20 Facts About Abraham Geiger

Abraham Geiger was a German rabbi and scholar who is considered the founding father of Reform Judaism and the academic field of Quranic studies.

Abraham Geiger worked on a dictionary of Mishnaic Hebrew.

Abraham Geiger's friends provided him with financial assistance which enabled him to attend the University in Heidelberg, to the great disappointment of his family.

Abraham Geiger's main focus was centered on the areas of philology, Syriac, Hebrew, and classics, but he attended lectures in philosophy and archaeology.

Abraham Geiger sought to demonstrate Judaism's central influence on Christianity and Islam.

Abraham Geiger believed that neither movement possessed religious originality, but were simply a vehicle to transmit the Jewish monotheistic belief to the pagan world.

Abraham Geiger found a position in the Jewish community of Wiesbaden.

Abraham Geiger's journals became important vehicles in their day for publishing Jewish scholarship, chiefly historical and theological studies, as well as a discussion of contemporary events.

Abraham Geiger was the driving force in convening several synods of reform-minded rabbis with the intention of formulating a program of progressive Judaism.

Abraham Geiger was a more moderate and scholarly reformer, seeking to found this new branch of Judaism on the scientific study of history, without assuming that any Jewish text was divinely written.

Abraham Geiger contributed much of the character to the reform movement that remains today.

Much of Abraham Geiger's writing has been translated into English from the original German.

Some of Abraham Geiger's studies are included in The Origins of The Koran: Classic Essays on Islam's Holy Book edited by Ibn Warraq.

However, Jewish historian Steven Bayme has concluded that Abraham Geiger had actually vigorously protested on humanitarian grounds.

Abraham Geiger believed that, "the Torah, as well as the Talmud, should be studied critically and from the point of view of the historian, that of evolution [and] development".

Abraham Geiger thus rejected Orthodox Jewish tradition in favor of a liberal outlook.

In 1837, Abraham Geiger arranged a meeting of reform-minded rabbis in Wiesbaden for the purpose of discussing measures of concern to Judaism, and continued to be a leader of liberal German rabbinical thought through 1846.

Orthodox factions accused Abraham Geiger of being a Karaite or Sadducee, and therefore prevented him from being appointed Chief Rabbi.

Therefore, in 1863, Abraham Geiger left Breslau to become a Rabbi of liberal communities in Frankfurt and, later, Berlin.

Abraham Geiger turned to a more "coherent ideological framework to justify innovations in the liturgy and religious practice".