Alexander Kohut

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Alexander Kohut (ca.1880)

Alexander Kohut ( Hungarian : Sándor Kohut; born April 22, 1842 in Kiskunfélegyháza ; died May 25, 1894 in New York ) was a Hungarian rabbi . He was co-founder and lecturer at the Jewish Theological Seminary and mainly wrote the monumental work Aruch ha-schalem (also: Aruch completum ), a critical revision and extension of the classic Talmudic lexicon Aruch by Nathan ben Jechiel (11th century) from Rome .

Aruch ha-schalem

Alexander Kohut, Aruch completum sive Lexicon vocabula et res, quae in libris Targumicis, Talmudicis et Midraschicis continetur, explicans auctore Nathane filio Jechielis saeculi XI Doctore celeberrimo, Praeside scholarum Tamudicarum Romae; cum appendice ad discendum utili per Benjaminum Mussafiam, medicum, philosophum, philologum et physicum ad contextum Aruhinum adjuncta etc. etc .: The work comprised eight folio volumes and a supplement volume and was published in Vienna / New York 1878–1892. It is particularly important today for textual criticism. Alexander Kohut reportedly worked 12 to 16 hours a day for 25 years and sacrificed his fortune for lack of financial support for the publication of this work. In 1873 it was in German as a commentary on Arukh of Nathan written; on the advice of Leopold Zunz and Martin Buber , he then rewrote it in Hebrew as a supplement to the present Aruch . A complete new edition appeared in Vilnius from 1910 to 1912, a reprint of the first edition in 1926.

In 1937 supplements to the work appeared: Alexander Kohut, Additamenta ad Aruch Completum (edited by S. Krauss, Vienna 1937).

Life

Alexander Kohut was the brother of the lexicographer and compiler Adolph Kohut (1848–1917); He was one of the greatest orientalist lexicographers, an outstanding theologian, orientalist and pulpit speaker and was a committed educator for Jewish youth. The son of poor parents, he graduated from the Catholic grammar school in Pest with distinction. From 1861 he was studying at the Jewish Theological Seminary in Breslau (where Zacharias Frankel , Heinrich Graetz , Jakob Bernays and Benedikt Zuckermann taught, among others ), at the University of Breslau he heard the Orientalists Magnus and Schmölders and was born in Leipzig in 1867 with the script Doctorate on Jewish angelology and demonology in their dependence on Parsism honoris causa.

In 1867 he also received the rabbi diploma and was appointed rabbi to Székesfehérvár (Stuhlweissenburg) as the successor to Josef Gugenheimer, a son-in-law of Samson Raphael Hirsch . The Minister of Education, Baron Eötvös, immediately appointed him inspector of all Jewish schools in the county. Because of his scientific work he was proposed as a member of the Hungarian Academy in 1869; In his academic work he was supported and promoted by the Hungarian poet and influential cultural politician Arany János . Alexander Kohut was able to work successfully in Hungary to demonstrate the need for a rabbinical seminary, which could then be opened in Budapest in 1877.

In 1874, Alexander Kohut was appointed chief rabbi to Pécs (Fünfkirchen) by the then mayor Adolph Engel de Jánosi ; from 1882 he was chief rabbi in Nágyvárad .

In 1885 he was appointed to succeed Rabbi Adolf Huebsch, who died early, in New York as a preacher for the Ahawath Chesed community, where he sought a balance between neo-Orthodoxy and Reform Judaism. Kohut also took part in the decisive Pittsburgh Conference (1885). He was opposed to the extreme reform advocated by Kaufmann Kohler .

In 1887, Alexander Kohut and Sabato Morais, the rabbi in Philadelphia , founded the Jewish Theological Seminary in New York, the nucleus of conservative Judaism in America; at the seminary Kohut took over the chair of Talmudic studies, which he held until his death. In addition, he was a co-founder of the Jewish Publication Society , which was dedicated to the publication of Jewish works. Alexander Kohut died in New York in 1894.

In 1915, Alexander Kohut's son George Alexander Kohut donated a large part of his father's precious library to Yale University and, in connection with this, established a well-endowed Alexander Kohut Memorial Publication Fund at the same university for the publication of research works on Semitic studies .

Alexander Kohut was in his second marriage to Rebekka Kohut, b. Bettelheim, married, very involved in American welfare and a prominent figure, including president of the World Association of Jewish Women (she wrote the autobiography My Portion , 1925, and in it also reported on her marriage to Alexander Kohut).

Fonts

  • Critical illumination of the Persian Pentateuch translation by Jacob ben Joseph Tavus : with constant consideration of the oldest versions of the Bible. A contribution to the history of Bible exegesis. Leipzig and Heidelberg, CF Winter, 1871.
  • Something about the morality and the time of writing the book Tobias , 1872 (dedicated to his youth teacher, the Hebraist Heinrich Deutsch)
  • History of Judaism from the End of the Bible to the Present , 1881 (Hungarian, written for school purposes)
  • The Ethics of the Fathers , 1885 (collection of various sermons in Hungarian, German and English, edited by his friend Max Cohen; 2nd edition 1920 plus biography Memoir of Alexander Kohut )
  • Alexander Kohut left a handwritten collection of 5000 quotations from Talmudic ethics (text, translation, locations, parallel passages) as well as the material for a Talmudic-Persian dictionary

Memorial writings

  • It appeared in New York in 1894, published by Kohut's Congregation under the title Tributes to the Memory of Rev. Dr. Alexander Kohut , a compilation of the speeches and memorial speeches given about him on the occasion of his death, provided with a foreword by his son Georg (e) A. Kohut as well as a bibliography of the father's writings, also prepared by his son
  • In 1897, also under the editorship of their son George A. Kohut, a 700-page commemorative publication entitled Semitic Studies in Memory of Rev. Dr. Alexander Kohut in recognition of the scientific importance of Alexander Kohut, in which over forty well-known orientalists and theologians in Europe and America have participated; this memorial also contained a detailed biography of Alexander Kohut from the pen of his brother Adolph.

literature

personal data
SURNAME Kohut, Alexander
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Hungarian rabbi
DATE OF BIRTH April 22, 1842
PLACE OF BIRTH Kiskunfélegyháza , Hungary
DATE OF DEATH May 25, 1894
Place of death New York City