"Most of My Brethren Find Me Unacceptable": The Controversial Career of Rabbi Samuel Holdheim

Abstract

During his relatively brief lifetime, Rabbi Samuel Holdheim (1806-60) was arguably one of the most prominent, and certainly the most controversial, of the Jewish religious reformers in Germany, but his legacy has received remarkably little attention. In contrast to his contemporaries, Rabbis Abraham Geiger and Zacharias Frankel, none of his works was fully reprinted or translated in the twentieth century. He has been discussed only within the context of larger subjects, such as the history of the Reform movement or the history of Judaism in Germany. 1 A fresh look at Holdheim, dwelling on the contradictory images that he presented to his contemporaries, his development from ahistorical iconoclast to advocate of Jewish loyalty, his interpretation by later historians, and his significance in the subsequent history of modern Jewish religion and scholarship, reveals a complex individual of considerable daring, whose concerns and objectives continued to be relevant long after his death. 2