Jakob Stern

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Jakob Stern (born May 28, 1843 in Niederstetten , † April 4, 1911 in Stuttgart ; actually Isaak Stern ) was a German rabbi , journalist and socialist writer who changed from an Orthodox Jew to a free-thinking socialist.

Life

Jacob, who was originally called Isaac, was the son of Moses Stern (1809–1898) and Flora Stern, née. Frankfurter (1817-1897). First he learned from the Orthodox Rabbi Mendel Rosenbaum in Zell am Main , before he attended the yeshiva in Pressburg for one and a half years from 1858 , which was then the largest and most influential Talmudic university in Europe. After returning with a Morenu diploma, he professed Hasidism for a while . In Stuttgart he took private lessons at high school and got to know the reform rabbi and member of the Israelite higher church authority Joseph von Maier , with whom he is said to have lived. In 1866 he passed the high school diploma in Tübingen, a prerequisite for studying what was then known as the Mosaic theology. Stern passed his first service examination in 1869. During this time he was already working on Baruch de Spinoza , whose text Ethics he later translated from Latin into German. He then returned to Niederstetten, where he was waiting for a job as a rabbinical candidate. At his suggestion, a reform Jewish association was founded in Niederstetten . In his hometown he married Rebekka (Rifka) Ney in 1872, who died in 1886. The couple had two daughters and two sons. After their mother's death, both sons came to live with relatives in the United States , while their daughters Maria and Viola stayed with their father. Viola was deported to Theresienstadt concentration camp during the Nazi tyranny and survived.

While still in Niederstetten, he published his two-volume work Gottesflamme in Berlin and Leipzig , which he prefixed with the motto: "The religion of Israel according to the spirit and the pure religion of humanity are identical". In it he spoke out against "the observation of those many ceremonial laws" insofar as they conflicted with reason. Reason is the "only, infallible organ of divine revelation". The “requirement to believe and recognize irrational doctrines” is anti-religious and, aggravating, this requirement is “blasphemy”.

Break with Judaism

In November 1873 he was the Bezirksrabbinat Mühringen as rabbinate locum tenens operates. In 1874 he passed the second official examination and was transferred to Buttenhausen near Münsingen as a rabbi . In the beginning he was able to organize the service according to his ideas, but then the situation escalated with his local opponents. In 1879 disciplinary proceedings were initiated for violations of the ritual law. Because of his free-thinking statements and publications and because he accused Buttenhausen Jews of usury, he was suspended as a rabbi in 1880 and finally dismissed from the rabbinate in 1882 without any pay. The allegations, accusations and incidents were so numerous, albeit often ludicrous, that according to Hellmut G. Haasis, several thousand pages of “mountains of files” have been preserved in the state archives of Stuttgart, Ludwigsburg and Sigmaringen for the “Stern case” . The events in Buttenhausen drew absurd claims and legends, including the scene described by Eduard Fuchs , that Stern sat in front of the Stuttgart synagogue on the Sabbath and demonstratively ate ham rolls.

Social democratic activities

After his release from the rabbinate, Stern worked as a journalist and freelance writer in Stuttgart. He is said to have converted to Christianity, but a declaration of denial for himself and his family in March 1883 speaks against it. Jakob Stern became one of the theoretical spokesmen for the Social Democrats in Württemberg during the Socialist Act and especially after 1890 . For their press organ, the Swabian Tagwacht , he regularly wrote the leading articles. He ran for the Reichstag in 1887 and for the Württemberg state parliament in 1889 and worked as a social democratic functionary. As a journalist and adept speaker, Stern was, according to Clara Zetkin , the “darling and spokesman of the Stuttgart workers”. As an intellectual, Stern had a much harder time among his Württemberg party colleagues than Zetkin's obituary and the quote taken from it conveyed.

“'What do you think our rabbi will say today?' - 'I am curious how Jaköble thinks about it.' These were questions that party comrades who met each other in Stuttgart in the nineties shouted when the moods were aroused by a significant event in public life, [...] "

- Clara Zetkin : Obituary for Jakob Stern . In: The New Time. Wochenschrift der Deutschen Sozialdemokratie , Vol. 2 (1911), Issue 28, pp. 56–60

At the end of May 1886, Jakob Stern gave a speech at the Freethinker Congress in Stuttgart entitled Half and Whole Freethinking , in which he emphasized that the “whole” freethinker should not limit himself to the religious field. Rather, reasonable political and social conditions are the ground in which reason can spread its roots. Freethinking must be linked to the fate of the labor movement. In doing so, he turned not only against bourgeois freethinkers like Ludwig Büchner , but also against his (Stern's) predecessor in the Stuttgart freethinker community, Albert Dulk , who was nevertheless an avowed socialist, who gave priority to the fight against denominational religions. At the Erfurt party congress of the Social Democratic Party in 1891, Jakob Stern presented his own draft program.

Jakob Stern never earned a doctorate. Although he submitted a doctoral application in Tübingen in July 1880, he withdrew his application shortly afterwards "on the advice of the faculty". In the same year he published the failed doctoral thesis on animal cruelty and animal life in Jewish literature with Schabelitz in the Züricher Verlags-Magazin .

death

Since 1903, Jakob Stern could no longer appear in public because he suffered from severe depression, but he continued to work as a writer. Around 1909 he got colon cancer. With suicidal intent, he shot himself in the head on April 1, 1911, survived seriously injured, but died three days later in the Stuttgart Bürgerhospital.

Varia

In his novel Melnitz, the Swiss writer Charles Lewinsky lets a character with the name “Dr. Jakob Stern ”, a rabbi from the small town of Buttenhausen. He becomes a free thinker and ponders the slaughter of sacrificial animals. In fact, the historic Jakob Stern submitted a corresponding application for a doctorate in Tübingen in July 1880, but see the section above.

