Israel Mattuck

Israel Isidor Mattuck (born December 28, 1883 in Shirvint, Lithuania, † April 3, 1954 in London ). was a British rabbi .

Life and activity

Mattuck grew up in the United States . From an early age he studied the Talmud under the supervision of his father . He received his education at the Classical High School in Worcester , Massachusetts . He then studied Semitic languages ​​at Harvard University .

In 1910 Mattuck received his Semicha from American Reform Judaism's Rabbinic Seminary, HUC, in Cincinnati . He then briefly chaired a church in New York. In 1910 or 1911 he moved to Great Britain , where he headed the Liberal Jewish Synagogue in London as a rabbi from 1911 to 1948, for more than 35 years. In this position, Mattuck proved not only a skilled preacher, but also a skilled organizer. Both of which contributed significantly to the considerable growth that both his community and liberal Judaism in Britain had experienced during those years.

As a supporter of an understanding between the religions, Mattuck participated in the 1927 founding of the London Society of Christians and Jews. He was also a member of the first executive committee of the British Council of Christians and Jews formed in 1942.

In addition to a few books, Mattuck worked for many years as a journalist by publishing the magazine Liberal jewish Monthly .

At the end of the 1930s, due to his role as a leading figure in Jewish life in Great Britain, Mattuck came under the sights of the police forces of National Socialist Germany, who classified him as an important target: in the spring of 1940, the Reich Main Security Office in Berlin put him on the special wanted list GB , a directory of People who were considered particularly dangerous or important by the Nazi surveillance apparatus, which is why they should be located and arrested with special priority in the event of a successful invasion and occupation of the British Isles by the Wehrmacht by the occupying forces following special SS units.

Fonts

• The War and Reality , London 1914.
• Services and Prayers for Jewish homes , 1918.
• Liberal Jewish Prayer Book , 3 vols., 1923–1926.
• What are the Jews? , 1937.
• The Essentials of Liberal Judaism , 1947.
• The Thoughts of the Prophets , 1953.
• Jewish Ethics , 1953.

literature

• JD Rayner: Rabbi Irael Mattuck. A man of the past - and of the future? In: Manna Winter 1993.
• William D. Rubinstein / Michael Jolles / Hilary L. Rubinstein: The Palgrave Dictionary of Anglo-Jewish History , p. 653.
• Oxford Dictionary of National Biography .

Individual evidence

1. ↑ John F. Oppenheimer (Red.) And a .: Lexicon of Judaism. 2nd Edition. Bertelsmann Lexikon Verlag, Gütersloh u. a. 1971, ISBN 3-570-05964-2 , col. 475.