Jacob Katz (Hebrew:יעקבכ"ץ) (born 15 November 1904 in Magyargencs,Hungary,died 20 May 1998 in Israel) was an acclaimed Jewish historian and educator.
Katz described "traditional society" and deployed sociological methods in his study of Jewish communities,with special attention to changes in halakhah (Jewish law) and Orthodoxy. He pioneered the modern study of Orthodoxy and its formation in reaction to Reform Judaism.
In his youth he pursued both religious and secular studies,receiving rabbinic ordination [1] [2] and a doctorate in social history. [1]
Jacob Katz was born in Magyargencs (Moyorganch) in western Hungary. The village was not large enough for a Jewish school so he spent his early years at a Protestant school in a nearby village. [3] At the age of 12,he left to study in Celldomolk. Afternoon hours were devoted to Jewish studies in the Talmud-Torah of the community. During this period he lived with a host family and returned home every few weeks for Sabbaths and holidays. [3]
At age 16,he moved to Gyor where he studied at a yeshiva. He then studied for about two years at the yeshiva in the Satoralya-Uihey community. In 1925,he moved to the Yeshiva of Pressburg (Bratislava) founded by Hatam Sofer and headed by his descendants. [3] After two and a half years,he became interested in the work of Friedrich Schiller,Theodore Herzl and Ahad Ha'am. [3]
In 1927,Katz wrote his first article for an Orthodox newspaper in Budapest,Zsido Ujsag, to protest against a local rabbi who warned Hungarian Jews stay away from Zionist or quasi-Zionist activities. The article was reprinted in the Zionist newspaper of Hungary Zsido Szemle, which praised him for understanding of the needs of the times better than the leaders of Orthodoxy. Katz was asked to write for the paper. Katz expressed admiration for Rabbi Meir Berlin (Bar-Ilan),Nahum Sokolov and Ze'ev Jabotinsky,who regarded building up Israel as the primary task of the generation. [3]
In the spring of 1928,he moved to Yeshivat Adat Yeshuron in Frankfurt,which was headed by Rabbi Yosef Breuer,and applied to study at the University of Frankfurt. [3] In the spring of 1934,he submitted his doctoral thesis on the assimilation of German Jews. He earned a living giving private lessons in Judaism/Talmud to members of Rabbi Breuer's family and others. It was then that he met his future wife Gerti-Bina nee Birnbaum,whom he married in Jerusalem in 1936. Before immigrating to Mandatory Palestine,he spent a year in London to improve his English. [3]
In Tel Aviv,he worked as a tutor and accepted a teaching position at Moriya school. In 1945-1950,he served as a teacher and director of Talpiot,a teachers training college. [3]
He was married to for 62 years,until his death at age 93. The couple had three sons,David,Chanan and Uriel. At the time of his death he had 11 grandchildren. [1]
In 1945 Katz presented his article "Marriage and Sexual Relations at the close of the Middle Ages" at a conference of historians. The article was published that year in the Hebrew journal Zion. Katz published in the fields of education,psychology and pedagogy,but his main interest was history. Ben-Zion Dinur encouraged him to continue his research despite the absence of an academic post. in 1947,Katz was invited to the first International Congress of Jewish studies in Jerusalem. in 1949,he began to teach at the Hebrew University in a low level position.
He went on to become specialist in Jewish-gentile relations,the Haskalah,anti-Semitism,and the Holocaust. His work provided much of the basis for scholarly analyses of anti-Semitism. [4]
Katz was recognized as "one of this century's greatest and most influential historians of the Jews." [1] In 1974 he became an honorary member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. [3] [5]
In 1980,Katz was awarded the Israel Prize,for "history of the Jewish people. [6]
Orthodox Judaism is the collective term for the traditionalist branches of contemporary Judaism. Theologically,it is chiefly defined by regarding the Torah,both Written and Oral,as revealed by God to Moses on Mount Sinai and faithfully transmitted ever since.
A rabbi is a spiritual leader or religious teacher in Judaism. One becomes a rabbi by being ordained by another rabbi—known as semikha—following a course of study of Jewish history and texts such as the Talmud. The basic form of the rabbi developed in the Pharisaic and Talmudic eras,when learned teachers assembled to codify Judaism's written and oral laws. The title "rabbi" was first used in the first century CE. In more recent centuries,the duties of a rabbi became increasingly influenced by the duties of the Protestant Christian minister,hence the title "pulpit rabbis",and in 19th-century Germany and the United States rabbinic activities including sermons,pastoral counseling,and representing the community to the outside,all increased in importance.
A yeshiva is a traditional Jewish educational institution focused on the study of Rabbinic literature,primarily the Talmud and halacha,while Torah and Jewish philosophy are studied in parallel. The studying is usually done through daily shiurim as well as in study pairs called chavrusas. Chavrusa-style learning is one of the unique features of the yeshiva.
Samson Raphael Hirsch was a German Orthodox rabbi best known as the intellectual founder of the Torah im Derech Eretz school of contemporary Orthodox Judaism. Occasionally termed neo-Orthodoxy,his philosophy,together with that of Azriel Hildesheimer,has had a considerable influence on the development of Orthodox Judaism.
Joseph Ber Soloveitchik was a major American Orthodox rabbi,Talmudist,and modern Jewish philosopher. He was a scion of the Lithuanian Jewish Soloveitchik rabbinic dynasty.
Religious Zionism is an ideology that views Zionism as a fundamental component of Orthodox Judaism. Its adherents are also referred to as Dati Leumi,and in Israel,they are most commonly known by the plural form of the first part of that term:Datiim. The community is sometimes called 'Knitted kippah',the typical head covering worn by male adherents to Religious Zionism.
