Ignatz Lichtenstein (1824 – October 16, 1909), sometimes mistakenly called Isaac due to his pen name I. Lichtenstein, was a Hungarian

Hungary

Hungary , officially the Republic of Hungary , is a landlocked country in Central Europe. It is situated in the Carpathian Basin and is bordered by Slovakia to the north, Ukraine and Romania to the east, Serbia and Croatia to the south, Slovenia to the southwest and Austria to the west. The...

 Orthodox

Orthodox Judaism

Orthodox Judaism , is the approach to Judaism which adheres to the traditional interpretation and application of the laws and ethics of the Torah as legislated in the Talmudic texts by the Sanhedrin and subsequently developed and applied by the later authorities known as the Gaonim, Rishonim, and...

 rabbi

Rabbi

In Judaism, a rabbi is a teacher of Torah. This title derives from the Hebrew word רבי , meaning "My Master" , which is the way a student would address a master of Torah...

 who wrote "pamphlets advocating conversion to Christianity while still officiating as a Rabbi." Though he refused to be baptized

Baptism

In Christianity, baptism is for the majority the rite of admission , almost invariably with the use of water, into the Christian Church generally and also membership of a particular church tradition...

 into the Christian

Christian

A Christian is a person who adheres to Christianity, an Abrahamic, monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth as recorded in the Canonical gospels and the letters of the New Testament...

 faith his whole life, he ultimately resigned his rabbinate in 1892. A biography of him appeared in the Methodist Episcopal missionary magazine The Gospel in All Lands in 1894. The Jewish historian Gotthard Deutsch, an editor of the Jewish Encyclopedia

Jewish Encyclopedia

The Jewish Encyclopedia is an encyclopedia originally published in New York between 1901 and 1906 by Funk and Wagnalls. It contained over 15,000 articles in 12 volumes on the history and then-current state of Judaism and the Jews as of 1901...

, in an essay published 3 February 1916, mentions him in the course of refuting a claim by the Chief Rabbi of London

London

London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...

 that no rabbi had ever become a convert to Christianity

Christianity

Christianity is a monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus as presented in canonical gospels and other New Testament writings...

. Followers of Messianic Judaism

Messianic Judaism

Messianic Judaism is a syncretic religious movement that arose in the 1960s and 70s. It blends evangelical Christian theology with elements of Jewish terminology and ritual....

, considered by most Christians and Jews to be a form of Christianity, later mention him as an example of a turn of the 19th century "Jewish believer in Jesus." Speaking of his first contact with the gospel, he said: "I looked for thorns and gathered roses."

External links

• Online biography
• Introduction to The Collected Writings of Rabbi Isaac Lichtenstein
• English and German works (11) as PDF in the Remnant Repository of Vine of David
• The biography of Isaac Lichtenstien on Messianic Judaism Wiki.