Jacob Ettlinger - Protests

Protests

Ettlinger became one of the strongest opponents of the early Reform Judaism movement, and headed the protest of the one hundred and seventy-three rabbis against the Brunswick Conference of 1844. In the following year he established the first organ of Orthodox Judaism, "Der Treue Zionswächter, Organ zur Wahrung der Interessen des Gesetzestreuen Judenthums" with a Hebrew language supplement, "Shomer Tziyon ha-Ne'eman," edited by S. J. Enoch.

His yeshiva was attended by a great many students preparing for the ministry, and many of them became leaders of Orthodoxy. Samson Raphael Hirsch was his disciple in Mannheim, and Israel (Esriel) Hildesheimer in Altona. Four of his sons-in-law became prominent Orthodox rabbis - Isaacsohn of Rotterdam, Solomon Cohn of Schwerin, Freymann of Ostrowo, and M. L. Bamberger of Kissingen. He was the last German rabbi who acted as civil judge. Much against his will, the Danish government, to which Altona then belonged, abolished this right of the Altona Rabbi in 1863. The purity of his character and the sincerity of his religious views were acknowledged even by his opponents. He provided in his will that nobody should call him "Tzaddik" (righteous), and that the inscription on his tombstone should contain merely the titles of his works and a statement of the number of years during which he was rabbi of Altona. The congregation obtained permission from the government to bury him in the old cemetery of Altona, which had been closed a year before.