Samuel Baeck, also spelled Samuel Bäck ( he, שמואל בק, born
Boskowitz
Boskovice (; german: Boskowitz) is a town in Blansko District in the South Moravian Region of the Czech Republic. It has about 12,000 inhabitants. The area of the historic town centre, Jewish quarter, château complex and castle ruin is well prese ...
,
Moravia
Moravia ( , also , ; cs, Morava ; german: link=yes, Mähren ; pl, Morawy ; szl, Morawa; la, Moravia) is a historical region in the east of the Czech Republic and one of three historical Czech lands, with Bohemia and Czech Silesia.
The m ...
, April 3, 1834 – died
Lissa, May 11, 1912) was a German rabbi and father of
Leo Baeck
Leo Baeck (23 May 1873 – 2 November 1956) was a 20th-century German rabbi, scholar, and theologian. He served as leader of Reform Judaism in his native country and internationally, and later represented all German Jews during the Nazi er ...
.
His father, Nathan Baeck, was rabbi in
Kromau, Moravia; his grandfather, Abraham, rabbi in
Holitsch,
Hungary
Hungary ( hu, Magyarország ) is a landlocked country in Central Europe. Spanning of the Pannonian Basin, Carpathian Basin, it is bordered by Slovakia to the north, Ukraine to the northeast, Romania to the east and southeast, Serbia to the ...
. Samuel Baeck married Eva Placzek (1840–1926), the daughter of
Abraham Placzek, chief rabbi of Moravia.
After being educated in the public schools of Kromau and at the
Talmudic
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 ce ...
schools of Nikolsburg (Moravia) – now
Mikulov
Mikulov (; german: Nikolsburg; yi, ניקאלשבורג, ''Nikolshburg'') is a town in Břeclav District in the South Moravian Region of the Czech Republic. It has about 7,400 inhabitants. The historic centre of Mikulov is well preserved and ...
– and
Pressburg, Baeck studied at the
University of Vienna
The University of Vienna (german: Universität Wien) is a public research university located in Vienna, Austria. It was founded by Duke Rudolph IV in 1365 and is the oldest university in the German-speaking world. With its long and rich hist ...
, continuing his Talmudic studies under R. Horwitz. After receiving his diploma as rabbi from the chief rabbi Placzek of
Boskovice
Boskovice (; german: Boskowitz) is a town in Blansko District in the South Moravian Region of the Czech Republic. It has about 12,000 inhabitants. The area of the historic town centre, Jewish quarter, château complex and castle ruin is well preser ...
, he was appointed rabbi in
Böhmisch Leipa, and was in 1864 called as rabbi to the celebrated community of
Lissa, province of
Posen. He was a member of the municipal school committee and of the "Waisenrat", instructor in the Jewish religion at the gymnasium, and a delegate to the
Deutsch-Israelitischen Gemeindebund. He was the first to advocate with success the introduction of the teaching of the Jewish religion in the colleges of
Prussia
Prussia, , Old Prussian: ''Prūsa'' or ''Prūsija'' was a German state on the southeast coast of the Baltic Sea. It formed the German Empire under Prussian rule when it united the German states in 1871. It was ''de facto'' dissolved by an ...
.
Published works
* ''Inder und Hebräer'' (Indians and Hebrews);
* ''Erzählungen und Religionssätze der Heiligen Schrift'', Lissa, 1875, 2d ed. 1886;
* ''Systematische Religionssätze der Heiligen Schrift'', ib. 1875;
* ''Geschichte des Judischen Volkes und Seiner Literatur vom Babylonischen Exile bis auf die Gegenwart'' (History and Literature of the Jewish People from the Babylonian Exile to the Present Day) ib. 1878, 2d ed., 1894;
* ''Die Halachistische und Responsen Literatur, die Literatur der Darshanim, Sittenlehrer, und Apologeten'', in Winter and Wünsche, ''Jüdische Literatur'', vols. ii. and iii.
Sources
{{DEFAULTSORT:Baeck, Samuel
Czech Orthodox rabbis
19th-century German rabbis
Czech people of Hungarian descent
1834 births
1912 deaths