Immanuel Löw (January 20, 1854 in Szeged – July 19, 1944 in

Budapest Budapest (, ; ) is the capital and most populous city of Hungary. It is the ninth-largest city in the European Union by population within city limits and the second-largest city on the Danube river; the city has an estimated population ...

) was a Hungarian rabbi and scholar, botanist and politician.

Life

Löw was the son of

Leopold Löw Judah Leib "Leopold" Löw ( he, יהודה לייב לעף, hu, Lőw Lipót; 22 May 1811 – 13 October 1875) was a Hungarian rabbi, regarded as the most important figure of Neolog Judaism. Biography 220px, Portrait of L. Löw Löw was born ...

whom he succeeded in 1878 as rabbi of

Szeged Szeged ( , ; see also #Etymology, other alternative names) is List of cities and towns of Hungary#Largest cities in Hungary, the third largest city of Hungary, the largest city and regional centre of the Southern Great Plain and the county seat ...

, Hungary, and whose collected works he published (5 vols., 1889–1900). He was educated in his native town and in

Berlin Berlin ( , ) is the capital and largest city of Germany by both area and population. Its 3.7 million inhabitants make it the European Union's most populous city, according to population within city limits. One of Germany's sixteen constitue ...

, where he studied at the

Hochschule für die Wissenschaft des Judentums Hochschule für die Wissenschaft des Judentums, or Higher Institute for Jewish Studies, was a rabbinical seminary established in Berlin in 1872 and closed down by the Nazi government of Germany in 1942. Upon the order of the government, the name ...

, graduating as rabbi and receiving his Ph.D. from the

University of Leipzig Leipzig University (german: Universität Leipzig), in Leipzig in Saxony, Germany, is one of the world's oldest universities and the second-oldest university (by consecutive years of existence) in Germany. The university was founded on 2 Decemb ...

in 1878. The fine Szeged Synagogue built in 1903 was designed according to Löw's plans. In the '

White Terror White Terror is the name of several episodes of mass violence in history, carried out against anarchists, communists, socialists, liberals, revolutionaries, or other opponents by conservative or nationalist groups. It is sometimes contrasted wit ...

' of 1920–21 he was imprisoned for 13 months for alleged statements against Admiral

Miklós Horthy Miklós Horthy de Nagybánya ( hu, Vitéz nagybányai Horthy Miklós; ; English: Nicholas Horthy; german: Nikolaus Horthy Ritter von Nagybánya; 18 June 1868 – 9 February 1957), was a Hungarian admiral and dictator who served as the Regent o ...

. While in prison, he worked on his four volume work ''Die Flora der Juden'' (“The Flora of the Jews”), on terminology of plants in Jewish sources. Like his father, Löw was a great preacher in the Hungarian language, and several hundred of his sermons were published in four volumes between 1900 and 1939. On the occasion of his congregation's centenary he published (with Z. Kulinyi) the congregation's history (1885) and that of its ''ḥevra kaddisha'' (with S. Klein, 1887). In 1883 he published a prayer book (in Hungarian) for women, and rendered the '' Song of Songs'' and some psalms into the same language. From 1927 he represented the Neolog (non-Orthodox) communities in the upper chamber of the Hungarian parliament and also was a member of the

Jewish Agency for Palestine The Jewish Agency for Israel ( he, הסוכנות היהודית לארץ ישראל, translit=HaSochnut HaYehudit L'Eretz Yisra'el) formerly known as The Jewish Agency for Palestine, is the largest Jews, Jewish non-profit organization in the w ...

. Soon after his 90th birthday, the Germans occupied Hungary and Löw was first sent to a brick factory in the local ghetto and then put on a deportation train. In Budapest, however, he was freed by Zionist workers. He died that year in Budapest.

