author
Gotthard Deutsch
1859–1921
A Moravian-born Jewish historian and Reform rabbi, he became a respected teacher and public intellectual in the United States. He is especially remembered for his wide-ranging scholarship and for helping shape the landmark Jewish Encyclopedia.
1 Audiobook
The history of the Jews
by Gotthard Deutsch
About the author
Born in Moravia in 1859, he received a strong early grounding in rabbinic learning and later studied at the Jewish Theological Seminary in Breslau and at the University of Vienna. After serving in Central Europe, he moved to the United States in the early 1890s and joined Hebrew Union College in Cincinnati, where he taught history and philosophy of religion.
He wrote extensively on Jewish history, religion, and contemporary Jewish life, and he became known for combining deep learning with a lively public voice. Much of his energy also went into major communal and scholarly projects, especially the Jewish Encyclopedia, for which he served as an editor and major contributor.
Remembered as both a scholar and a teacher, he helped bring Jewish historical study to a broader English-speaking audience. His work reflects the intellectual world of Reform Judaism in America at the turn of the twentieth century, and it still offers a window into the scholarship and debates of that era.