jewish mysticism, the Kabbalah , the history of religion and Midrash literature .

In his sermons as well as in his journalistic activities, Jellinek represented the emancipated, religiously and politically liberal Judaism that professed to be a German cultural nation and defended himself against the burgeoning anti-Semitism early on .

Family and origin

Adolf Jellinek was as Aron Jellinek according Geburtsmatrik on 29 October 1820 by his own account on June 26, 1821, the eldest of three sons of the distiller Isaac Löw Jellinek (1791 / 94-1854) and his wife Sara, née Back (1799 –1826), who came from a rabbi family, was born in the village of Derslawitz near Ungarisch Brod in Moravia. His two younger brothers were Herschel, the writer, journalist and revolutionary Hermann Jellinek who was executed in 1848 at the age of 26 , and Moses, the later economist and founder of the Budapest trams, Moritz Jellinek .

Adolf Jellinek had been married to Rosalie Bettelheim (1832-1892), the daughter of a wealthy Jewish merchant from Budapest, since 1850. The couple had five children. Her three sons, the constitutional law teacher Georg Jellinek , the businessman Emil Jellinek-Mercedes and the Germanist Max Hermann Jellinek, became famous . His granddaughter, Mercédès Jellinek , gave the car brand Mercedes-Benz its name .

Alleged Christian origin

Jellinek's father Isaak Löw is said to have been a son of the farmer Georg Jelinek, a member of a Hussite "Sionic" sect who converted to Judaism together with his wife Libuscha in the late 18th century . According to Klaus Kempter in his dissertation on the Jellineks published in 1998, the thesis of the Christian origin of the Jellineks was first put forward by a Czech author in 1914, adopted by other authors, and especially by constitutional and international lawyer Walter Jellinek , a son of Georg Jellinek represented the seizure of power by the National Socialists and can be found in various biographical representations from 1935 onwards. According to Kempter, there is no proof for the thesis of the Christian origin of the Jellineks, nor is there any evidence that Adolf Jellinek assumed a Christian origin or even emphasized it, as is sometimes claimed.

Live and act

childhood and education

Jellinek, whose mother died early, grew up in Hungarian Brod under the care of his maternal grandmother. He initially received private tuition and at the age of six entered the Jewish elementary school, the Cheder , where he was taught Jewish subjects, and also attended the German school run by the Jewish community, where secular subjects were taught. He was considered a gifted child with an excellent memory. At the age of thirteen he switched to the yeshiva of Moses Katz Wanefried in Prossnitz , where, in addition to studying the Talmud, he also studied modern languages, especially French and Italian , and Jewish literature. In August 1838 he went to Prague , took a position as private tutor, continued his education in private studies - including at the yeshiva with Eisig Redisch and as a freelance student at the university - and learned the material from Austrian grammar schools. In addition, at the end of 1841, as a "rabbinate candidate", he heard lectures by the Prague chief rabbi Salomon Juda Rapoport , who represented a modern scientific approach to the study of the Talmud, and sermons by Michael Sachs , a moderately Reformed preacher.

He was only able to start studying at the university after taking the matriculation examination at the Thomasschule in Leipzig , where he moved in 1842. At the University of Leipzig he studied philosophy and philology with Julius Fürst , the only Jewish Judaist at a German university, the orientalist Heinrich Leberecht Fleischer and the theologian Christian Hermann Weisse , devoted himself to oriental studies, learned Arabic and other oriental languages ​​and dealt with the Koran. In April 1849 he completed his studies in Leipzig.

Jellinek had already worked for the Jewish magazine Der Orient in 1843, and in May 1844 he became editor-in-chief of the “Sabbath Gazette for the Instruction, Edification and Entertainment of Jewish Readers”, which is related to Leopold Zunz . In the same year he also wrote his first important scientific publication, the translation, expansion and revision of Adolphe Franck's work on the mysticism of the Kabbalah, published in French the year before .

