Mordecai honorary award

Mordecai Honorary Award, 1910

Mordechai Ehrenpreis (later: Markus Ehrenpreis, also: Marcus Ehrenpreis; born on June 25, 1869 in Lemberg ; died on February 26, 1951 Saltsjöbaden ) was a Hebrew writer, translator, publicist , rabbi and Zionist .

He began to write in Yiddish as a teenager and later studied at German universities and at the University for the Science of Judaism in Berlin. Since 1884 collaboration on "Ha-Maggid" and " Ha-Meliz ". From 1896 to 1900 he was a rabbi in Djakovar , Croatia.

Even before Herzl, Nathan Birnbaum , Ehrenpreis, and others were actively involved in defining the concept of a new national Jewry with a national center of whatever kind in Palestine . For Ehrenpreis' leading role in the first failed attempt in 1893 to convene a General Zionist Congress in Berlin, see Abraham Salz .

Ehrenpreis was an early supporter of Zionism and an employee of Herzl in the preparations for the first Zionist congress . Ehrenpreis' wife, Ernestine-Esther Ehrenpreis, was one of 14 female participants at the first Zionist Congress, and Mordechai Ehrenpreis had obtained the Hebrew version of the invitation letter at Herzl's request. Since then he has enjoyed general recognition for his competence in questions of Jewish culture. He was a mediator of Hebrew literature to the German-speaking audience (numerous articles).

From 1900 to 1914 he was chief rabbi of Bulgaria in Sofia and also editor of several Spanish magazines.

After 1908 his interest in Zionism and Hebrew literature decreased noticeably, which earned him a lot of criticism from the Zionist side; he devoted himself to other literary work and the duties of the rabbinate.

From 1914 until his death he was Chief Rabbi of Stockholm.

In 1928 he founded the "Judisk Tidskrift" (formerly "Israelites"), worked as a translator and as a collaborator on various encyclopedias, since 1935 he has worked as an honorary professor at Stockholm University .

Markus Ehrenpreis died in Saltsjöbaden (Sweden) in 1951.

Works (selection)

• The Land between Orient and Occident (German, 1924, a book about Jewish Portugal and Spain)
• extensive journalistic activity in Swedish: "Österlandets Själ"; "Landet mellam öster och väster"; "Mitt liv mellam öster och väster"

Literature (selection)

• Salomon Wininger , Chernivtsi 1925 ff., Vol. II, p. 104
• Jewish Lexicon , Berlin 1927, Vol. II, Col. 279
• John F. Oppenheimer (Red.) And a .: Lexicon of Judaism. 2nd Edition. Bertelsmann Lexikon Verlag, Gütersloh u. a. 1971, ISBN 3-570-05964-2 , col. 176.
• Theodor Herzl, letters and diaries , 7 volumes, ed. by Alex Bein , Hermann Greive , Moshe Schaerf, Julius H. Schoeps , Johannes Wachten, Berlin / Frankfurt a. M./Wien 1983–1996 (passim)

Web links

• Literature by and about Mordechai Prize in the catalog of the German National Library