Leopold Stein

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Portrait of Leopold Stein around 1850.

Leopold Stein (born November 5, 1810 in Burgpreppach ; died December 2, 1882 in Frankfurt am Main ) was a German rabbi and writer.

life and work

The son of the district rabbi Abraham Stein and Gella Sussmann attended elementary school in Adelsdorf and studied at the yeshiva in Fürth . In 1831 he began studying the humanities at the University of Würzburg , which he completed with a doctorate to become Dr. phil. completed. From 1835 to 1843 he was rabbi in Altenkunstadt and Burgkunstadt . From there he received a call to Frankfurt am Main in 1843 , where he was to become deputy to Chief Rabbi Salomon Abraham Trier .

Stein was one of the moderate representatives of the Jewish reform movement . Therefore, Trier, who belonged to the Orthodox wing , refused to take the test of faith from him, a prerequisite for employment. Thereupon the Senate of the Free City of Frankfurt relieved Stein from the obligation to test his faith and confirmed him in his office without a test. This led to a split in the Israelite community : Chief Rabbi Trier resigned in protest and Amschel Mayer Rothschild announced his promise to support the construction of a new main synagogue with 250,000 guilders . In 1849 the Orthodox Association separated from the Israelite community and in 1851 appointed Samson Raphael Hirsch, its own Orthodox rabbi.

Stein continued to advocate a resolute reform course. The staunch democrat took part in the revolution of 1848 with committed speeches. In the Frankfurt congregation, against the resistance of a still strong Orthodox wing in the Israelite congregation, he mainly ran the new building of the main synagogue , which was built in 1711 and still came from the cramped conditions of the former Judengasse . In 1854 it achieved its demolition. A representative new building was built in its place from 1855 to 1860. The interior of the new main synagogue corresponded to the liturgical characteristics of the reform movement. For example, there was a pulpit and an organ .

At the ceremonial opening on March 23, 1860, Stein gave the speech in the presence of the two mayors and the Senate of the Free City of Frankfurt . In it he emphasized that the new synagogue was a symbol of the solidarity of the Israelite community with the old religion and of belonging to the German nation. Because of this speech there was a scandal in the community council. After a controversy, Stein resigned from his office as rabbi in 1861.

After his resignation, he founded a Jewish educational institution for girls and in 1869 became a preacher for the reform-minded Westend Union , a congregation of German-American Jews. In 1872 he resigned from this office for health reasons. As early as 1867 he joined the Masonic Lodge "Zur Einigkeit".

Works

In addition to collections of sermons, theological works on Jewish dogmatics and ethics and an Israelite religious book published in 1858 , Stein published two weeklies: The Israelite private tutor and The Friday evening . He wrote u. a. the dramas The Hasmoneans (1859), Haus Ehrlich (1863) and The Boy Robbery of Carpentras (1863). From 1866 to 1868 he published the two-volume pictures from the old Jewish family life of the Frankfurt painter Moritz Daniel Oppenheim .

literature

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Stein, Leopold
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German rabbi and writer
DATE OF BIRTH November 5, 1810
PLACE OF BIRTH Burgpreppach
DATE OF DEATH December 2, 1882
Place of death Frankfurt am Main