Works (selection)

According to the Biographisches Handbuch der Rabbis (p. 591), Jakob Stern left around 40 independent publications as well as an enormous number of essays and newspaper articles. His subjects included not only theology, philosophy and politics, but also drama, comedy and satire. He also wrote etiquette books , guidebooks and edited humoristic articles. Stern used a total of at least 17 pseudonyms .

  • 1872/73: God's flame. Religious speeches about the holidays and weekly periods , 2 volumes. Online of the 1st volume, Berlin 1872: [4] . The second volume was published in Leipzig in 1873
  • 1878: The old and the new faith in Judaism
  • 1879: The woman in the Talmud
  • 1879: Textbook of the religion of reason as Father Ambrosius
  • 1880: Animal cruelty and animal life in Jewish literature: Dedicated to animal protection associations . Online: [5]
  • 1882: Rays of light from the Talmud (reprint 1929)
  • 1883: The Schächten. Journal against the Jewish battle rite
  • 1883: The religion of the future . JHW Dietz, Stuttgart (several editions)
  • 1883: Unrestricted population increase
  • 1884: Are there ghosts?
  • 1886: Half and full free thinking. Journal and polemical . JHW Dietz, Stuttgart
  • 1888: The influence of social conditions on all branches of cultural life . JHW Dietz, Stuttgart (several editions)
  • 1889: Theses on Socialism. Its essence, its practicability and its usefulness . JHW Dietz, Stuttgart
  • 1890 Social illness, its causes and its cure . JHW Dietz, Stuttgart
  • 1890: After twelve years
  • 1890: Spinoza's philosophy. For the first time thoroughly brightened up and shown popularly . JHW Dietz, Stuttgart (several editions) (= International Library 8)
  • 1891: The Bismarck donation. Comedy in two acts . JHW Dietz, Stuttgart
  • 1894: Morgenroth: Social Democratic Festive and Zeitgedichte , Series 1 and 2
  • 1899: The Lexicon of Fine Customs. Latest universal book of good tone and the fine way of life. Practical reference work for all cases of social intercourse (reprint 1926)
  • 1906: The future state. Theses on socialism. Its essence, its practicability and practicality , 5th significantly improved edition
  • 1907: God? Faith in God or atheism?
  • 1909: Death from the death penalty

literature

  • Jakob Stern. In: The True Jacob . No. 646 of April 25, 1911, p. 7038 digitized .
  • Heiner Jestrabek (ed.): From rabbi to atheist. Selected writings critical of religion / Jakob Stern. IBDK Verlag, Aschaffenburg / Berlin 1997, ISBN 3-922601-29-4 .
  • Hellmut G. Haasis : "I am a poor devil who writes about bread". For the 150th birthday of the Württemberg reform rabbi and socialist writer Jakob Stern (1843-1911) from Niederstetten . In: Manfred Bosch (Ed.): Alemannisches Judentum. Traces of a lost culture, Eggingen 2001, pp. 341–352. (Informative biography, unfortunately without detailed evidence. Judging by the Biographical Handbook of Rabbis, Volume 2, p. 591, probably identical to a lecture from 1993) .
  • Michael Brocke and Julius Carlebach (eds.): Biographical Handbook of Rabbis, Part 2: The Rabbis in the German Empire, 1871-1945. Edited by Katrin Nele Jansen, Volume 2, Munich 2009, pp. 590–591, ISBN 978-3 -598-24874-0 .

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Biographical Handbook of Rabbis , p. 590
  2. ↑ Hellmut G. Haasis, p. 345. See the contemporary reports. Online: [1]
  3. ↑ Biographical Handbook of Rabbis , p. 590
  4. ↑ Allgemeine Zeitung des Judentums , March 8, 1870. Cf. Gottesflamme , Volume 1, pp. 151–157
  5. ↑ Hellmut G. Haasis, p. 350 and p. 352
  6. ↑ God's Flame , Volume 1, p. 261
  7. ↑ Compiled online in: [2]
  8. ↑ Biographical Handbook of Rabbis , p. 590
  9. ↑ Hellmut G. Haasis, p. 348
  10. ^ Eduard Fuchs: The Jews in the caricature. A contribution to cultural history. Langen, Munich 1921
  11. ↑ Biographical Handbook of Rabbis , Volume 2, p. 590
  12. ^ Staatsarchiv Ludwigsburg , signature E 212 Bü 119. Online: [3] . See Hellmut G. Haasis, p. 344
  13. ↑ Ursula Goldenbaum: On the appropriation of Spinozas in the German social democracy. In: Michael Czelinski u. a. (Ed.): Transformation of metaphysics into modernity. On the presence of Spinoza's theoretical and practical philosophy. Königshausen & Neumann, Würzburg 2003, p. 248f. ISBN 3-8260-2645-4
  14. ↑ Sebastian Prüfer: Socialism instead of religion. The German Social Democracy Before the Religious Question 1863-1890 , Göttingen 2002, p. 239
  15. ↑ Biographisches Handbuch der Rabbis , p. 590. Utz Jeggle , however, wrote of a doctorate : Judendörfer in Württemberg (1969, p. 138; extended new edition 1999, p. 129).

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Stern, Jacob
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Star, Isaac; Father Ambrosius; Adelfels, Kurt
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German rabbi who turned himself into a free-thinking socialist, author
DATE OF BIRTH May 28, 1843
PLACE OF BIRTH Niederstetten
DATE OF DEATH April 1, 1911
Place of death Stuttgart