Samuel Löw Brill (September 14, 1814 – April 8, 1897) was a Hungarian rabbi and

Talmudical The Talmud (; ) 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 centerpiece of Jewis ...

scholar born in

Budapest Budapest is the Capital city, capital and List of cities and towns of Hungary, most populous city of Hungary. It is the List of cities in the European Union by population within city limits, tenth-largest city in the European Union by popul ...

. He was educated by his father, Azriel Brill (1778-1853), who was teacher and associate rabbi at

Pest, Hungary Pest () is the part of Budapest, the capital city of Hungary, that lies on the eastern bank of the Danube. Pest was administratively unified with Buda and Óbuda in 1873; prior to this, it was an independent city. In colloquial Hungarian langua ...

, and the author of several works in the

Hebrew language Hebrew (; ''ʿÎbrit'') is a Northwest Semitic language within the Afroasiatic language family. A regional dialect of the Canaanite languages, it was natively spoken by the Israelites and remained in regular use as a first language unti ...

. After having been carefully grounded at home in Hebrew studies, and graduating with honors from the Protestant Lyceum of his native city, he attended the Talmud schools at Eisenstadt (1832) nder M. J. Perls

Pressburg Bratislava (German: ''Pressburg'', Hungarian: ''Pozsony'') is the Capital city, capital and largest city of the Slovakia, Slovak Republic and the fourth largest of all List of cities and towns on the river Danube, cities on the river Danube. ...

(1834–35) nder Moses Sofer">Moses_Sofer.html" ;"title="nder Moses Sofer">nder Moses Sofer and Prague (1836), where he obtained, at the age of twenty-two, his rabbinical degree. In 1842-43 he was registered in the University of Berlin, where he attended the courses of famous teachers, such as [ oeckh, the classical philologist, Ritter, the geographer,

Leopold Ranke Leopold von Ranke (21 December 1795 – 23 May 1886) was a German historian and a founder of modern source-based history. He was able to implement the seminar teaching method in his classroom and focused on archival research and the analysis of ...

, the historian, Schelling, and others, and associated with

Leopold Zunz Leopold Zunz (—''Yom Tov Tzuntz'', —''Lipmann Zunz''; 10 August 1794 – 17 March 1886) was the founder of academic Judaic Studies ('' Wissenschaft des Judentums''), the critical investigation of Jewish literature, hymnology and ritual. Nah ...

and Michael Sachs. Returning to his native city, he was appointed assistant rabbi in 1843, and associate rabbi in 1850. Although he did not come before the public at large either in print (his only publication was an anonymous necrology of his teacher

Moses Sofer Moses Schreiber (1762–1839), known to his own community and Jewish posterity in the Hebrew translation as Moshe Sofer, also known by his main work ''Chatam Sofer'', ''Chasam Sofer'', or ''Hatam Sofer'' ( trans. ''Seal of the Scribe'', and acron ...

, in the ''Allg. Zeit. des Judenthums,'' 1838) or on the platform, he soon became widely known by his Talmudic lectures, which he enlivened with material drawn from Hebrew and general literature. Among his earliest pupils were W. Bacher and I. Goldziher. Brill was highly esteemed not only by his coreligionists, but also by the Hungarian government, and was its first counselor when it was preparing to institute a rabbinical seminary (see Moritz Bloch Ballagi). He was also one of the founders of the

Budapest University of Jewish Studies The Budapest University of Jewish Studies ( / ''Jewish Theological Seminary – University of Jewish Studies'' / ) is a university in Budapest, Hungary. It was opened in 1877, a few decades after the first European Rabbinical seminary, rabbinica ...

(''Landesrabbinerschule''), inaugurated in 1877, in which institution he held the position of teacher of Talmud from 1877 till 1887, having previously (since 1872) been president of the rabbinical college of Budapest. He also took part in the Israelitic county-congress of 1868-69. During Brill's lifetime a number of subtle extracts from his Talmudic glosses were published in the ''Monatsschrift,'' 1896-97, and the ''Magyar Zsidó Szemle,'' of the same years, by

Ludwig Blau Lajos Blau (German language, German: Ludwig Blau; 29 April 1861 – 8 March 1936) was a Jews of Hungary, Jewish–Hungarian scholar of philosophy and Oriental studies, professor of Jewish studies, and publicist born at Putnok, in the Kingdom of ...

. A few sermons have also been printed in the last-named periodical. Brill's valuable Hebrew library became the property of the seminary at Budapest.

Jewish Encyclopedia bibliography

* L. Blau, ''Samuel Löw Brill: His Life and Character'', in Hungarian, with portrait, Budapest, 1902.

References

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Brill, Samuel Low Rabbis from Budapest 1814 births 1897 deaths