Activity as a preacher

Leipzig

Large community synagogue in Leipzig, inaugurated by Jellinek in 1855, destroyed in the so-called " Reichskristallnacht " in 1938

In 1845, after an Israelite religious community had formed in Leipzig under the auspices of the Dresden rabbi Zacharias Frankel , Jellinek was elected preacher of the community, and in 1847 he also became a religion teacher at the newly founded Jewish religious school. Like Rabbi Frankel, who later became the first director of the Jewish Theological Seminary in Breslau , Jellinek represented the so-called "historically positive school" in Leipzig , who considered reforms necessary, but in contrast to the radical reformers, these were unbroken the tradition wanted to perform.

In the revolutionary year of 1848 , Jellinek and Christian clergy founded a “Church Association for All Religious Confessions”, which among other things demanded equality between Jews and Christians, and called for mutual understanding and the dismantling of prejudices. Although he rejected the radical revolutionary ideas of his younger brother Hermann , he welcomed the freedoms that the revolution of 1848 had brought and identified the values ​​of liberalism with those of Judaism. On June 3, when it looked as if the revolution had prevailed, he wrote: “Every Jew is a born soldier of freedom; his religion teaches him to be free, to exercise equal justice, to show no idolatrous honor, to take care of the oppressed; his position in society inexorably demands that he maintain the new system with all his might. ”Years later, in his eulogy of the 1867 emperor Maximilian of Mexico , he played on the year 1848 and on his executed by a military tribunal Brother and called for the abolition of the death penalty for political acts and a reform of the judicial process with unusual clarity.

Jellinek saw himself entirely as a German and had joined the “Association for the Preservation of German Interests on the Eastern Borders”, founded in Leipzig in 1848 and comprising Christians and Jews, which aims to support the Germans against the supposed oppression by the Slavic population in the Slavic countries had made it a task. “The Jews are Germans in Austria, Bohemia, Hungary, Galicia, Moravia and Silesia. In those countries where there is a mixture of languages, the Jews represent the German language, the bearer of culture, education and science, ”he was convinced.

In May 1850 Jellinek married 18-year-old Rosalie Bettelheim, who, in accordance with her husband's wishes, did not occupy the position in the community that is customary for the wives of rabbis, but dedicated herself exclusively to the family. Jellinek's most important scientific occupation during this time was the collection and edition of scattered, extra-canonical midrashim , legends and small lectures, which he published from 1853 under the title "Bet ha-Midrash", the first four volumes in Leipzig and two more in Vienna. In September 1855 he inaugurated the "New Israelitic Temple", later the Great Community Synagogue , which he had actively built.

Vienna

Leopoldstädter Tempel, Vienna, inaugurated by Jellinek in 1858, destroyed in the so-called "Reichskristallnacht" in 1938

In 1856 Jellinek was elected as the second preacher next to Isaak Noah Mannheimer to Vienna at the Leopoldstädter Tempel , which was still under construction , but after moving to Vienna the following year, he preached next to Mannheimer at the City Temple until he opened the new synagogue in Leopoldstadt in June 1858 could initiate. In Vienna, the so-called “Wiener Minhag”, a moderately Reformed service, was held in the parish synagogues. In agreement with Mannheimer, Jellinek tried to prevent a split sought by the Orthodox Jewish side and therefore renounced the installation of an organ in the new synagogue, which he had originally wanted, but turned sharply against the "so-called Orthodox" who were involved the clerical-conservative government made pacts against their progressive co-religionists.

In Vienna, Jellinek had become the spokesman for Jewish political liberalism. He published his articles in the most important Jewish journal in Austria at the time, the weekly newspaper “ Die Neuzeit ”, founded in 1861 , of which he took over in 1882. At his suggestion, a Jewish teaching house was founded in November 1863, named by him "Bet ha-Midrash" (German "House of Study"), which was dedicated to researching traditional Judaism as part of the "Science of Judaism". In 1862, when the Jews of Austria were given the right to vote and stand for election, Jellinek ran for the Lower Austrian state parliament , but lost to the mayor of Vienna, Andreas Zelinka .