Joseph Breuer,also known as Yosef Breuer was a rabbi and community leader in Germany and the United States. He was rabbi of one of the large Jewish synagogues founded by German-Jewish refugees fleeing Nazi oppression that had settled in Washington Heights,New York.
Torah Umadda is a worldview in Orthodox Judaism concerning the relationship between the secular world and Judaism,and in particular between secular knowledge and Jewish religious knowledge. The resultant mode of Orthodox Judaism is referred to as Centrist Orthodoxy.
Midrasha is a Hebrew term currently used for three types of educational institutions:
The Hildesheimer Rabbinical Seminary was founded in Berlin on 22 October 1873 by Rabbi Dr. Israel Hildesheimer for the training of rabbis in the tradition of Orthodox Judaism.
From the founding of political Zionism in the 1890s,Haredi Jewish leaders voiced objections to its secular orientation,and before the establishment of the State of Israel,the vast majority of Haredi Jews were opposed to Zionism,like early Reform Judaism,but with distinct reasoning. This was chiefly due to the concern that secular nationalism would redefine the Jewish nation from a religious community based in their alliance to God for whom adherence to religious laws were "the essence of the nation's task,purpose,and right to exists," to an ethnic group like any other as well as the view that it was forbidden for the Jews to re-constitute Jewish rule in the Land of Israel before the arrival of the Messiah. Those rabbis who did support Jewish resettlement in Palestine in the late 19th century had no intention to conquer Palestine and declare its independence from the rule of the Ottoman Turks,and some preferred that only observant Jews be allowed to settle there.
Yitzchak Yaacov Reines,was a Lithuanian Orthodox rabbi and the founder of the Mizrachi Religious Zionist Movement,one of the earliest movements of Religious Zionism,as well as a correspondent of Theodor Herzl.
Isaac Breuer was a rabbi in the German Neo-Orthodoxy movement of his maternal grandfather Samson Raphael Hirsch,and was the first president of Poalei Agudat Yisrael.
Haym Soloveitchik is an American Modern Orthodox rabbi and historian. He is the only son of Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik. He graduated from the Maimonides School which his father founded in Brookline,Massachusetts and then received his B.A. degree from Harvard College in 1958 with a major in History. After two years of post-graduate study at Harvard,he moved to Israel and began his studies toward an M.A. and PhD at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem,under the historian Professor Jacob Katz. He wrote his Master's thesis on the Halakha of gentile wine in medieval Germany. His doctorate,which he received in 1972,concentrated on laws of pawnbroking and usury. He is known to many as Dr. Gra"ch,after his great-grandfather for whom he is named,Rabbi Chaim Soloveitchik,who was known as the Gra"ch.
Daniel Boyarin is an Israeli–American academic and historian of religion. Born in New Jersey,he holds dual United States and Israeli citizenship. He is the Hermann P. and Sophia Taubman Professor of Talmudic Culture in the Departments of Near Eastern Studies and Rhetoric at the University of California,Berkeley. He is married to Chava Boyarin,a lecturer in Hebrew at UC Berkeley. They have two sons. His brother,Jonathan Boyarin,is also a scholar,and the two have written together. He has defined himself as a "diasporic rabbinic Jew".
Rabbi Wolf Gold was a rabbi,Jewish activist,and one of the signers of the Israeli declaration of independence.
Adam S. Ferziger is an intellectual and social historian whose research focuses on Jewish religious movements and religious responses to secularization and assimilation in modern and contemporary North America,Europe and Israel. Ferziger holds the Samson Raphael Hirsch Chair for Research of the Torah with Derekh Erez Movement in the Department of Jewish History and Contemporary Jewry at Bar-Ilan University,Ramat Gan,Israel. He is a senior associate at the Oxford Centre for Hebrew and Jewish Studies and is co-convener of the annual Oxford Summer Institute for Modern and Contemporary Judaism. He has served as a visiting professor/fellow in College of Charleston (2017),Wolfson College,University of Oxford,UK (2013),University of Sydney,New South Wales,Australia (2012),and University of Shandong,Jinan,China (2005). In 2011,he received Bar-Ilan's "Outstanding Lecturer" award. Ferziger has published articles in leading academic journals of religion,history,and Jewish studies and is the author or editor of seven books including:Exclusion and Hierarchy:Orthodoxy,Nonobservance and the Emergence of Modern Jewish Identity;Orthodox Judaism –New Perspectives,edited with Aviezer Ravitzky and Yoseph Salmon;and most recently Beyond Sectarianism:The Realignment of American Orthodox Judaism,which was the winner of a 2015 National Jewish Book Award.
Jacob J. Schacter is an American Orthodox rabbi. Schacter,a historian of intellectual trends in Orthodox Judaism,is University Professor of Jewish History and Jewish Thought and Senior Scholar at the Center for the Jewish Future at Yeshiva University.
The history of Palestinian rabbis encompasses the Israelites from the Anshi Knesses HaGedola period up until modern times,but most significantly refers to the early Jewish sages who dwelled in the Holy Land and compiled the Mishna and its later commentary,the Jerusalem Talmud. During the Talmudic and later Geonim period,Palestinian rabbis exerted influence over Syria and Egypt,whilst the authorities in Babylonia had held sway over the Jews of Iraq and Iran. While the Jerusalem Talmud was not to become authoritative against the Babylonian Talmud,the liturgy developed by Palestinian rabbis was later destined to form the foundation of the minhag Ashkenaz that was used by nearly all Ashkenazi communities across Europe before Hasidic Judaism.
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