Jacob Itzhak Niemirower
Encyclopedia
Rabbi Dr. Jacob Itzhak Niemirower (Romanian
: Iacob Isaac Niemirower, born March 1, 1872 in Lemberg
, then in the Austro-Hungarian Empire, now Lviv
, Ukraina - died November 18, 1939 in Bucharest
, Romania
) was a Romanian Modern Reform
rabbi
, close to reformistic trends in the Western European Judaism, theologist, philosopher and historian. Served as the first Chief Rabbi of Romanian Jewry between 1921–1939, and was a member of the Romanian Senate from 1927 and until his death. An ardent supporter of Zionism
and a courageous fighter against Antisemitism, Dr. Niemirower defended the civil and human rights of Romanian Jews and led them on the path towards modernization of community life, in the spirit of what he called Cultural Judaism
. This meant adhering to Jewish tradition while remaining open to the Romanian language and culture and to universal influences.
n administration in the frame of Austro-Hungarian empire, now in Ukraine. His father, Nahum Niemirower, was a Jewish trader. The family moved later to Iaşi
, the capital of the Moldova
, one the main regions of the Romanian Kingdom. He received his first lessons of Torah
from his paternal grandfather, then from the melamed
(Jewish teacher) Mendel Barasch. From them he acquired a good knowledge about the hassidic teachings . Later Jacob became the pupil of the famous rabbi and dayan from Lemberg, Rabbi Isaak Aharon Ettinger.
In 1890 Niemirower went to study in Berlin, where he became acquainted with the Haskalah
and with the Western philosophy. There met the German philosopher and judaist
Moritz Lazarus
who became one of his best friends and exercised a great influence on his spirit. Niemirower studied at the Neo-Orthodox Theological Rabbinical Seminary
of Berlin, and had as teacher one of its founders, rabbi Azriel Hildesheimer
, ideologist of the Modern Jewish Orthodoxy. As demanded by the curriculum
, he made parallel university secular studies, of philosophy, history and Oriental studies
in Berlin, and then in 1895 he got the title of doctor in philosophy with "Magna cum laude at the University of Bern, in Switzerland
. His PhD thesis debated about the reciprocal relations between the free will
, the conscience
, the reward and the punishment.
At the end of the theological studies he got from the rabbi Ernst Abraham Biberfeld the licence of Orthodox rabbi. After some sources he got a licence of rabbi also from the rabbi Michael (or maybe Jacob) Hamburger from Mecklenburg-Strelitz
, who was of more Reformistic orientation.
) at a reform synagogue, Beit Yaakov, known, after the name of its donor, "Jacob Neuschotz Temple".
Due to his growing prestige as more open-minded modern rabbi, but also loyal to the Jewish tradition, the young dr.Niemirower won the hearts of many of the local Jews and succeeded to be elected in 1908 as chief rabbi of the important community of the Moldavian centre.
During those years he was very active in supporting the new created Zionist movement: in 1897 - 1898 renewed the Zionist association "Oholey Shem" (God's Tents - name taken from the Bible
who functioned in the past under the leadership of Dr. Karpel Lippe. He took also part to the editing of several Zionist gazettes e.g. "Răsăritul" (in Romanian - " The Sunrise" or "the East"). Himself went to Zionist Congresses, in 1905 and 1908.
On these occasion opposed the proposals of rabbi Yitzchak Yaacov Reines
to choose the German language
as national language
of the Jewish people and insisted on the primacy of the Hebrew language
. He was also one of the opponents of the Uganda plan which examined the possibity of creating a Jewish national territory in East Africa, as a definite or temporary alternative to the historical Palestine
. In 1908 Niemirower launched the term of "synthetic Zionism", which, in his view, had to integrate the political Zionism - the line of Theodor Herzl
- with the practical Zionism - that of the resettlement in Palestine, in the tradition of the Hibat Zion movements from Eastern Europe.
