Isaac Alexander

Isaac Alexander , even Isaac Israel (born on 17th August 1722 in Regensburg ; died 1802 ) was a German rabbi and philosopher of the Enlightenment .

Life

Alexander had been working as a teacher in Regensburg since he was 13 years old. He studied in Heidelberg and in 1753 got a job with the Jewish community in Regensburg , for which he initially worked as a teacher, later as a chorister and slaughterer . In 1765 he acquired the title of Morenu at the Talmud University in Fürth and in December of the same year became the first rabbi of the Regensburg community since the expulsion in 1519 . He held this office until his death. In addition, he taught Christian scholars in Hebrew and worked as a translator.

Alexander had been married since 1765 at the latest; his wife, who is around seven years younger than him, is mentioned in the 1804 census as a rabbi widow Alexandrin or Brentelin in Regensburg.

First edition of Alexander's "On the Freedom of Man"

Thanks to his high level of education, Alexander also gained great recognition in circles of the Christian majority society, which contributed significantly to the acceptance of the young Jewish community in Regensburg. As an advocate of extensive assimilation, he published his philosophical and religious writings, which were primarily aimed at a Jewish readership, in German even before Moses Mendelssohn . He saw no fundamental contradiction between the Jewish religion and the ideas of the Enlightenment. In several papers he developed his concept of freedom as autonomy in relation to instinctual impulses and passions; True freedom of spirit is therefore the choice of the good from free resolution.

In the discussion sparked by Christian Wilhelm von Dohm's work on the bourgeois improvement of the Jews , he advocated suppressing the power of the Orthodox rabbis, whom he made responsible for the backwardness of the Jewish population. He judged the specifically Jewish occupational structure with its forced focus on traders' professions much more negatively than Mendelssohn and supported Dohm's demand that all professions be opened to Jews. In contrast to Mendelssohn's skeptical assessment of the imperial edicts of tolerance , Alexander praised them in the highest tones and compared them with the benefits of the biblical King Solomon .

Works

Reason which speaks of the existence of God . Zunkel, Regensburg 1775 ( reader.digitale-sammlungen.de [accessed on January 4, 2015]).
Truths to divine wisdom . 1779 ( reader.digitale-sammlungen.de [accessed on January 4, 2015]).
Treatise on the Freedom of Man . Monday, Regensburg 1789 ( reader.digitale-sammlungen.de [accessed on January 4, 2015]).
Solomon and Joseph II . Von Baumeister, Vienna 1782 ( reader.digitale-sammlungen.de [accessed on January 4, 2015]).

literature

Anja Speicher (Ed.): Isaak Alexander. Fonts. A contribution to the early enlightenment in German Judaism (= Judaism and Environment . Volume 67 ). Lang, Frankfurt am Main / Berlin / Bern / New York / Paris / Vienna 1998, ISBN 3-631-33018-9 .
Renate Heuer : Isaak Alexander. In: Manfred Treml , Wolf Weigand (ed.): History and culture of the Jews in Bavaria. Resumes. De Gruyter Saur, Munich 1988, ISBN 3-598-07543-X , pp. 37-42.
Carsten Wilke : The rabbis of the emancipation period in the German, Bohemian and Greater Poland countries 1781–1871 . In: Michael Brocke , Julius Carlebach (Hrsg.): Biographisches Handbuch der Rabbis . tape 1 . Saur, Munich 2004, ISBN 3-598-24871-7 , pp. 139 f . ( books.google.de [accessed on January 4, 2015]).

Web links

Literature by and about Isaak Alexander in the catalog of the German National Library

Individual evidence

^ Siegfried Wittmer: Regensburg Jews. Jewish life from 1519 to 1990 (= Regensburg studies and sources on cultural history . No. 6 ). Universitäts-Verlag, Regensburg 1996, ISBN 3-930480-10-7 , p. 105 ( books.google.de - snippet view).
↑ Alexander, Isaac. In: Lexicon of German-Jewish Authors . Volume 21: Supplements and General Register. Edited by the Bibliographia Judaica archive. De Gruyter, Berlin a. a. 2013, ISBN 978-3-11-031483-0 , p. 6 ( limited preview in Google book search).
↑ Arno Herzig : The problem of assimilation from a Jewish perspective (1780-1880) . In: Hans Otto Horch, Horst Denkler (ed.): Conditio Judaica. Judaism, anti-Semitism and German-language literature from the 18th century to the First World War . Part I. Max Niemeyer, Tübingen 1988, ISBN 3-484-10607-7 , p. 14 ( books.google.de ).
↑ Ingrid Lohmann: Naphtali Herz Wessely. Words of Peace and Truth . Waxmann, Münster 2014, ISBN 978-3-8309-3136-2 , pp. 142 ( books.google.de ).

personal data
SURNAME	Alexander, Isaac
ALTERNATIVE NAMES	Israel, Isaac
BRIEF DESCRIPTION	German rabbi and philosopher of the Enlightenment
DATE OF BIRTH	17th August 1722
PLACE OF BIRTH	regensburg
DATE OF DEATH	1802
Place of death	regensburg

[witt-1] Siegfried Wittmer: Regensburg Jews. Jewish life from 1519 to 1990 (= Regensburg studies and sources on cultural history . No. 6 ). Universitäts-Verlag, Regensburg 1996, ISBN 3-930480-10-7 , p. 105 ( books.google.de - snippet view).

[lex-2] Alexander, Isaac. In: Lexicon of German-Jewish Authors . Volume 21: Supplements and General Register. Edited by the Bibliographia Judaica archive. De Gruyter, Berlin a. a. 2013, ISBN 978-3-11-031483-0 , p. 6 ( limited preview in Google book search).

[herz-3] Arno Herzig : The problem of assimilation from a Jewish perspective (1780-1880) . In: Hans Otto Horch, Horst Denkler (ed.): Conditio Judaica. Judaism, anti-Semitism and German-language literature from the 18th century to the First World War . Part I. Max Niemeyer, Tübingen 1988, ISBN 3-484-10607-7 , p. 14 ( books.google.de ).

[loh-4] Ingrid Lohmann: Naphtali Herz Wessely. Words of Peace and Truth . Waxmann, Münster 2014, ISBN 978-3-8309-3136-2 , pp. 142 ( books.google.de ).