20 Facts About Zecharias Frankel

Zecharias Frankel was a Bohemian-German rabbi and a historian who studied the historical development of Judaism.

Zecharias Frankel was born in Prague and died in Breslau.

Zecharias Frankel was the founder and the most eminent member of the school of positive-historical Judaism, which advocates freedom of research while upholding the authority of traditional Jewish belief and practice.

Zecharias Frankel received his early Jewish education at the yeshiva of Bezalel Ronsburg.

Zecharias Frankel made Teplice his seat, where the congregation, the largest in the district, had elected him rabbi.

Zecharias Frankel was called to Dresden in 1836 as chief rabbi, and was confirmed in this position by the Saxon government.

Zecharias Frankel remained in Dresden until 1854, when he was called to the presidency of the Breslau seminary, where he remained until his death.

Zecharias Frankel introduced some slight modifications in Jewish prayer services such as: the abrogation of some hymns, the introduction of a choir of boys, and the like.

Zecharias Frankel was opposed to any innovation which was objectionable to Jewish sentiment.

Zecharias Frankel said that he could not cooperate with a body of rabbis who had passed a resolution declaring the Hebrew language unnecessary for public worship.

Zecharias Frankel's principles were enunciated in his monthly Journal of the Religious Interests of Judaism, which he published from 1844 onward.

Zecharias Frankel was chosen president of the new rabbinical seminary at Breslau.

Samson Raphael Hirsch, immediately on the opening of the seminary, addressed an open letter to Zecharias Frankel, demanding a statement as to the religious principles which would guide the instruction at the new institution.

Zecharias Frankel contented himself with proving from Rabbenu Asher that not everything called a "law", and reputed as given by Moses on Mount Sinai, was actually of Mosaic origin.

The general Jewish public remained indifferent to the whole controversy, and Zecharias Frankel's position was gradually strengthened by the number of graduates from the seminary who earned reputations as scholars and as representatives of conservative Judaism.

Zecharias Frankel proved that no Jewish doctrine justified such an assumption, and owing to his work, a new regulation put the Jews on the same basis as Christians as regards testimony in court.

Zecharias Frankel's studies in the history of Talmudic literature had convinced him that the neglect of the Jerusalem Talmud was a serious drawback in the critical investigation of the development of Talmudic law.

Zecharias Frankel afterward began a critical edition of the Jerusalem Talmud, with a commentary, but only three treatises had appeared, Berakot and Peah and Demai, when his death intervened.

Zecharias Frankel wrote frequently for the two magazines which he edited, the Zeitschrift fur die Religiosen Interessen des Judenthums, and the Monatsschrift fur die Geschichte und Wissenschaft des Judenthums, begun in 1851, and which he edited until 1868, when Graetz succeeded him as editor.

In Chaim Potok's best-selling novel The Chosen, the protagonist, Reuven Malter, does research for his father's book in the library at the fictional "Zechariah Zecharias Frankel Seminary," patterned after the real-life Jewish Theological Seminary of America.