Rabbi Niemirower was one of the most enthusiastic supporters of the modern Jewish education system which tried to integrate the study of judaism and Hebrew language with the secular studies, including country's vernacular.
In 1906 Dr.Niemirower was among the founders of the Cultural Society "Toynbee Hall
" in Iaşi. That was a kind of Jewish popular university under Zionist inspiration, which had the cooperation of a lot of intellectuals and celebrities from Romania and abroad. There lectured during ten years Jewish personalities like Bernard Lazare
, Nachum Sokolov or Sholem Aleichem who delighted the public with lectures from his stories and novels in Yiddish.
The rabbi Niemirower was also very active in the B'nai B'rith
organization and became its leader, first in Iaşi and later in whole Romania.
In 1911, despite being Ashkenazi, dr Niemirower was invited by the old Sefardi Jewish
community of Bucharest to be its rabbi.
He functioned also as the rabbi of the Bucharest garrison and as examiner of the new Hebrew language teachers, also was nominated by the Romanian Public Instruction Ministry
as the Jewish representative in the Committee for Walfare Affairs presided by the Queen Maria
. As speaker of the Jewish minority in Romania rabbi Niemirower took part to the Paris Peace Conference, 1919
together with dr Wilhelm Filderman
, the leader and founder of the Union of the Native Jews, who became his close partner in the defense of the Romanian Jews rights.
The next years he had the satisfaction to be witness to the recognition by the Romanian authorities of the civil rights of all Jews in the recently reunited great Romanian state.
After the failure of the effort of the more traditionalist orthodox rabbi Haim Schor to arrive to the leadership position in Bucharest, in 1921 Dr. Jacob Itzhak Niemirower
was elected as Grand Rabbi of the Old Kingdom Jewry (that is - of the Jews of Moldavia and Walachia), then as Chief Rabbi, a new office created by the community of Bucharest.
In 1936 he was reconfirmed as Chief Rabbi of the Federation of Jewish Communities in all Romania.
Thus, after intensive efforts, he succeeded to achieve the centralization and the recognition by the authorities of the organization of the "Mosaic cult" communities of the Romanian Jews, valid till now. Factually, he united under his leadership all the Jewish communities in Romania, from the traditionalist Orthodox to the modern Orthodox, called till the Communist era "Jewish of Western rite" and the Neologue (Conservative - like) Jews of Transylvania. He won the collaboration of the Gaon Rabbi Bezalel Shafran and other Jewish Orthodox rabbinical authorities in order to preclude such a scission as had occurred in Hungary and Transylvania between the Orthodox and the Modernists (who went on the path of the "Neologue" reform) and to preserve the modernizing trends within the frame of the Orthodox tradition (somehow similarly to the French Consistorial Judaism
and the British modern Orthodox Judaism under the leadership of Nathan Marcus Adler
)
In this spirit Niemirower led to the foundation in 1936 of the Central Council of the Romanian Jewry which comprised personalities with a wide range of opinions, as the adepts of the "civil assimilation" trend led by dr Wilhelm Filderman from the Union of the Native Jews, and also their Zionist rivals led by Avraham Leib Zissu.
Dr. Niemirower's main residence was the Choral Temple (Choral Synagogue)
of Bucharest where the intellectual and religious
modern Orthodox elite of the Romanian Jews created a kind of Jewish Academy - the Cultural Institute of the Choral Temple.
In his activity in Bucharest Niemirower was assisted by personalities as dr.Filderman, the bankier Ely Berkowitz, the rabbis Meyr Moritz Beck and dr.Meyer Abraham Halevy.
The fundamental concept which guided Niemirower's work was a "cultural judaism" (constituted mainly by traditional, European, liberal and Zionist elements), based on ideas taken from his friend, the philosopher Moritz Lazarus from Germany, with adaptations to the local conditions, and combined with influences from Ahad Ha'am, the father of the "cultural Zionism" and from the historian Simon Dubnov, ideologue of the Jewish "spiritual nation".
