Geiger, Abraham

Rabbi, founder of Reform Judaism

Born: 24.05.1810 in Frankfurt am Main

Died: 23.10.1874 in Berlin

Geiger came from a devout Jewish family; his father was a rabbi. He and his brother Salomon Salman ben Jechiel (1792-1878) were destined to become rabbis at an early age. From 1829, he studied oriental studies, philosophy and history in Heidelberg and Bonn. The 22-year-old attracted attention with his prize-winning work: "What did Mohammed absorb from Judaism?". An expanded version of this was published as a book in 1833, and he received his doctorate from the University of Marburg in 1834. After his ordination, Geiger was elected rabbi by the Jewish community in Wiesbaden in 1832. The community comprised 49 families with 234 members. He advocated a dignified religious service, held regular sermons in German and was particularly concerned with the education of children and young people.

Geiger's work extended far beyond the Wiesbaden community. In his opinion, Judaism with its regulations and rites should be adapted to the requirements of the time. The tradition was to be systematically examined from a scientific point of view. Only that which stood up to this critical examination was to be retained. This is how the "Science of Judaism" came into being. In 1835, he founded the "Wissenschaftliche Zeitschrift für jüdische Theologie" in Wiesbaden, in which the ideas of a progressive Judaism were published. The articles met with a great response from numerous rabbinical colleagues. In August 1837, he succeeded in calling 14 rabbis to Wiesbaden for the first rabbinical assembly. At this meeting and three others (1844 in Braunschweig, 1845 in Frankfurt am Main and 1846 in Breslau), the guidelines for Reform Judaism in Germany were developed under Geiger's leadership, which met with rejection from tradition-conscious rabbis. In his writings, sermons and lectures, he gave the reform movement its foundation and objectives. Geiger left Wiesbaden in 1838. After interim stops as a rabbi in Breslau (1838-1863) and Frankfurt am Main (1863-1869), he was finally called to Berlin in 1870. There he taught from 1872-74 at the "Hochschule für die Wissenschaft des Judentums" (College for the Science of Judaism) founded by him and Moritz Lazarus in 1870, where rabbis of a liberal character were trained. It was closed by the National Socialists in the summer of 1942.