Chaim Hirschensohn

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Chaim Hirschensohn (1929), from the album Eretz Israeli

Chaim Hirschensohn (born August 31, 1857 in Safed ; † September 15, 1935 , Hebrew חיים הירשנזון, also Hayyim Hirschensohn ) was the editor of Jewish writings and the chief rabbi of Hoboken in New Jersey in the United States .

Life

His father Yaakov Mordechai Hirschensohn emigrated in 1848 from Pinsk, then Russian, to the Ottoman Safed. In 1864 the family (including Chaim's older brother, Rabbi Yitzchok (Issac) Hirschensohn ) went to Jerusalem . In the late 1870s and 1880s he was ordained rabbinical in Russia , he also taught in Lithuania and brought out an academic religious-nationalist magazine in Germany , the Hamisdarona . Hirschensohn was able to win many prominent scholars to write articles for Hamisdarona, including Esriel Hildesheimer , Abraham Berliner , Meir Ish Shalom Friedmann and Micha Josef Berdyczewski . Between 1885 and 1889 he published a total of 50 issues of the magazine; after the death of his father he stopped the series.

Just like his brother, the young Zionist Chaim Hirschensohn worked with Eliezer Ben-Jehuda to revive the Hebrew language and founded the Safah Berurah Society in Jerusalem (“Safah Berurah” means something like “plain text”). He and his wife Chava ( Hava , 1861–1932) published writings and newspapers in Hebrew as well as in Yiddish .

After he left Jerusalem and moved to Constantinople, he founded a Hebrew school there. In 1903 he attended the 6th Zionist Congress in Basel as a delegate for Constantinople . A year later he was finally recruited as the Chief Rabbi of Hoboken, a position that also included Hoboken, West Hoboken, Jersey City Heights, Union Hill and the Environs as areas of responsibility. He stayed in Hoboken until his death in 1935. Rabbi Hirschensohn wrote over 40 books on various subjects, including the relationship between Judaism and democracy, the situation of women, and the conflicts between traditional Judaism and modern science and research. Perhaps his best-known work is Malki Ba-Kodesh , a six-volume series that he published between 1919 and 1928, in which he examines the Halacha (Jewish law) with which a possible future Jewish state could be governed. He received much praise from the religious scholars of his time, such as Ben-Zion Meir Hai Uziel , Abraham Isaak Kook and Tzvi Pesach Frank .

Hirschensohn's daughter Tamar married Rabbi David de Sola Pool , and another daughter, Tehilla Lichtenstein , was at the forefront of the Jewish Science movement .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d The Hirschensohn Family of Publishers in Jerusalem, 1882-1908; Yossef Lang
  2. ↑ Hamisdarona Rabbi Chaim Hirschenson Judaica Polemic 1887
  3. ↑ Hamisdarona, Author: Hirschensohn, Chaim
personal data
SURNAME Deer son, Chaim
ALTERNATIVE NAMES חיים הירשנזון (Hebrew); Deer son, Hayyim
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Editor of Jewish writings and chief rabbi of Hoboken (New Jersey)
DATE OF BIRTH August 31, 1857
PLACE OF BIRTH Safed
DATE OF DEATH September 15, 1935