Jellinek was one of the first Jews in Austria to correctly assess the danger of the emerging modern anti-Semitism . “The Jew is sent back to a ghetto, where he must remain in the name of inexorable and irrevocably creative nature; its significance in world history is once and for all obscured. Here, in this new Jewish question, it is not a question of a greater or lesser degree of political rights for the Jew, but of the whole person, of his innermost being, of his world-historical honor, ”he wrote in 1865. And in the 1880s : "Anti-Semitism is a Berlin product, dirt cheap, but very bad, composed of the old, acquired religious and national prejudice, of racial and religious hatred, of envy and resentment, and of that peculiar Berlin ingredient that consists of muck, junky, metaphysics, Wheat beer and schnapps exist. "

Adolf Jellinek, lithograph 1858

Like the majority of assimilated Jews, he was hostile to the burgeoning Jewish nationalism and Zionist ideas as a response to anti-Semitism in Russia from Leo Pinsker , who had asked him for support, and the early Viennese Zionists around Nathan Birnbaum , as he held Zionism after all for the confirmation of the anti-Semitic thesis, according to which the Jewish citizens represented foreign elements in European societies. Like most modern 19th century Jews, Jellinek did not see Jews as a nation, but rather saw them as members of a tribe that adapted to the surrounding peoples and circumstances. Their determination is to devote themselves to their European fatherland and at the same time to fulfill the religious goals of Judaism. Jellinek, like Mannheimer before and Güdemann after him, was convinced that it was the task of the Jews to spread knowledge about the one God in the world, which was only made possible by the diaspora . He saw the Jewish people as an ethnic-religious unit, united in their belief in God and through their ethics and, according to Marsha Rozenblit, was not the early representative of Jewish nationalism or humanistic Zionism, as, for example, Alexander Altmann considers him. “ Zion ” was to maintain its role in the faith and in the future hope of the Jews, but for Jellinek the return of the Jews to Palestine was linked to the coming of the Messiah and “Zion” was more a symbol of the redemption of all humanity.

Jellinek saw himself as a representative and spiritual leader of the community. The pastoral activity, however, meant little to him and he left the decisions on questions of religious law to the rabbis of the Vienna rabbinate. On the conservative side, he was accused of not living according to religious laws - his wife did not run a kosher household - and his refusal to read the marriage contract, the ketubah , at weddings , as was traditionally customary, also led to criticism. He advocated a less strict regulation for converts to Judaism and also recognized uncircumcised Jewish boys as Jews. In the so-called "Viennese cultural dispute" of 1871/72, Jellinek remained neutral, although he advocated innovations and considered strictly Orthodox Judaism to be a block on the leg of progressive Jews. The dispute broke out after the parish leadership had decided to implement the innovations of the Leipzig Synod of 1869 in Vienna. These innovations, which included the introduction of the organ and the cancellation of those prayers that included the return of the Jews to Zion and the sacrificial service, were opposed by the conservative forces. The dispute was settled with a compromise.

Adolf Jellinek

In 1865 Jellinek succeeded the deceased Mannheimer in the city temple; his successor in the Leopoldstädter Tempel was Moritz Güdemann , who was relatively conservative in religious matters and, in addition to the title of preacher, also carried that of rabbi. In March 1892 both were awarded the title of chief rabbi by the board of the religious community , but Jellinek continued to call himself “preacher”.

Jellinek was considered one of the great Jewish preachers of his time. Over 200 of his sermons have been published and some have been translated into other languages. The sermons were prepared by him down to the smallest detail, it is said that it took him three days to prepare a Sabbath sermon , during which he not only learned the text by heart, but also rehearsed the presentation and gestures. Jellinek delighted the audience with his rhetoric and his gift of weaving numerous midrashes into his sermons, which in turn could be viewed as midrash. He gave one of his most famous speeches on the last day of Passover in 1861, in which he shared the story of the Exodus from Egypt , which is celebrated on Passover, and the Song of Songs , which is read in the service on the Sabbath during Passover according to Ashkenazi custom linked the new freedom of the time, since "the nations ... all ... rally around the banner of freedom and peace, and ... sing the hymn of humanity, the people-redeeming, people-liberating humanity."

