Maier "Max" Grünbaum (12 August 1817 – 11 December 1898) was a German Orientalist, historian,

folklorist Folklore studies, less often known as folkloristics, and occasionally tradition studies or folk life studies in the United Kingdom, is the branch of anthropology devoted to the study of folklore. This term, along with its synonyms, gained currenc ...

, and philologist.

Biography

Grünbaum was born to Jewish parents at Seligenstadt, Hesse, and studied philology and

philosophy Philosophy (from , ) is the systematized study of general and fundamental questions, such as those about existence, reason, knowledge, values, mind, and language. Such questions are often posed as problems to be studied or resolved. Some ...

at the Universities of Giessen and Bonn. By the end of the 1830s he had taken up work as a tutor for wealthy Jewish families in Amsterdam, London, Trieste, and Vienna. In 1858 he emigrated to the United States, and became director of the Hebrew Orphan Asylum in New York City. He returned to Europe in 1870, and spent the remainder of his days in Munich. There he was able to devote his energy to research, which included the study of history of aggadic themes and their influence on

Islam Islam (; ar, ۘالِإسلَام, , ) is an Abrahamic religions, Abrahamic Monotheism#Islam, monotheistic religion centred primarily around the Quran, a religious text considered by Muslims to be the direct word of God in Islam, God (or ...

, and of the structure and history of

Yiddish Yiddish (, or , ''yidish'' or ''idish'', , ; , ''Yidish-Taytsh'', ) is a West Germanic language historically spoken by Ashkenazi Jews. It originated during the 9th century in Central Europe, providing the nascent Ashkenazi community with a ver ...

and

Ladino Ladino, derived from Latin, may refer to: * The register of Judaeo-Spanish used in the translation of religious texts, such as the Ferrara Bible *Ladino people, a socio-ethnic category of Mestizo or Hispanicized people in Central America especi ...

. In addition to his own well-tended book collection, he made use of the extensive holdings of the Bavarian State Library. Following the model of

Moritz Steinschneider Moritz Steinschneider (30 March 1816, Prostějov, Moravia, Austrian Empire – 24 January 1907, Berlin) was a Moravian bibliographer and Orientalist. He received his early instruction in Hebrew from his father, Jacob Steinschneider ( 1782; ...

for Oxford, Leyden, Hamburg, Berlin, and Munich itself, Grünbaum undertook the re-cataloguing of the Library's Hebrew holdings. He was confined to his room from 1892 as a result of increasing physical and then mental deterioration, but kept himself lively with his scholarly ideas and plans. Grünbaum died on 11 December 1898, at the age of 81. He bequeathed his library to the Munich ''Verein für jüdische Geschichte und Litteratur'' (). After 1862 nearly all his papers on Oriental philology and folklore had appeared in the '' Zeitschrift der Deutschen Morgenländischen Gesellschaft''; and after his death they were re-edited by Felix Perles under the title ''Gesammelte Aufsätze zur Sprach- und Sagenkunde'' (Berlin, 1901).

Partial bibliography

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References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Grünbaum, Max 1817 births 1898 deaths 19th-century German educators 19th-century German historians 19th-century philologists German folklorists German Hebraists German orientalists German philologists Jewish orientalists Linguists of Yiddish People from Seligenstadt University of Bonn alumni University of Giessen alumni