The antique model was, in his eyes, Yohanan Ben Zakai, the founder of the Academy in Yavne
, after the destruction of the Second Temple
(70 a.Ch). Niemirower dreamt about the foundation of a new Yavneist Academy in the Holy Land
, to which should have participate many spiritual personalities of the world Jewry.
Antisemitism in his country and in Europe, in 1938 rabbi Niemirower visited Palestine in order to check, the possibilities of a mass emigration of the Jews from Romania. Such plans became soon impossible to be translated to reality because hostile circumstances. The British government blocked in that period all major action in this direction and in September 1939 broke the Second World War.
On November 18, 1939 Jacob Itzhak Niemirower died in Bucharest. He was buried in the Old Jewish Orthodox cemetery of Bucharest. In his place was elected as chief rabbi of Romania (Rav Kolel) the young rabbi dr Alexandru Şafran
, already a prestigious scholar, the son of the rabbi Bezalel Şafran from Bacău
. Both for Rabbi Alexandru Şafran, and for his successor, Rabbi Moses Rosen
who became chief rabbi during the Communist regime, the figure and the activity of Niemirower were a source of inspiration.
Here is a selection of his books:
publishing house, Iaşi
the article:
(Homage to Spinoza from the side of Non-Spinozist - in a publication at the anniversary of 300 to the birthday of the philosopher, 1933)
Romanian language
Romanian Romanian Romanian (or Daco-Romanian; obsolete spellings Rumanian, Roumanian; self-designation: română, limba română ("the Romanian language") or românește (lit. "in Romanian") is a Romance language spoken by around 24 to 28 million people, primarily in Romania and Moldova...
: Iacob Isaac Niemirower, born March 1, 1872 in Lemberg
Lviv
Lviv is a city in western Ukraine. The city is regarded as one of the main cultural centres of today's Ukraine and historically has also been a major Polish and Jewish cultural center, as Poles and Jews were the two main ethnicities of the city until the outbreak of World War II and the following...
, then in the Austro-Hungarian Empire, now Lviv
Lviv
Lviv is a city in western Ukraine. The city is regarded as one of the main cultural centres of today's Ukraine and historically has also been a major Polish and Jewish cultural center, as Poles and Jews were the two main ethnicities of the city until the outbreak of World War II and the following...
, Ukraina - died November 18, 1939 in Bucharest
Bucharest
Bucharest is the capital municipality, cultural, industrial, and financial centre of Romania. It is the largest city in Romania, located in the southeast of the country, at , and lies on the banks of the Dâmbovița River....
, Romania
Romania
Romania is a country located at the crossroads of Central and Southeastern Europe, on the Lower Danube, within and outside the Carpathian arch, bordering on the Black Sea...
) was a Romanian Modern Reform
Reform movement in Judaism
The Reform movement in Judaism, originally named Reformed Society of Israelites, for Promoting true Principles of Judaism, according to its Purity and Spirit, is a historic and on-going religious and social movement that originated simultaneously in the early nineteenth century in the United States...
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...
, close to reformistic trends in the Western European Judaism, theologist, philosopher and historian. Served as the first Chief Rabbi of Romanian Jewry between 1921–1939, and was a member of the Romanian Senate from 1927 and until his death. An ardent supporter of Zionism
Zionism
Zionism is a Jewish political movement that, in its broadest sense, has supported the self-determination of the Jewish people in a sovereign Jewish national homeland. Since the establishment of the State of Israel, the Zionist movement continues primarily to advocate on behalf of the Jewish state...
and a courageous fighter against Antisemitism, Dr. Niemirower defended the civil and human rights of Romanian Jews and led them on the path towards modernization of community life, in the spirit of what he called Cultural Judaism
Cultural Judaism
Cultural Judaism, often confused with Secular Judaism, is a stream of Judaism that encourages individual thought and understanding in Judaism. Its relation to Judaism is through the history, culture, civilization, ethical values and shared experiences of the Jewish people...
. This meant adhering to Jewish tradition while remaining open to the Romanian language and culture and to universal influences.
