19 Facts About Samuel Holdheim

Samuel Holdheim was a German rabbi and author, and one of the more extreme leaders of the early Reform Movement in Judaism.

The son of rigidly traditional parents, Samuel Holdheim was early inducted into rabbinical literature according to the methods in vogue at the Talmudical yeshivas.

Samuel Holdheim went to Prague and subsequently to Berlin to study philosophy and humanities; and his keen intellect, combined with his eagerness to learn, made it possible for him to reach his goal in an incredibly short time, though the lack of preliminary systematic preparation left its imprint upon his mind, to a certain degree, to the last.

Samuel Holdheim's purpose was to bring about a change in this state of affairs.

Samuel Holdheim insisted upon the recognition of the rabbi as preacher and teacher, who at the same time gives attention to the practical requirements of his office as the expert in Talmudical law.

Samuel Holdheim thus deserves to be remembered as one of the pioneers in the field of modern Jewish homiletics, who showed what use should be made of the Midrashim and other Jewish writings.

Samuel Holdheim repeatedly took pains to arouse his congregation to help carry out Abraham Geiger's and Ludwig Philippson's project of founding a Jewish theological faculty.

Judaism even then had ceased for Samuel Holdheim to be an end unto itself.

Samuel Holdheim had begun to view it as a force in the larger life of humanity.

Samuel Holdheim pleads for progress, on the ground that at all times the Torah has been taught, in accordance with the changing conditions of succeeding ages; but this progress he holds to be a gradual development, never a noisy opposition to recognized existing standards.

Samuel Holdheim hailed the new movement as an important augury of the quickening influences of modern views.

Samuel Holdheim defended the Hamburg program as thoroughly founded in Judaism and in the very line of the synagogue's own history, though he was not blind to its inconsistencies.

Samuel Holdheim took part in the rabbinical conferences at Braunschweig, Frankfurt am Main, and Breslau.

Samuel Holdheim rightly held it to be a weak compromise.

Samuel Holdheim, consulted among others when the Judische Reformgenossenschaft was founded in Berlin, was called to be its rabbi and preacher in 1847, leaving Mecklenburg.

Samuel Holdheim instituted the radical rejection of keeping Saturday as the Jewish Sabbath, and instead moved its observance to Sunday to keep the behavior of Reform Jews in line with Christian thought.

Samuel Holdheim officiated at so-called "mixed" marriages.

Samuel Holdheim wrote a history of the Reformgenossenschaft and a more ambitious work on the rabbinical and Karaite interpretations of the marriage laws.

Samuel Holdheim was laid to rest among the great dead of the Berlin congregation, Abraham Geiger preaching the funeral oration.