Meyer Kayserling

Meyer Kayserling (also Meir or Moritz, 17 June 1829 – 21 April 1905) was a German rabbi and historian.

Life

Kayserling was born in Hanover, and was the brother of writer and educator Simon Kayserling. He was educated at Halberstadt, at Nikolsburg (Moravia) where he studied under Samson Raphael Hirsch, at Prague where he studied under S.J. Rapoport, at Würzburg where he studied under Seligman Baer Bamberger, and finally at the Humboldt University of Berlin.[1] He devoted himself to history and philosophy. Encouraged in historical researches in Berlin by Leopold von Ranke, Kayserling turned his attention to the history and literature of the Jews of the Iberian Peninsula.

In 1861 the government of Aargau appointed him rabbi of the two Swiss Jewish municipalities of Endingen and Lengnau in Surbtal, an office he held until 1870. During his residence in Switzerland he argued in favor of civil equality for his coreligionists, and also maintained contacts with high-ranking Swiss politicians such as Jakob Dubs, Emil Welti, and Augustin Keller. Kayserling founded the Swiss Jewish Cultural Society (Kulturverein der Israeliten in der Schweiz) which campaigned for the civil rights of Jews in the Aargau region (achieved in 1879).[2] In the Aargau, the Jewish communities were given special exemption from a law requiring that animals had to killed by a blow to the head. Proponents of animal rights attacked this exemption for the purposes of schechita. Kayserling (1869) published a pamphlet in defence of the practice. The society for animal rights and the Jewish community reached a compromise in 1889, which required the animals to be anasthesized before schechita. Nevertheless, the practice of schechita was outlawed in Switzerland in the first popular initiative, in 1893.[3]

Bereits 1854 schrieb der Kanton Aargau die Tötung des Viehs mittels Kopfschlag gesetzlich vor. Davon ausgenommen waren jedoch die jüdischen Gemeinden von Lengnau und Endingen. Ihnen war das Schächten gestattet. In Genf fanden der «Thierschutzverein» und die Israelitische Gemeinde 1889 einen Kompromiss: Das Schlachtvieh musste beim Schächten betäubt werden.[3] Dasselbe wurde schliesslich auch in der eidgenössischen Volksinitiative verlangt.

In 1870, Kayserling accepted a call as preacher and rabbi to the Jewish community of Budapest, where he died 35 years later, aged 75.

Kayserling was a member of the Royal Academy in Madrid[citation needed] and of the Trinity Historical Society.[citation needed]

Works

Kayserling contributed to the different Jewish magazines published in Hebrew, German, English, and French; he also issued a new revised edition of Hecht's Handbuch der Israelitischen Geschichte (1874; 7th ed., 1901). From 1884 he prepared the part of the Jahresberichte der Geschichtsforschung (Berlin) which treated Jewish history. Selected works:

Reference Notes

  1. ^ Roth, Cecil (2007). "Kayserling, Meyer". In Berenbaum, Michael; Skolnik, Fred (eds.). Encyclopaedia Judaica. Vol. 12 (2nd ed.). Detroit: Macmillan Reference. p. 42-43. ISBN 978-0-02-866097-4 – via Gale Virtual Reference Library.
  2. ^ Ernst Haller, Die rechtliche Stellung der Juden im Kanton Aargau (1900), 171ff.
  3. ^ Alex Baur: "Streit ums Vieh". In: Die Weltwoche 51/09, 16 Dezember 2009.

Sources

External links

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