Grave of Adolf Jellinek in the Vienna Central Cemetery

Jellinek's sermons have been criticized by conservatives for being superficial and meaningless. One of Jellinek's successors, David Feuchtwang, said that “aesthetics and pathos” were greater than “ethos”. Moritz Güdemann wrote in his previously unpublished memoirs that Jellinek's sermons were more likely to “sweep those who grew up in the traditional Talmudic teaching and learning ... than People of Aesthetic Education ”. In his opinion, there was also a lack of “scientific work through ... and consistent execution of a thought” as well as the “correct warmth of feeling”. Adolf Frankl-Grün was of the opposite opinion, praising the “deep feeling, logical arrangement, dexterity in expression, correct judgment, extensive knowledge of people and the people, (which were) permeated by the Jewish spirit”. Alexander Altmann, who viewed Mannheimer as the outstanding preacher figure of the 19th century, described Jellinek as the "most fascinating preacher" of his time, but chalked his sermons as being "lacking in a deeper religious spirit".

On December 22, 1893, Jellinek delivered his last sermon. He died on December 28th, and the following day he published another leading article in the “Modern Times” in which he defended Judaism and the universalistic Jewish ethics against the anti-Semitism of the anti-Semitism and their group interests for the last time . He was buried on December 31st in the Vienna Central Cemetery in a grave of honor in Zeremonienallee.

Works (selection)

  • Sefat Chachamim, or explanation of the Persian and Arabic words used in the Talmuds etc. Leipzig 1846, addenda 1847.
  • Elisha ben Abuja called Acher. On the explanation and criticism of Gutzkow's tragedy "Uriel Acosta". Leipzig 1847. (online)
  • Moses ben Schem-Tob de Leon and his relationship to the Zohar. A historical-critical study of the origin of the Zohar. Leipzig 1851. (Reprint: Hildesheim 1988, ISBN 3-487-09051-1 ) (online)
  • Contributions to the history of Kabbalah. Leipzig, Heft 1, 1852, Heft 2, 1852. Reprint Arno Press, New York 1980, ISBN 0-405-12264-0 , Hildesheim 1988, ISBN 3-487-09051-1 (online)
  • Selection of cabbalistic mysticism, partly based on manuscripts from Paris and Hamburg, along with historical studies and characteristics. Leipzig 1853. (Reprint: Hildesheim 1988, ISBN 3-487-09051-1 ) (online)
  • Thomas Aquinas in Jewish literature. Leipzig 1853. (online)
  • Bet ha-midrash. Collection of small midrashim and miscellaneous treatises from ancient Jewish literature. 6 volumes, Leipzig / Vienna 1853–1877. (1st volume (1853) online) , (2nd volume (1853) online) , (3rd volume (1855) online) , (4th volume (1857) online)
  • Philosophy and Kabbalah. Leipzig 1854.
  • Collected sermons. Three volumes, Vienna 1862–1866.
  • The Jewish tribe. Ethnographic Studies. Vienna 1869. (online)
  • The Jewish tribe in Gentile proverbs. Three volumes, 1882–1886. (on-line)
  • Several smaller publications from 1876 to 1889 on the early Talmudic commentators, Jewish names, Haggadah, but also on the pogroms during the first crusade or the disputation of Barcelona in 1263.
  • In the father's house, Lord Beaconsfield. Vienna 1881. (online)

Translations and editions

Translation from French:

Editions of older Jewish writings:

  • Bahya ben Joseph ibn Pakuda (11th century): Chowot ha-Lewawot ("Duties of the Heart", Original Arabic: Kitāb al-Hidāya ilā Farā'iḍ al-Qulūb), Hebrew translation by Jehuda ibn Tibbon , with an introduction and Fragments of Josef Kimchi's translation, reproduced by Adolph Jellinek. Leipzig 1846.
  • Menachem ben Jehuda de Lonzano (16th / 17th century): Ma'arik. Contain Explanation of foreign words in the Talmuds, Midrashim and Zohar and communication of stories, av. by Menachem de Lonzano. ed. by Adolph Jellinek, Leipzig 1853.
  • Solomon Alami (14th / 15th century): Iggeret Musar (letter on morality). R. Salomo Al'ami's moral teachings in the form of a letter to a student i. J. Written in Portugal in 1415. ed. by Adolph Jellinek, Leipzig 1854. (online)
  • Judah Messer Leon (15th century): Sefer ha-halaṣa (Nofet Zufim), R. Jehuda Messer Leon's rhetoric, based on Aristotle, Cicero and Quintilian with special reference to the Holy Scriptures. Vienna 1863.
  • Abraham Abulafia (13th century): Sefer ha-Ot. Apocalypse of the pseudo-prophet and pseudo-messiah Abraham Abulafia . Cheers for the 70th birthday of Prof. H. Graetz, Breslau 1887.