Childhood and youth
Iacob Itzhak Niemirower was born on March 1, 1872, in the Galitzian town of Lemberg, or Lviv,then under AustriaAustria
Austria , officially the Republic of Austria , is a landlocked country of roughly 8.4 million people in Central Europe. It is bordered by the Czech Republic and Germany to the north, Slovakia and Hungary to the east, Slovenia and Italy to the south, and Switzerland and Liechtenstein to the...
n administration in the frame of Austro-Hungarian empire, now in Ukraine. His father, Nahum Niemirower, was a Jewish trader. The family moved later to Iaşi
Iasi
Iași is the second most populous city and a municipality in Romania. Located in the historical Moldavia region, Iași has traditionally been one of the leading centres of Romanian social, cultural, academic and artistic life...
, the capital of the Moldova
Moldova
Moldova , officially the Republic of Moldova is a landlocked state in Eastern Europe, located between Romania to the West and Ukraine to the North, East and South. It declared itself an independent state with the same boundaries as the preceding Moldavian Soviet Socialist Republic in 1991, as part...
, one the main regions of the Romanian Kingdom. He received his first lessons of Torah
Torah
Torah- A scroll containing the first five books of the BibleThe Torah , is name given by Jews to the first five books of the bible—Genesis , Exodus , Leviticus , Numbers and Deuteronomy Torah- A scroll containing the first five books of the BibleThe Torah , is name given by Jews to the first five...
from his paternal grandfather, then from the melamed
Melamed
See also:Melamed Melamed, Melammed is a term which in Biblical times denoted a religious teacher or instructor in general , but which in the Talmudic period was applied especially to a teacher of children, and was almost invariably followed by the word "tinokot"...
(Jewish teacher) Mendel Barasch. From them he acquired a good knowledge about the hassidic teachings . Later Jacob became the pupil of the famous rabbi and dayan from Lemberg, Rabbi Isaak Aharon Ettinger.
In 1890 Niemirower went to study in Berlin, where he became acquainted with the Haskalah
Haskalah
Haskalah , the Jewish Enlightenment, was a movement among European Jews in the 18th–19th centuries that advocated adopting enlightenment values, pressing for better integration into European society, and increasing education in secular studies, Hebrew language, and Jewish history...
and with the Western philosophy. There met the German philosopher and judaist
Moritz Lazarus
Moritz Lazarus
Moritz Lazarus , born at Filehne, in the Prussian province of Posen, was a German philosopher, psychologist, and a vocal opponent of the anti-Semitism of his time.- Life and education :...
who became one of his best friends and exercised a great influence on his spirit. Niemirower studied at the Neo-Orthodox Theological Rabbinical Seminary
Hildesheimer Rabbinical Seminary
The Hildesheimer Rabbinical Seminary was founded in Berlin on 22 October 1873 by Rabbi Dr. Azriel Hildesheimer for the training of rabbis in the tradition of Orthodox Judaism.-History:...
of Berlin, and had as teacher one of its founders, rabbi Azriel Hildesheimer
Azriel Hildesheimer
Esriel Hildesheimer was a German rabbi and leader of Orthodox Judaism. He is regarded as a pioneering modernizer of Orthodox Judaism in Germany and as a founder of Modern Orthodox Judaism.-Biography:...
, ideologist of the Modern Jewish Orthodoxy. As demanded by the curriculum
Curriculum
See also Syllabus.In formal education, a curriculum is the set of courses, and their content, offered at a school or university. As an idea, curriculum stems from the Latin word for race course, referring to the course of deeds and experiences through which children grow to become mature adults...
