Sándor Scheiber (also Alexander Scheiber; 9 July 1913 – 3 March 1985) was a Hungarian rabbi and an eminent Jewish scholar. From 1950 until his death he was director of the
Rabbinical Seminary
A Jewish seminary is a Jewish educational institution. See Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion (Reform), Jewish Theological Seminary (Conservative), Yeshiva University (Orthodox), Reconstructionist Rabbinical College, Academy for ...
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 ...
.
Biography
Scheiber was born in Budapest into a rabbinical family on both his maternal and paternal sides. He was
ordained
Ordination is the process by which individuals are consecrated, that is, set apart and elevated from the laity class to the clergy, who are thus then authorized (usually by the denominational hierarchy composed of other clergy) to perform ...
at the Seminary in 1938 as a student of Bernát Heller. After studies in London, Oxford and Cambridge, where he discovered many
genizah fragments while analyzing medieval Hebrew manuscripts, he served as rabbi in
Dunaföldvár
Dunaföldvár is a town in Tolna County, Hungary. Residents are Hungarians, with minority of Serbs. A Bronze Age gold hoard of jewellery was found between Paks and Dunaföldvár on the banks of the Danube in the nineteenth century. The treasure ...
from 1941 to 1944. In 1945, he became a professor at the rabbinical seminary and was its director from 1950 until his death. This institution retained its international fame throughout the Communist era, when it was the only place in the
Eastern bloc where rabbis would be graduated for serving in Hungary and abroad. Furthermore, Scheiber joined the faculty of the
University of Szeged
, mottoeng = Truth. Bravery. Freedom.
, established =
, type = Public research university
, founder = Emperor Franz Joseph I
, affiliation = European University Association, Science Without Borders, Confucius Institute
, budget = US$220 m ...
in 1949, teaching oriental folklore.
He considered it his mission to explore the
Hungarian Jewish
The history of the Jews in Hungary dates back to at least the Kingdom of Hungary, with some records even predating the Hungarian conquest of the Carpathian Basin in 895 CE by over 600 years. Written sources prove that Jewish communities lived ...
past and perpetuate its memory, as well as to publish the contributions of great Hungarian-Jewish scholars, including the works of
Wilhelm Bacher
Wilhelm Bacher ( hu, Bacher Vilmos; yi, בִּנְיָמִין־זְאֵב בּאַככֿר, he, בִּנְיָמִין־זְאֵב בכר ''Benjamin Ze'ev Bacher''; 12 January 1850 – 25 December 1913)Immanuel Löw
Immanuel Löw (January 20, 1854 in Szeged – July 19, 1944 in Budapest) was a Hungarian rabbi and scholar, botanist and politician.
Life
Löw was the son of Leopold Löw whom he succeeded in 1878 as rabbi of Szeged, Hungary, and whose collect ...
(1969) and the diary (''Tagebuch'') of
Ignác Goldziher
Ignác (Yitzhaq Yehuda) Goldziher (22 June 1850 – 13 November 1921), often credited as Ignaz Goldziher, was a Hungarian scholar of Islam. Along with the German Theodor Nöldeke and the Dutch Christiaan Snouck Hurgronje, he is considered the ...
(1978). In 1957, he published a facsimile of the so-called ''Kaufmann Haggadah'', called after
David Kaufmann
David Kaufmann (7 June 1852 – 6 July 1899) (Hebrew: דוד קויפמן) was a Jewish-Austrian scholar born at Kojetín, Moravia (now in the Czech Republic). From 1861 to 1867 he attended the gymnasium at Kroměříž, Moravia, where he studi ...
, MS 422 of the Kaufmann Collection in the
Hungarian Academy of Sciences.
He died on 3 March 1985, in Budapest.
Each year, the Sándor Scheiber Prize is awarded by the Hungarian Ministry of Culture on 3 March, the anniversary of his death. Among the laureates is the biochemist
Máté Hidvégi.
References
External links
Picture and biography (Hungarian)Róbert Dán: Occident and Orient: a tribute to the memory of Alexander Scheiber
{{DEFAULTSORT:Scheiber, Sandor
Rabbis from Budapest
Jewish Hungarian history
1913 births
1985 deaths