Jacob Frankel

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Jacob Fränkel, 1st US military rabbi
Jacob Frankel
Obituary in the Philadelphia Times January 13, 1887

Jacob Fränkel often also Jacob Frankel (born July 5, 1808 in Grünstadt , † January 12, 1887 in Philadelphia ) was a rabbi of German descent and became the first official military rabbi of the United States of America during the American Civil War .

Live and act

He came from a Jewish family of musicians with a long tradition in the Palatinate town of Grünstadt and was the son of Joseph and Dorothe Fränkel. With his two brothers he went on concert tours, including to neighboring Alsace . First Jacob Fränkel, at the time of Rabbi Leopold Roos , was cantor at his home synagogue in Grünstadt . In 1844 he moved to Mainz . Eventually he emigrated to the USA.

From 1848 until a year before his death, Frankel served as cantor and leader of the Rodeph Shalom Congregation, founded in 1795 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania , a community of Ashkenazi Reform Judaism . He is described in contemporary sources as an excellent tenor singer of great friendliness.

The many soldiers of Jewish faith in the American Civil War led to the desire for military rabbis. Philadelphia was a center for the care of the wounded that war. After a change in the law was implemented which made military chaplaincy also possible for Jews, President Abraham Lincoln appointed Jacob Fränkel as the first military rabbi in the United States of America on September 18, 1862. In addition to his regular work in the Jewish civil community, Fränkel held this newly created office for three years, until the end of the war in 1865. In this position, he mainly worked in the city's military hospitals.

Fränkel died in Philadelphia in 1887 as a widower, leaving behind two sons and two daughters.

Isaak Fränkel, one of his brothers, died on December 20, 1877 at the age of 74 in Grünstadt, after serving as cantor in the synagogue there for over 50 years.

memory

During the torpedoing and sinking of the US warship Dorchester in 1943, four American field chaplains , including a field rabbi, made sacrifices and died in fulfillment of their offices. In commemoration of this, the American sculptor Eugene Daub (* 1942) designed a commemorative medal in 2014 and awarded it by the Jewish-American Hall of Fame , the so-called Four Chaplains' Medal . The front shows Jakob Fränkel as 1st field rabbi in the US Army , the back shows the fallen clergy from 1943.

literature

  • Henry S. Morais: The Jews of Philadelphia , Philadelphia, 1894, pp. 73 u. 74; (Digital scan)
  • Jonathan D. Sarna, Adam Mendelsohn: Jews and the Civil War , NYU Press, 2011, pp. 343-351, ISBN 0814771130 ; (Digital scan)
  • Lance J. Sussman: Isaac Leeser and the Making of American Judaism , Wayne State University Press, 1996, ISBN 0814326714 , p. 224; (Digital scan)
  • Bernhard Kukatzki : Jacob Frankel (1808-1887), a close friend of Abraham Lincoln: a native of Grünstadt was the first Jewish army chaplain in the USA , in: Palatinate-Rhenish Family Studies, Volume 16, 2009, pp. 638-640; (Find hint)
  • David B. Green: The US Army gets its first Jewish chaplain , in: Haaretz, September 18, 2013; (Digital view)

Web links

Commons : Jacob Fränkel  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ List of names of the city of Grünstadt about the Jewish name change in 1808; Parents No. 252 and 261
  2. ^ Arnold Vogt: Religion in the military , 1984, p. 719, ISBN 3820451854 ; (Detail scan of the activity as a cantor at the synagogues Grünstadt and Mainz)
  3. ↑ Royal Bavarian Official and Intelligence Gazette for the Palatinate , p. 878 of the year 1844; (Digital scan)
  4. ↑ Website on officially reported emigration from the Palatinate in 1844
  5. ↑ website on the history of Rodeph Shalom Congregation
  6. ^ Synagogue Grünstadt near Alemannia Judaica
  7. ↑ Ed Davis: The history of Rodeph Shalom Congregation , Philadelphia, 1802-1926, 1926, p. 98 u. 99, (detail scans)
  8. ^ Website of the US warship Dorchester
  9. ↑ Website with a picture of the medal
  10. ↑ Another website with the medal
personal data
SURNAME Frankel, Jacob
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Frankel, Jacob
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Chasan of German descent and rabbi, first military rabbi in the USA
DATE OF BIRTH July 5, 1808
PLACE OF BIRTH Grünstadt
DATE OF DEATH January 12, 1887
Place of death Philadelphia