, he made parallel university secular studies, of philosophy, history and Oriental studies
Oriental studies
Oriental studies is the academic field of study that embraces Near Eastern and Far Eastern societies and cultures, languages, peoples, history and archaeology; in recent years the subject has often been turned into the newer terms of Asian studies and Middle Eastern studies...
in Berlin, and then in 1895 he got the title of doctor in philosophy with "Magna cum laude at the University of Bern, in Switzerland
Switzerland
Switzerland name of one of the Swiss cantons. ; ; ; or ), in its full name the Swiss Confederation , is a federal republic consisting of 26 cantons, with Bern as the seat of the federal authorities. The country is situated in Western Europe,Or Central Europe depending on the definition....
. His PhD thesis debated about the reciprocal relations between the free will
Free will
"To make my own decisions whether I am successful or not due to uncontrollable forces" -Troy MorrisonA pragmatic definition of free willFree will is the ability of agents to make choices free from certain kinds of constraints. The existence of free will and its exact nature and definition have long...
, the conscience
Conscience
Conscience is an aptitude, faculty, intuition or judgment of the intellect that distinguishes right from wrong. Moral judgement may derive from values or norms...
, the reward and the punishment.
At the end of the theological studies he got from the rabbi Ernst Abraham Biberfeld the licence of Orthodox rabbi. After some sources he got a licence of rabbi also from the rabbi Michael (or maybe Jacob) Hamburger from Mecklenburg-Strelitz
Mecklenburg-Strelitz
Mecklenburg-Strelitz was a duchy and later grand duchy in northern Germany, consisting of the eastern fifth of the historic Mecklenburg region, roughly corresponding with the present-day Mecklenburg-Strelitz district , and the western exclave of the former Bishopric of Ratzeburg in modern...
, who was of more Reformistic orientation.
His activity in Iaşi: tradition, modernity and Zionism
On his coming back to Iaşi in 1896 saw himself confronted with the hostility of the more traditionalistic and Hassidic circles who regarded him as a kind of "Reform" rabbi; he found his first job as rabbi and preacher (darshanDarshan
or Darshan is a Sanskrit term meaning "sight" , vision, apparition, or glimpse. It is most commonly used for "visions of the divine" in Hindu worship, e.g. of a deity , or a very holy person or artifact...
) at a reform synagogue, Beit Yaakov, known, after the name of its donor, "Jacob Neuschotz Temple".
Due to his growing prestige as more open-minded modern rabbi, but also loyal to the Jewish tradition, the young dr.Niemirower won the hearts of many of the local Jews and succeeded to be elected in 1908 as chief rabbi of the important community of the Moldavian centre.
During those years he was very active in supporting the new created Zionist movement: in 1897 - 1898 renewed the Zionist association "Oholey Shem" (God's Tents - name taken from the Bible
Hebrew Bible
The Hebrew Bible is a term used by biblical scholars outside of Judaism to refer to the Tanakh , a canonical collection of Jewish texts, and the common textual antecedent of the several canonical editions of the Christian Old Testament...
who functioned in the past under the leadership of Dr. Karpel Lippe. He took also part to the editing of several Zionist gazettes e.g. "Răsăritul" (in Romanian - " The Sunrise" or "the East"). Himself went to Zionist Congresses, in 1905 and 1908.
On these occasion opposed the proposals of rabbi Yitzchak Yaacov Reines
Yitzchak Yaacov Reines
Yitzchak Yaacov Reines יצחק יעקב ריינס , was a Lithuanian Orthodox rabbi and the founder of the Mizrachi Religious Zionist Movement.-Life:...
to choose the German language
German language
German is a West Germanic language, related to and classified alongside English and Dutch. With an estimated 90 – 98 million native speakers, German is one of the world's major languages and is the most widely-spoken first language in the European Union....
as national language
National language
A national language is a language which has some connection—de facto or de jure—with a people and perhaps by extension the territory they occupy. The term is used variously. A national language may for instance represent the national identity of a nation or country...
of the Jewish people and insisted on the primacy of the Hebrew language
Hebrew language
Hebrew is a Semitic language of the Afroasiatic language family. Culturally, is it considered by Jews and other religious groups as the language of the Jewish people, though other Jewish languages had originated among diaspora Jews, and the Hebrew language is also used by non-Jewish groups, such...
