Ernst Jacob (rabbi)

Ernst I. Jacob (also Anglicized Ernest Jacob ; born September 24, 1899 in Göttingen ; died April 11, 1974 in Pittsburgh ) was a German-American rabbi and university professor.

Life

Jacob was born in 1899 as the son of the rabbi Benno Jacob and his wife Helene, b. Stone, born. He attended grammar school in Dortmund and began studying law in Bonn after graduating from high school . After only one year he broke off this and then studied Semitic studies at the University for the Science of Judaism in Berlin and at the Jewish-theological seminar in Breslau . In 1921 he was awarded a doctorate in Breslau on the subject of "The ancient Assyrian laws and their relationship to the laws of the Pentateuch". phil. PhD. In 1923/24 he passed his rabbinical examination in Breslau and in 1924 began working as a rabbi at the synagogue in Saarbrücken . From 1928 to 1938 he was then district rabbi in Augsburg .

In November 1938 Jacob was interned in the Dachau concentration camp . After his release a few months later, he was able to emigrate to England in 1939. In January 1940 the family emigrated to the United States. Between 1941 and 1949 he wrote and sent a total of 18 circular letters in over 40 countries to the scattered members of his former Augsburg congregation. In 2007 these letters were published in book form.

Until 1945 Jacob was a clergyman at the O'Reilly General Hospital and Medical Center for Federal Prisoners in Springfield, Missouri . By 1943 he had become rabbi of the United Hebrew Congregation in Springfield and was a professor of history at Dury College . In 1968 he retired.

Jacob's son Walter also became an important rabbi.

Fonts

Jacob published numerous articles in the CV newspaper , in Der Israelit , in the Jüdisch-Liberalen Zeitung, and the monthly for the history and science of Judaism . He also published:

• Basic concepts of Judaism - in short: an introduction to the "Israelite religious teaching". Heller, Munich 1933
• Gernot Römer, (Ed.): To my community in the dispersion. The circular letters of the Augsburg rabbi Ernst Jacob 1941–1949 . Wißner, Augsburg 2007, ISBN 978-3-89639-584-9
• Life and Work of Benno Jacob . In: Paul Lazarus Memorial Book. Contributions to the Appreciation of the Last Generation of Rabbis in Germany , 1961, pp. 93–100
• Benno Jacob as a rabbi in Dortmund . In: Hans Ch. Meyer (Ed.): From the history and life of the Jews in Westphalia , 1962, pp. 89–92

literature

• Jacob, Ernst I. (No. 2259), In: Handbuch der Rabbiner , Saur, Munich 2009, Part 2 Volume 1, p. 305f ( online )
• Walter Jacob: The Life and Works of Benno Jacob . In: Benno Jacob: The Second Book of The Bible: Exodus . KTAV Publishing House, Hoboken 1992, pp. XV-XXXII

Web links

• Ernst Jacob on the Saarland biographies