Alexander Altmann

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Alexander Altmann

Alexander Altmann (born April 16, 1906 in Kaschau , Austria-Hungary , now Slovakia ; died June 6, 1987 in Boston , Massachusetts , United States ) was an Orthodox Jewish scientist and rabbi .

He became known through his work on Moses Mendelssohn . We owe him some important contributions to the study of Jewish mysticism .

Life

Alexander Altmann was born in Košice, then Austria-Hungary, as the son of the rabbi Adolf Altmann . His father was later a rabbi in Salzburg and most recently (1920–1938) chief rabbi in Trier . There Alexander attended the Friedrich-Wilhelm-Gymnasium . But the last few years, he joined the Apostle School to Cologne because he was next to the school there on the Talmud Torah School on the Hohenstaufenring to visiting the Berlin Rabbinical Seminary could prepare. After graduating from high school in 1925, he studied philosophy and German and English literature at the University of Berlin from 1926. In 1931 he received his doctorate with a thesis on Max Scheler and in the same year he was ordained a rabbi at the rabbinical seminary founded by Esriel Hildesheimer . He worked there himself from 1931 to 1938 as a professor and as an Orthodox rabbi in Berlin in the synagogue on Passauer Strasse .

Altmann was married to Judith Franck (born 1909), a daughter of the politician Louis Franck from Altona .

Alexander Altmann in Manchester

After he fled the National Socialists to the United Kingdom in 1938, he worked as a communal rabbi in Manchester, England, from 1938 to 1939 . There, in addition to his duties as head of the community, he continued his independent scientific studies: he published a translation and explanation of Saadias Emunot we-De'ot . Ultimately, his academic activities enabled him to found the independent Institute of Jewish Studies and to head it from 1953 to 1958. There he worked for the Journal of Jewish Studies and the Scripta Judaica .

In 1949 Altmann publicly raised his voice against anti-German slogans in Manchester after the Manchester City football club had signed the former German prisoner of war Bert Trautmann .

After securing the future of the institute by incorporating it into University College London , he accepted a position at Brandeis University . He worked there from his appointment as professor in 1959 to his retirement in 1976.

Late years

From 1976 to 1978 he was visiting professor at Harvard and at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem . From 1978 until his death in 1987 he was a member of the Harvard University Center for Jewish Studies .

His Moses-Mendelssohn biography from 1973 is “THE Mendelssohn biography of the 20th century”. It has "not lost its status as a reference work on Mendelssohn's life and writing to this day", judged Cord-Friedrich Berghahn in 2011. "It is also a first-class finder for thought and the constellations of the German High Enlightenment".

membership

In 1967 Altmann was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences .

Works (selection)

  • Gaon , 1946
  • with Salomon Miklos Stern: Isaac Israeli . A Neoplatonic Philosopher of the Early Tenth Century. His Works translated with comments and to outline of his Philosophy . Oxford University Press, 1958
  • Studies in Religion, Philosophy and Mysticism , 1969
  • Moses Mendelssohn , 1969, new edition: Moses Mendelssohn: A Biographical Study , London 1998, ISBN 1874774536
  • Editor of Moses Mendelssohn's Collected Writings, 1977
  • Essays in Jewish Intellectual History , 1981
  • Articles of faith , in: Encyclopaedia Judaica , 2nd Edition, Thomson Gale 2007, Vol. 2, 529-532.

literature

  • Thomas Meyer: "Alexander Altmann. A portrait on the occasion of his 100th birthday on April 16, 2006" In: ASCHKENAS. Journal for the History and Culture of the Jews , 15/2005, no. 2, pp. 535-571

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Vita supplemented according to information in the book on the Apostelgymnasium: Otto Geudtner et alii: I am baptized catholic and Arier Emons, Cologne 1985, p. 167 ff
  2. ↑ Alexander Altmann: Franck, Louis . in: Schleswig-Holstein Biographical Lexicon . Volume 2. Karl Wachholtz Verlag, Neumünster 1971, p. 148.
  3. ↑ C.-F. Berghahn, annotated bibliography on Moses Mendelssohn, in: HL Arnold / C.-F. Berghahn (ed.), Moses Mendelssohn. Munich 2011. p. 197.
  4. ^ American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Book of Members ( PDF ). Retrieved April 2, 2016
personal data
SURNAME Altmann, Alexander
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Austrian Judaist and rabbi
DATE OF BIRTH April 16, 1906
PLACE OF BIRTH Kosice , Austria-Hungary
DATE OF DEATH June 6, 1987
Place of death Boston , Massachusetts , United States