. He was also one of the opponents of the Uganda plan which examined the possibity of creating a Jewish national territory in East Africa, as a definite or temporary alternative to the historical Palestine
Palestine
Palestine is a conventional name, among others, used to describe the geographic region between the Mediterranean Sea and the Jordan River, and various adjoining lands....
. In 1908 Niemirower launched the term of "synthetic Zionism", which, in his view, had to integrate the political Zionism - the line of Theodor Herzl
Theodor Herzl
Theodor Herzl , born Benjamin Ze’ev Herzl was an Ashkenazi Jew Austro-Hungarian journalist and the father of modern political Zionism and in effect the State of Israel.-Early life:...
- with the practical Zionism - that of the resettlement in Palestine, in the tradition of the Hibat Zion movements from Eastern Europe.
Rabbi Niemirower was one of the most enthusiastic supporters of the modern Jewish education system which tried to integrate the study of judaism and Hebrew language with the secular studies, including country's vernacular.
In 1906 Dr.Niemirower was among the founders of the Cultural Society "Toynbee Hall
Toynbee Hall
Toynbee Hall is a building in Tower Hamlets, East London which is the home of a charity working to bridge the gap between people of all social and financial backgrounds, with a focus on eradicating poverty and promoting social inclusion....
" in Iaşi. That was a kind of Jewish popular university under Zionist inspiration, which had the cooperation of a lot of intellectuals and celebrities from Romania and abroad. There lectured during ten years Jewish personalities like Bernard Lazare
Bernard Lazare
Bernard Lazare was a French Jewish literary critic, political journalist, polemicist, and anarchist. He was also among the first Dreyfusards.-Youth:...
, Nachum Sokolov or Sholem Aleichem who delighted the public with lectures from his stories and novels in Yiddish.
The rabbi Niemirower was also very active in the B'nai B'rith
B'nai B'rith
B'nai B'rith International |Covenant]]" is the oldest continually operating Jewish service organization in the world. It was initially founded as the Independent Order of B'nai B'rith in New York City, on , 1843, by Henry Jones and 11 others....
organization and became its leader, first in Iaşi and later in whole Romania.
His activity in Bucharest: the aspiration to a "New Yavne"
Sephardi Jews
Sephardi Jews is a general term referring to the descendants of the Jews who lived in the Iberian Peninsula before their expulsion in the Spanish Inquisition. It can also refer to those who use a Sephardic style of liturgy or would otherwise define themselves in terms of the Jewish customs and...
community of Bucharest to be its rabbi.
He functioned also as the rabbi of the Bucharest garrison and as examiner of the new Hebrew language teachers, also was nominated by the Romanian Public Instruction Ministry
as the Jewish representative in the Committee for Walfare Affairs presided by the Queen Maria
Maria of Romania
Maria of Yugoslavia was the Queen consort of King Alexander I of Yugoslavia. She was originally a princess of Romania.-Early life:She was born in Gotha, Thuringia, in Germany, during the reigns of her maternal grandfather Alfred, Duke of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, and her grand-uncle King Carol I of...
. As speaker of the Jewish minority in Romania rabbi Niemirower took part to the Paris Peace Conference, 1919
Paris Peace Conference, 1919
The Paris Peace Conference was the meeting of the Allied victors following the end of World War I to set the peace terms for the defeated Central Powers following the armistices of 1918. It took place in Paris in 1919 and involved diplomats from more than 32 countries and nationalities...
together with dr Wilhelm Filderman
Wilhelm Filderman
Wilhelm Filderman was a leader of the Romanian-Jewish community between the two wars and a representative of the Jews in the Romanian parliament....
, the leader and founder of the Union of the Native Jews, who became his close partner in the defense of the Romanian Jews rights.
The next years he had the satisfaction to be witness to the recognition by the Romanian authorities of the civil rights of all Jews in the recently reunited great Romanian state.