literature

Web links

Commons : Adolf Jellinek  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Klaus Kempter: The Jellineks 1820–1955. A family biographical study on the German-Jewish educated middle class . Revised Diss., Univ. Heidelberg 1996. Writings of the Federal Archives 52 , Droste, Düsseldorf 1998, p. 25.
  2. ^ Christian Keller: Victor Ehrenberg and Georg Jellinek: Correspondence 1872–1911 . Diss., Univ. Frankfurt 2003. Studies on European Legal History Volume 186, Vittorio Klostermann, Frankfurt am Main 2005, ISBN 3-465-03406-6 , p. 14f (excerpts online)
  3. ↑ Jellinek . In: Jewish Encyclopedia
  4. ^ For example, Ruth Kestenberg-Gladstein: Hussites . In: Michael Berenbaum, Fred Skolnik (Ed.): Encyclopaedia Judaica . Volume 9, 2nd edition. Macmillan Reference USA, Detroit 2007, pp. 644-645. 22 volumes. (online) . In: Jewish Virtual Library: " ... As an outcome of the persecutions, some of the Brethren preferred adopting Judaism to forced conversion to Catholicism or emigration. Some Bohemian Jewish families traced their descent to these converted Brethren, among them Brod, Dub, Jellinek, Kafka, Kuranda, and Pacovsky. "
  5. ^ Klaus Kempter: The Jellineks 1820–1955 . Düsseldorf 1998, pp. 18-25.
  6. ^ Klaus Kempter: The Jellineks 1820–1955 . Düsseldorf 1998, pp. 26-39.
  7. ↑ a b Klaus Kempter: The Jellineks 1820–1955 . Düsseldorf 1998, p. 105ff.
  8. ↑ It was published under the false name Gelinek, as Jellinek, as an Austrian, was not allowed to publish any books abroad. Cf. Klaus Kempter: The Jellineks 1820–1955 . Düsseldorf 1998, p. 42
  9. ^ Klaus Kempter: The Jellineks 1820–1955. Düsseldorf 1998, pp. 40-45.
  10. ↑ Adolph Jellinek, in: Der Orient 9/1848. Quoted in: Klaus Kempter: Die Jellineks 1820–1955 . Düsseldorf 1998, p. 82.
  11. ^ Klaus Kempter: The Jellineks 1820–1955. Düsseldorf 1998, p. 152.
  12. ↑ Adolph Jellinek: "The Jews in Austria", VII. In: Der Orient 9 (1848). Quoted in: Klaus Kempter: Adolf Jellinek and the Jewish emancipation. The preacher of the Leipzig Jewish community in the revolution of 1848/49. In: Aschkenas, Volume 8 (1998) Issue 1, p. 185 f.
  13. ^ Klaus Kempter: The Jellineks 1820–1955 . Düsseldorf 1998, pp. 112-129.
  14. ↑ Adolph Jellinek: A new Jewish question . Yearbook for Israelites 1865–1866, p. 143. Quoted in: Robert S. Wistrich: The Jews of Vienna in the Age of Emperor Franz Joseph . Translated by Marie-Therese Pitner, Susanne Grabmayr. Böhlau, Vienna 1999, p. 200, (excerpts online)
  15. ^ Adolph Jellinek: Dresden and Turkey . In: Die Neuzeit 22/1882. Quoted in: Klaus Kempter: Die Jellineks 1820–1955 . Düsseldorf 1998, p. 219.
  16. ^ Klaus Kempter: The Jellineks 1820–1955 . Düsseldorf 1998, p. 230f.
  17. ↑ a b Gershom Sholem, Meir Lamed: Jellinek, Adolf . Article in: Encyclopaedia Judaica. (Eds.) Michael Berenbaum and Fred Skolnik. Volume 11. 2nd edition. Macmillan Reference USA, Detroit 2007, pp. 119-120. 22 volumes. (online) . In: Jewish Virtual Library
