Moritz Friedländer (October 17, 1844–January 30, 1919) was an Austro-Hungarian Jewish scholar of religion.
Life
Moritz Friedländer was born in 1844 in
Borský Svätý Jur, then part of Hungary in the
Austro-Hungarian Empire
Austria-Hungary, often referred to as the Austro-Hungarian Empire,, the Dual Monarchy, or Austria, was a constitutional monarchy and great power in Central Europe between 1867 and 1918. It was formed with the Austro-Hungarian Compromise of ...
(now part of Slovakia). He was educated at the
University of Prague, where he also attended the Talmudic lectures of Prague's Chief Rabbi
Solomon Judah Loeb Rapoport. His liberal views kept him from potentially becoming a rabbi himself. He taught for a brief period as a religious instructor at a high school in
Vienna
en, Viennese
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. After, he became secretary of the ''Israelitische Allianz zu Wien'' (Israelite Alliance of Vienna) in 1875. In 1881–82, he made several trips to
Brody (then part of the
Russian Empire
The Russian Empire was an empire and the final period of the Russian monarchy from 1721 to 1917, ruling across large parts of Eurasia. It succeeded the Tsardom of Russia following the Treaty of Nystad, which ended the Great Northern War. ...
) with a delegation from the Alliance Israélite Universelle of Paris to help Russian Jews emigrate to the United States. He published his impressions of the miserable condition of Russian Jews under the title "Fünf Wochen in Brody" (Five Weeks in Brody). In his work with the ''Allianz'', he campaigned for the opening of the first Jewish public school in
Galicia, which encountered resistance from the ''Haredi'' orthodox who preferred to keep the government uninvolved. His work in Galicia attracted the attention of Jewish philanthropist
Maurice de Hirsch and his wife Clara, who helped fund the establishment of Jewish schools in the region, both boys schools and girls schools.
Friedländer married Rosalie Grünhut. Their son Oskar, born in 1881, would later become a philosopher, convert to
Protestantism
Protestantism is a branch of Christianity that follows the theological tenets of the Protestant Reformation, a movement that began seeking to reform the Catholic Church from within in the 16th century against what its followers perceived to b ...
, and change his name to
Oskar Ewald
Osk(c)ar Ewald, born Oskar Friedländer, or Friedländer Oszkár (11 November 1881, Búrszentgyörgy/ Sankt Georgen, Hungary (now Borský Svätý Jur, Senica District, Slovakia) – 25 September 1940, near Oxford, Oxfordshire) was a Hungarian-A ...
. Moritz Friedländer died in
Vienna
en, Viennese
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on January 10, 1919.
Scholarship and work
Friedländer had a very admiring and positive view of
Hellenistic Judaism
Hellenistic Judaism was a form of Judaism in classical antiquity that combined Jewish religious tradition with elements of Greek culture. Until the early Muslim conquests of the eastern Mediterranean, the main centers of Hellenistic Judaism were A ...
, Judaism in the
Hellenistic period
In Classical antiquity, the Hellenistic period covers the time in Mediterranean history after Classical Greece, between the death of Alexander the Great in 323 BC and the emergence of the Roman Empire, as signified by the Battle of Actium in 3 ...
after the conquests of Alexander the Great where it interacted with Greek culture and thought. He published several articles and works on the topic and saw the period as a useful model for Judaism in his own day. He also had an unusual interpretation of
Paul of Tarsus
Paul; grc, Παῦλος, translit=Paulos; cop, ⲡⲁⲩⲗⲟⲥ; hbo, פאולוס השליח (previously called Saul of Tarsus;; ar, بولس الطرسوسي; grc, Σαῦλος Ταρσεύς, Saũlos Tarseús; tr, Tarsuslu Pavlus; ...
; Friedländer saw Paul as exemplifying the values of universalism in
Diaspora Judaism.
[Stefan Meissner: ''Die Heimholung des Ketzers: Studien zur jüdischen Auseinandersetzung mit Paulus''. Mohr Siebeck, Tübingen 1996, p. 38.]
A partial list of his writing includes:
* ''Patristische und talmudische Studien''. Hölder, Vienna 1878.
* ''Das Judenthum in der vorchristlichen griechischen Welt: ein Beitrag zur Entstehungsgeschichte des Christenthums''. M. Breitenstein, Vienna / Leipzig 1897.
* ''Die religiösen Bewegungen innerhalb des Judentums im Zeitalter Jesu''. Reimer, Berlin 1905.
* ''Synagoge und Kirche in ihren Anfängen''. Reimer, Berlin 1908.
References
{{Authority control
1844 births
1919 deaths
Jewish scholars
Jews from Austria-Hungary