After the failure of the effort of the more traditionalist orthodox rabbi Haim Schor to arrive to the leadership position in Bucharest, in 1921 Dr. Jacob Itzhak Niemirower
was elected as Grand Rabbi of the Old Kingdom Jewry (that is - of the Jews of Moldavia and Walachia), then as Chief Rabbi, a new office created by the community of Bucharest.
In 1936 he was reconfirmed as Chief Rabbi of the Federation of Jewish Communities in all Romania.
Thus, after intensive efforts, he succeeded to achieve the centralization and the recognition by the authorities of the organization of the "Mosaic cult" communities of the Romanian Jews, valid till now. Factually, he united under his leadership all the Jewish communities in Romania, from the traditionalist Orthodox to the modern Orthodox, called till the Communist era "Jewish of Western rite" and the Neologue (Conservative - like) Jews of Transylvania. He won the collaboration of the Gaon Rabbi Bezalel Shafran and other Jewish Orthodox rabbinical authorities in order to preclude such a scission as had occurred in Hungary and Transylvania between the Orthodox and the Modernists (who went on the path of the "Neologue" reform) and to preserve the modernizing trends within the frame of the Orthodox tradition (somehow similarly to the French Consistorial Judaism
Consistory (Judaism)
In Jewish usage, a consistory is a body governing the Jewish congregations of a province or of a country; also the district administered by the consistory...
and the British modern Orthodox Judaism under the leadership of Nathan Marcus Adler
Nathan Marcus Adler
Rabbi Nathan Marcus Adler was the Orthodox Chief Rabbi of the British Empire from 1845 until his death, probably the most prominent 19th century rabbi in the English-speaking world.-Life:...
)
In this spirit Niemirower led to the foundation in 1936 of the Central Council of the Romanian Jewry which comprised personalities with a wide range of opinions, as the adepts of the "civil assimilation" trend led by dr Wilhelm Filderman from the Union of the Native Jews, and also their Zionist rivals led by Avraham Leib Zissu.
Dr. Niemirower's main residence was the Choral Temple (Choral Synagogue)
Templul Coral
The Choral Temple is a synagogue located in Bucharest, Romania. It followed the plans of Vienna's Leopoldstadt-Tempelgasse Great Synagogue . It was designed by Enderle and Freiwald and built between 1857 - 1867. It was devastated by the extreme right Legionaries and then restored after World War...
of Bucharest where the intellectual and religious
modern Orthodox elite of the Romanian Jews created a kind of Jewish Academy - the Cultural Institute of the Choral Temple.
In his activity in Bucharest Niemirower was assisted by personalities as dr.Filderman, the bankier Ely Berkowitz, the rabbis Meyr Moritz Beck and dr.Meyer Abraham Halevy.
The fundamental concept which guided Niemirower's work was a "cultural judaism" (constituted mainly by traditional, European, liberal and Zionist elements), based on ideas taken from his friend, the philosopher Moritz Lazarus from Germany, with adaptations to the local conditions, and combined with influences from Ahad Ha'am, the father of the "cultural Zionism" and from the historian Simon Dubnov, ideologue of the Jewish "spiritual nation".
The antique model was, in his eyes, Yohanan Ben Zakai, the founder of the Academy in Yavne
Yavne
Yavne is a city in the Central District of Israel. According to the Israel Central Bureau of Statistics , at the end of 2009 the city had a population of 33,000.-History:...
, after the destruction of the Second Temple
Second Temple
The Jewish Second Temple was an important shrine which stood on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem between 516 BCE and 70 CE. It replaced the First Temple which was destroyed in 586 BCE, when the Jewish nation was exiled to Babylon...
(70 a.Ch). Niemirower dreamt about the foundation of a new Yavneist Academy in the Holy Land
Holy Land
The Holy Land is a term which in Judaism refers to the Kingdom of Israel as defined in the Tanakh. For Jews, the Land's identifiction of being Holy is defined in Judaism by its differentiation from other lands by virtue of the practice of Judaism often possible only in the Land of Israel...
