Amram from Mainz

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Amram von Mainz also Amram de Mayence , or Amram Mentz is a legendary rabbi from Mainz who is said to have lived in the 10th century.

Legends

After he was head of a yeshiva in Magenza , the Jewish city of Mainz, he turned to Cologne to found a new school. As the end of his life drew near, he expressed to his students that they wanted to be buried with his ancestors in the Mainz Jewish cemetery. However, because the students feared difficulties, they hesitated to do so. Thereupon he ordered his coffin to be placed in a boat on the Rhine and left to his fate.

There was great astonishment when, to everyone's astonishment, the boat with the pious man did not swim down the Rhine, but up the Rhine without rudder or rowing aid to Mainz and landed there. All the residents came running to take part in this miracle and wondered what power this miracle could have done and who was in the coffin. After the Jewish community of Mainz found out that it was the dead Rabbi Amram of Mainz from Cologne, they brought the boat ashore to worship the body in the synagogue . The Archbishop of Mainz rejected the claim to designate Amram as a saint of the church and to have him buried in a Christian way. Another miracle followed. The corpse became so heavy that no one could move it. Thereupon the bishop immediately ordered that a church should be built over the place where Amram was. Guards were even installed to prevent the Jews from bringing the rabbi's body back into their hands. Amram appeared to his former students in Cologne as a vision and instructed them to swap his corpse for another corpse at midnight when the guards were sleeping, which they did.

This legend was told as a factual report at the beginning of the 19th century. A pictorial representation of the legend could be admired at a house near the shore near the gates of Mainz. The church is said to be St. Emmeran's Church .

Parallel legend

Abraham Tendlau refers to “The Amram's Church” (pages 9-15) in a note (page 354) to Shalshelet ha-Qabbalah in his book of sagas and legends of Jewish prehistoric times , and other sources wonder how the same story of one Rabbi Amram von Regensburg can appear independently in one of the Ma'ase books (books of legends) . He certainly had no knowledge that the same legend was told in Christian tradition with regard to the Church of St. Emmeram in Regensburg, which means that St. Emmeram of Regensburg died in Munich , and his corpse died without a skipper with wonderful swiftness Isar and Danube came to Regensburg, where a chapel was built in honor of the saint. It is astonishing that the Jews in particular were encouraged to confess this miracle of the Emmeram. In all likelihood, the Jewish legend was borrowed from the Christian legend and Emmeram was transformed into Amram.

This article or the following section is not adequately provided with supporting documents ( e.g. individual evidence ). Information without sufficient evidence could be removed soon. Please help Wikipedia by researching the information and including good evidence.
The following 3 sentences seem to be speculation without a source.

On the other hand, it should be noted that the Jewish name Amram is linguistically proven, but the name Emmeram does not have any Christian predecessors. Rather, this logic leads to the conclusion that the Jewish legend preceded the Christian one. In any case, however, this parallelism indicates that the Judeo-Christian references of the early Middle Ages have not yet been satisfactorily researched. No further information is known about Rabbi Amram, neither in Mainz, nor in Cologne or Regensburg. Moses Sofer sees Amram Gaon in him and reports that he saw his grave in Mainz.

Legend research

Regarding the origin of the legend, see:

literature

  • M. Brocke , A. Pomerance, A. Schatz: Emmeram von Regensburg, Amram von Mainz: A Christian saint in Jewish tradition , in: New beginning. On German-Jewish history and culture, Berlin 2001, 221–241.
  • Kristina Hammann, Katharina Hammann: Mainzer Sagen und Legenden (audio book), John Media 2008, ISBN 978-3-9811250-2-3 . The legend of Rabbi Amram is told on the CD.
  • Juliane Korelski: Regensburger Sagen und Legenden (audio book), John Media 2009, ISBN 978-3-9811250-9-2 . The legend of Emmeram von Regensburg is told on the CD.

swell

  1. ^ Rabbi Lawrence Rigal: Jewish New Year ( Memento from January 5, 2008 in the Internet Archive ) (English).
  2. ↑ see Friedrich Panzer : Bairische Sagen , p. 221.
  3. ↑ see Pertz , Monumenta Germaniae Historica , Article Jews , in Publication and Gruber , p. 67.
  4. ↑ Ḥatam Sofer , Orah Hayyim , p. 16.
  5. ↑ Three-part series of lectures on the Jewish culture of the “ShUM” cities Mainzer Diocesan News No. 17 from May 6, 2015
personal data
SURNAME Amram from Mainz
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Amram de Mayence; Amram Mentz
BRIEF DESCRIPTION jewish rabbi
DATE OF BIRTH 9th century or 10th century
DATE OF DEATH 10th century or 11th century