Meyer Israel Bresselau, Date of Birth, Place of Birth, Date of Death
TweetMeyer Israel Bresselau
German Reform leader
Date of Birth: 
Place of Birth: Hamburg, Germany
About Meyer Israel Bresselau
- Meyer Israel Bresselau (25 April 1785 – 25 December 1839) was a founding member and chairman of the Hamburg Temple, one of the first Jewish reform congregations in Germany. Bresselau earned his living as notary from 1811.
- He was among the first members of the New Israelite Temple Society, founded 1817.
- He was co-editor of the temple's prayer book Seder ha Avodah, which contained a German translation and German prayers along with the traditional Hebrew prayers and is considered the first Reform liturgy.
- It was firmly opposed by Orthodox rabbis for omissions in the prayer text.
- In defense of his work Bresselau wrote in 1819 Ueber die Gebete der Israeliten in der Landessprache ("About the Jewish Prayers in the National Language").
- The same year he wrote a polemic satire in Hebrew cherev noqemet neqam berît in defense of the position of the temple.
- An annotated translation of this work was written by Donald B.
- Rossoff as a rabbinic thesis (Hebrew Union College - Jewish Institute of Religion, 1981).
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