  18. ^ Marsha L. Rozenblit: Jewish Identity and the Modern Rabbi: The Cases of Isak Noa Mannheimer, Adolf Jellinek, and Moritz Güdemann in Nineteenth-Century Vienna. In: Leo Baeck Institute Year Book 35, London 1990, pp. 115f.
  19. ^ Klaus Kempter: The Jellineks 1820–1955 . Düsseldorf 1998, p. 231.
  20. ↑ a b c Klaus Kempter: The Jellineks 1820–1955 . Düsseldorf 1998, p. 137f.
  21. ^ Klaus Kempter: The Jellineks 1820–1955 . Düsseldorf 1998, pp. 119 and 142
  22. ^ Marsha L. Rozenblit: Jewish Identity and the Modern Rabbi: The Cases of Isak Noa Mannheimer, Adolf Jellinek, and Moritz Güdemann in Nineteenth-Century Vienna. In: Leo Baeck Institute Year Book 35, London 1990, p. 112.
  23. ^ A b Peter Landesmann: Rabbis from Vienna - Your education, your religious and national conflicts . Vienna 1997, p. 107. (excerpts online)
  24. ^ Klaus Kempter: The Jellineks 1820–1955 . Düsseldorf 1998, pp. 145ff. and 257f.
  25. ↑ In an obituary, Jellinek was referred to as "Prince ... the preacher". See Johannes Sabel: The birth of literature from the Aggada. Formations of a German-Jewish literary paradigm . Series of scientific papers by the Leo Baeck Institute, Volume 74. Mohr Siebeck, Tübingen 2010, ISBN 978-3-16-150209-5 , p. 91, (excerpts online)
  26. ↑ Alexander Deeg: Sermon and Derascha. Homiletic text reading in dialogue with Judaism . Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 2006, ISBN 3-525-62390-9 , p. 148ff, (excerpts online)
  27. ↑ Adolph Jellinek: "Shir ha-Shirim". In: Sermons I. Quoted in: Klaus Kempter: Die Jellineks 1820–1955 . Düsseldorf 1998, p. 124.
  28. ^ Moritz Güdemann: From my life . 1899-1918. Manuscript. LBI. Quoted in: Peter Landesmann: Rabbis from Vienna - Your education, your religious and national conflicts . Vienna 1997, p. 107. (excerpts online)
  29. ^ Adolf (Abraham) Frankl-Grün: History of the Jews in Hungarian Brod (Uherski Brod). Moriz Waizer & Sohn, Vienna 1905, p. 54. Quoted in: Peter Landesmann: Rabbiner from Vienna - Your education, your religious and national conflicts . Vienna 1997, p. 106. (excerpts online)
  30. ^ Alexander Altmann: The new Style of Preaching in Nineteenth Century German Jewry. Studies in Nineteenth-Century Jewish Intellectual History. Cambridge 1964, quoted in: Marsha L. Rozenblit: Jewish Identity and the Modern Rabbi: The Cases of Isak Noa Mannheimer, Adolf Jellinek, and Moritz Güdemann in Nineteenth-Century Vienna . London 1990, pp. 109f.
  31. ↑ Alexander Altmann: On the early history of Jewish preaching in Germany. In: From the Medieval to the Modern Enlightenment. Texts and studies in medieval and early modern Judaism. Volume 2. Mohr Siebeck, Tübingen 1987, ISBN 3-16-745114-9 , p. 265 ( excerpts online)
  32. ^ Klaus Kempter: The Jellineks 1820–1955 . Düsseldorf 1998, p. 260.
personal data
SURNAME Jellinek, Adolf
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Jellinek, Adolph Aaron
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Jewish scholar
DATE OF BIRTH October 29, 1820 or June 26, 1821
PLACE OF BIRTH Drslavice
DATE OF DEATH December 28, 1893
Place of death Vienna