, to which should have participate many spiritual personalities of the world Jewry.
His last years
Given the rise of the Nazi- typeNazism
Nazism, the common short form name of National Socialism was the ideology and practice of the Nazi Party and of Nazi Germany...
Antisemitism in his country and in Europe, in 1938 rabbi Niemirower visited Palestine in order to check, the possibilities of a mass emigration of the Jews from Romania. Such plans became soon impossible to be translated to reality because hostile circumstances. The British government blocked in that period all major action in this direction and in September 1939 broke the Second World War.
On November 18, 1939 Jacob Itzhak Niemirower died in Bucharest. He was buried in the Old Jewish Orthodox cemetery of Bucharest. In his place was elected as chief rabbi of Romania (Rav Kolel) the young rabbi dr Alexandru Şafran
Alexandru Safran
Alexandru Şafran was a Romanian and, after 1948, Swiss rabbi. As chief rabbi of Romania , he intervened with authorities in the fascist government of Ion Antonescu in an unusually successful attempt to save Jews during the Holocaust.-Biography:Şafran was born in Bacău, and received his doctorate...
, already a prestigious scholar, the son of the rabbi Bezalel Şafran from Bacău
Bacau
Bacău is the main city in Bacău County, Romania. It covers a land surface of 43 km², and, as of January 1, 2009, has an estimated population of 177,087. The city is situated in the historical region of Moldavia, at the foothills of the Carpathian Mountains, and on the Bistriţa River...
. Both for Rabbi Alexandru Şafran, and for his successor, Rabbi Moses Rosen
Moses Rosen
Moses Rosen was Chief Rabbi of RomanianJewry between 1948–1994 and president of the Federation of Jewish Communities of Romania between 1964-1994...
who became chief rabbi during the Communist regime, the figure and the activity of Niemirower were a source of inspiration.
His writings
Dr.Niemirower published about 650 articles in journals and reviews in German, Romanian,French, Hebrew and Yiddish languages.Here is a selection of his books:
- Zichron Nachum - sermons and conferences (1903),H. Goldner
publishing house, Iaşi
- Hassidism and Zadikism (in German -Chassidismus und Zaddikismus) (1913), Baer Publ. house, Bucharest.
- Frei und treu, Jabnehist.Essays (1914)
- Contributions à la philosophie historique juive (in French). 1914
the article:
- SpinozaBaruch SpinozaBaruch de Spinoza and later Benedict de Spinoza was a Dutch Jewish philosopher. Revealing considerable scientific aptitude, the breadth and importance of Spinoza's work was not fully realized until years after his death...
verehrung eines Nichtspinozisten In: Spinoza-Festschrift : Zum 300. Geburtstage Benedict Spinozas (1632–1932) / Herausgegeben von Siegfried Hessing. - Heidelberg : Winter, 1933: 164-166.
(Homage to Spinoza from the side of Non-Spinozist - in a publication at the anniversary of 300 to the birthday of the philosopher, 1933)
- Complete writings - Scrieri complete -in Romanian, in 4 volumes ,1918–1932
- Iudaismul - (The Judaism) - Hasefer, Bucharest, 2005
- Iudaismul - Ed Hasefer, Bucureşti, 2005
Sources
- Ion Mitican - Evreii din Tîrgul Cucului (Ed. Tehnopress, Iaşi, 2005)
- Neue Deutsche Biographie, Band 19 ,Nauwach - Pagel, S.238 Duncker und Humblot, Berlin, 1999, (Noua Biografie Germană, vol. 19. p. 238 publ. de Comitetul istoric al Academiei de Ştiinţe a Bavariei, Berlin, 1999)
- G. Wigoder - Evreii în lume, Dicţionar biografic, redacţia română - Viviane Prager- Editura Hasefer, Bucureşti, 2001 ( Romanian edition of the Dictionary of Jewish Biography, ed.Vivane Prager, Hasefer Publ.House, Bucharest.2001)