Armand Isaac Bloch

Armand Isaac Bloch (born February 27, 1865 in Strasbourg ; died March 20, 1952 in Saverne , Bas-Rhin department ) was a Franco-German rabbi and author.

Live and act

Bloch was the son of the trader and Talmudic private scholar Joseph David Bloch and grandson of the rabbi Moïse Bloch (" Hacham von Uttenheim "). He attended elementary school and from 1877 to 1886 the Protestant grammar school in Strasbourg. He also received Talmud lessons from his father. From 1884 he was a listener of Julius Euting's lectures on Phoenician writings at the Kaiser Wilhelm University of Strasbourg .

In 1886 Bloch enrolled at the Friedrich Wilhelms University and at the Hildesheimer Rabbinical Seminar in Berlin . On October 25, 1890 , he received his doctorate at the University of Leipzig on the subject of New Contributions to a Glossary of Phoenician Inscriptions . On May 15, 1891, he passed the rabbinate exam .

Bloch was a rabbi in Sulz am Wald from 1892 to 1896 . There he married Caroline Wertheimer (died 1939). From 1896 to 1919 he was a rabbi in Oberehnheim . He was a co-founder and since 1902 president of the Association des Rabbins d'Alsace et de Lorraine . After 1920 he pursued their affiliation with the French rabbinical association, which he reached in 1921. From April 1920 he became rabbi in Saverne, where he had applied in 1896, 1907 and 1911. In addition to Saverne, he was also responsible for the communities of Hochfelden , Dettwiller and Maursmünster .

From 1910 to 1914 Bloch was co-editor of The Jewish Journal. In 1928 he signed a declaration by the Alsatian rabbis, which distanced himself from the French rabbis' permission to use mechanical means of transport on the Sabbath . After 1931 he promoted agricultural training in preparation for the Aliyah .

In 1931 Bloch became a Knight of the Legion of Honor .

After the German invasion, Bloch was initially in exile in Nice from 1940 to 1942 . There he looked after Alsatian refugees. In 1942 he went into exile in Algiers , where he worked as a rabbi for the Alsatian-Lorraine refugee community. In 1945 he returned to Saverne.

Armand Isaac Bloch was buried in the Jewish cemetery in Saverne .

Armand Isaac Bloch had four sons and two daughters. His son David became chairman of the Orthodox community on Rue de Montevidéo in Paris , Henri was a member of the Comité de nombreuses œuvres in Strasbourg. One grandson, Jacques Schlammé, was a rabbi in Mulhouse-Dornach and in the Adath-Israël congregation in the 11th arrondissement of Paris .

Works (selection)

• New contributions to a glossary of Phoenician inscriptions. First part: [aleph] - [now]. Dissertation, Leipzig 1890 (Berlin).
• Les Juifs russes. 1893.
• L'Instruction religieuse et l'éducation religieuse. 1897.
• Que la lumière soit! 1911.
• Article in: From the Strasbourg community life.

Literature (selection)

• Freddy Raphael and Robert Weyl: Juifs en Alsace. Culture, société, histoire. Franco-Judaica 5, Toulouse 1977, pp. 160, 352.
• Freddy Raphael and Robert Weyl: Regards nouveaux. P. 142.
• Esriel Hildesheimer: Bet ha-midraš le-rabanim be-Berlin. Jerusalem 1996, p. 28.
• Jean-Philippe Chaumont, Monique Lévy (eds.): Dictionnaire biographique des rabbins et autres ministres du culte israélite. France et Algérie du Grand Sanhédrin (1807) à la loi de Séparation (1905). Paris 2007, p. 162 f.
• Mordechai Eliav, Esriel Hildesheimer: The Berlin Rabbinical Seminar 1873-1938. Its founding history - its students. Edited by Channa Schütz and Hermann Simon, Teetz and Berlin 2008, p. 73.
• Entry BLOCH, Armand Isaac, Dr. In: Michael Brocke and Julius Carlebach (editors), edited by Katrin Nele Jansen with the assistance of Jörg H. Fehrs and Valentina Wiedner: Biographisches Handbuch der Rabbis. Part 2: The rabbis in the German Empire, 1871–1945. KG Saur, Munich 2009, ISBN 978-3-5982487-4-0 , No. 2028, p. 81 f.

Web links

• La carrière du Rabbin Armand BLOCH, 1865-1952. Extrait du Bulletin de nos communautés No 8 - 19 avril 1952. In: http://judaisme.sdv.fr.