page_title: Samson Raphael Hirsch
section_title: Oldenburg
hierarchical_section_title: Samson Raphael Hirsch / Career / Oldenburg
caption_attribution_description: Deutsch: Bronze-Gedenktafel aus dem Jahr 2001 für die Samson-Raphael-Hirsch-Schule an der Außenfassade des Erweiterungsgebäudes des Heinrich-von-Gagern-Gymnasiums im Stadtteil Ostend von Frankfurt am Main, Hessen, DeutschlandEnglish: Commemorative plaque of bronze (inaugurated in 2001) for the former Samson-Raphael-Hirsch-Schule which is placed at the front of the new building of Heinrich-von-Gagern-Gymnasium in the borough Ostend of Frankfurt am Main, Hesse, Germany
context_page_description: Samson Raphael Hirsch was a German Orthodox rabbi best known as the intellectual founder of the Torah im Derech Eretz school of contemporary Orthodox Judaism. Occasionally termed neo-Orthodoxy, his philosophy, together with that of Azriel Hildesheimer, has had a considerable influence on the development of Orthodox Judaism.
  Hirsch was rabbi in Oldenburg, Emden, and was subsequently appointed chief rabbi of Moravia. From 1851 until his death, Hirsch led the secessionist Orthodox community in Frankfurt am Main. He wrote a number of influential books, and for a number of years published the monthly journal Jeschurun, in which he outlined his philosophy of Judaism. He was a vocal opponent of Reform Judaism, and similarly opposed early forms of Conservative Judaism.
context_section_description: In 1830, Hirsch was elected chief rabbi (Landesrabbiner) of the principality of Oldenburg. During this period, he wrote his Neunzehn Briefe über Judenthum, (Nineteen Letters on Judaism) which were published, under the pseudonym of "Ben Usiel" (or "Uziel"), at Altona in 1836. This work made a profound impression in German Jewish circles because it was something new — a brilliant, intellectual presentation of Orthodox Judaism in classic German, and a fearless, uncompromising defense of all its institutions and ordinances.
  Hirch's major works are discussed in further detail below.
  In 1838, Hirsch published, as a necessary concomitant of the Letters, his Horeb, oder Versuche über Jissroel's Pflichten in der Zerstreuung, which is a text-book on Judaism for educated Jewish youth. In fact, he wrote Horeb first, but his publishers doubted that a work defending traditional Judaism would find a market in those times when reform was in vogue.
  In 1839, he published Erste Mittheilungen aus Naphtali's Briefwechsel, a polemical essay against the reforms in Judaism proposed by Geiger and the contributors to the latter's Wissenschaftliche Zeitschrift für jüdische Theologie (such as Michael Creizenach); and in 1844, he published Zweite Mittheilungen aus einem Briefwechsel über die Neueste Jüdische Literatur, also polemical in tendency and attacking Holdheim's Die Autonomie der Rabbinen (1843).
caption: Plaque acknowledging the school's forced closure in 1939; its last part reads: "The school conveyed traditional Jewish values, together with a secular education. It was a model for Modern Orthodox schools."
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