Anton Margaritha
Anton Margaritha (also known as Antony Margaritha, Anthony Margaritha, Antonius Margarita, Antonius Margaritha) (born ca. 1500) was a sixteenth-century Jewish Hebraist and convert to Christianity. He was a possible source for some of Martin Luther's conception of Judaism. Biography. Anton Margaritha's father, Jacob Margolioth, was a Rabbi in Ratisbon, Germany. Anton converted in 1522, being baptized at Wasserburg am Inn, and later became a Lutheran. He suffered imprisonment and then expulsion from Augsburg due to complaints from the Jewish community there and action by Charles V. Anton Margaritha was a teacher of Hebrew at Augsburg , Meissen, Zell, Leipzig and from 1537 until his death at the University of Vienna. He published the "Psalms" and through in Hebrew in Leipzig (1533). He is best known for the 1530 book "Der gantze Jüdisch Glaub" ("The Whole Jewish Belief"). The 1906 "Jewish Encyclopedia" commented: He had a public debate in the same year with Josel of Rosheim before Charles V and his court at Augsburg. The dispute terminated in a decisive victory for Josel who obtained Margaritha's expulsion from the realm. Despite this legal decision, this work would be repeatedly reprinted and cited by anti-semites over  the coming centuries. Martin Luther read "Der Gantze Jüdische Glaube" in 1539 before writing his own anti-semitic tract "On the Jews and Their Lies" in 1543. The book was reprinted in 1705 and was cited in "Synagoga Judaica" (1603) by Johannes Buxtorf.