Scholarly work

Löw’s fame as a scholar is based primarily on his pioneering work in the field of

Talmud The Talmud (; he, , Talmūḏ) is the central text of Rabbinic Judaism and the primary source of Jewish religious law (''halakha'') and Jewish theology. Until the advent of modernity, in nearly all Jewish communities, the Talmud was the cente ...

and rabbinic lexicography and in the study of plant names. This special interest is apparent in his doctoral thesis "Aramäische Pflanzennamen" ("Aramaic Plant Names") (1879) as well as in " Meleagros aus Gadara und die Flora Aramaea" (1883). Löw systematically explored the basics of plant terminology in different periods of the Hebrew and Aramaic languages, dominated the latest scientific methods in this field, made himself familiar with literary sources of plant names, and made careful use of manuscript material. With the help of Semitic languages, especially Syriac, he clarified many etymologies. He had great influence on future scholars, particularly Yehuda Feliks, who considered him one of the greatest scholars of Jewish botany. Löw contributed to

Wilhelm Gesenius Heinrich Friedrich Wilhelm Gesenius (3 February 178623 October 1842) was a German orientalist, lexicographer, Christian Hebraist, Lutheran theologian, Biblical scholar and critic. Biography Gesenius was born at Nordhausen. In 1803 he became a s ...

' famous Bible dictionary (10th ed., 1886; 11th ed., 1890), and to

Carl Brockelmann Carl Brockelmann (17 September 1868 – 6 May 1956) German Semiticist, was the foremost orientalist of his generation. He was a professor at the universities in Breslau, Berlin and, from 1903, Königsberg. He is best known for his multi-volume ...

's "Lexicon syriacum" (1895). Löw made critical annotations to

Samuel Krauss Samuel Krauss ( Ukk, 18 February 1866 - Cambridge, 4 June 1948) was professor at the Jewish Teachers' Seminary, Budapest, 1894–1906, and at the Jewish Theological Seminary, Vienna, 1906–1938. He moved to England as a refugee and spent his last y ...

' "Griechische und lateinische Lehnwörter im Talmud, Midrash und Targum" (1899), and to the same author's supplement volume to

Alexander Kohut Alexander (Chanoch Yehuda) Kohut (April 22, 1842 – May 25, 1894) was a rabbi and orientalist. He belonged to a family of rabbis, the most noted among them being Rabbi Israel Palota, his great-grandfather, Rabbi Amram (called "The Gaon," who die ...

's "Arukh ha-Shalem" (1937) and to his "Talmudische Archäologie" (1910–1912) which was dedicated to Löw and thus saved the author many etymological errors. There are also notes of his in Julius Theodor–

Hanoch Albeck Hanoch Albeck (Hebrew: חנוך אלבק) (August 7, 1890 - January 9, 1972) was a professor of Talmud at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, Israel. He was a foremost scholar of the Mishna and one of the pioneers of the scientific approach to Mis ...

's edition of "Genesis Rabbah", 3 pt. 2 (1965), 127-48ff. Both in the field of wildlife as well as minerals, he published more articles in scholarly publications. He wrote ''Mineralien der Juden'' (“Minerals of the Jews”), but his manuscript was lost during the

Holocaust The Holocaust, also known as the Shoah, was the genocide of European Jews during World War II. Between 1941 and 1945, Nazi Germany and its collaborators systematically murdered some six million Jews across German-occupied Europe; a ...

in 1944. A part of his literary legacy went on to the

National Library of Israel The National Library of Israel (NLI; he, הספרייה הלאומית, translit=HaSifria HaLeumit; ar, المكتبة الوطنية في إسرائيل), formerly Jewish National and University Library (JNUL; he, בית הספרים הלא� ...

in Jerusalem, and another part to the rabbinical seminary of

. His essays on fauna and minerals were reissued in 1969 ("Fauna und Mineralien der Juden") together with an introduction by Alexander Scheiber.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Low, Immanuel 1854 births 1944 deaths Hungarian rabbis 20th-century Hungarian botanists Jewish biologists Neolog rabbis Hungarian Jews who died in the Holocaust Hungarian civilians killed in World War II 19th-century Hungarian botanists Natural history of Palestine (region)