Azriel Hildesheimer - Biography

Biography

Hildesheimer was born in Halberstadt, the son of Rabbi Löb Glee Hildesheimer, a native of Hildesheim, a small town near Hanover. He attended the Hasharat Zvi school in Halberstadt, and, from age seventeen, the Yeshiva of Rabbi Jacob Ettlinger in Altona; Chacham Isaac Bernays was one of his teachers and his model as a preacher. While studying in yeshiva Hildesheimer also studied classical languages. In 1840 he returned to Halberstadt, took his diploma at the public Königliches Dom-Gymnasium, and entered the University of Berlin; he became a disciple of the dominant Hegelian school. He studied Semitic languages and mathematics, and continued his study in Talmud. In 1842 he went to Halle where he earned his Ph.D. from the University of Halle-Wittenberg in 1844 under Wilhelm Gesenius and Emil Rödiger ("Ueber die Rechte Art der Bibelinterpretation"). He then returned to Halberstadt, where he married Henrietta Hirsch.

In 1851 he became Rabbi of Eisenstadt (Kis Marton), Hungary (now located in Austria); the principal city of the Siebengemeinden or Sheva kehillot. His first notable act there was to found a parochial school, where correct German was used, and modern principles of pedagogy were adopted in teaching secular, as well as Jewish, subjects. Hildesheimer initially introduced limited secular studies in the elementary school; the older students received a secular education as well, but with a focus on mathematics and other subjects that would enhance their understanding of gemara.

Next, Hildesheimer established a Yeshiva. The Yeshiva was unusual in that it was the only Orthodox institution where students were required to have a significant secular education before they were admitted. Also, the curriculum devoted time to studying Tanach and the Hebrew language. Despite this approach, within a few years the Yeshiva attracted a large number of pupils. (After beginning with six students in 1851, the seminary had 128 students in 1868, including one from the United States.) His son, Hirsch Hildesheimer, was a professor there.

In 1869 the Orthodox minority in Berlin - "Adath Yisrael", comprising about 200 families - were dissatisfied with the local rabbi, and chose Hildesheimer to represent them as an "Orthodox rabbi of standing". Here, he similarly established a religious school and a yeshiva (Rabbiner Seminar Für Das Orthodoxe Judenthum, known as the Hildesheimer Rabbinical Seminary), which immediately attracted thirty former pupils. Hildesheimer was thus the real intellectual founder and leader of the Adath Yisrael community.

Aided by Mayer Lehmann, the editor of Israelit in Mainz, Hildesheimer "exerted his whole energy" in the fight against Reform Judaism. In 1861 he took his stand against Abraham Geiger by criticizing Geiger's, "Notwendigkeit und Mass einer Reform des Jüdischen Gottesdienstes" (Mayence, 1861). (In fact, as early as 1847 - as the representative of the communities in the Magdeburg district - he had energetically opposed the Reform attempts of Ludwig Philippson.) Some say, however, that Hildesheimer, who would listen to no compromise, in fact widened the gap between the Reform and the Orthodox Jews of Germany.

Hildesheimer was "simple in his habits and fearless"; he had an unusual capacity for work; and his great Talmudic learning "was joined to practical administrative ability". He was financially independent, and never accepted remuneration for his rabbinical activity. He was frequently engaged in philanthropic activities connected with his own congregation, but additionally, "no labor was too great and no journey too long for him" in the service of the Jews of Germany, Austria, Russia, and even Abyssinia and Persia, so that he came to be known as the "international schnorrer". Hildesheimer also took a special interest in the welfare of the Jews of Palestine. In 1860, when the missionary society of Palestine provided seventy free dwellings for homeless Jews, Hildesheimer himself built houses in Jerusalem for the free use of Jewish pilgrims and for the poor.

Hildesheimer died in Berlin on July 12, 1899. His grave is preserved in the Cemetery of the Orthodox congregation Adass Jisroel in Wittlicher Straße, Berlin-Weißensee.

In Israel the moshav Azri'el is named after him, as well as streets in Jerusalem and Tel Aviv.