The Two Doors of Sándor Scheiber
The Two Doors of Sándor Scheiber

Summary/Abstract: Hungary’s Jewish history is rich in scholar rabbis. Perhaps the first was the Moravian-born Lipót Löw (1811–1875), erudite and dignified, and considered one of the greatest Hungarian orators of all times. As a proud Hungarian Jew, Löw broke with long tradition and gave his sermons in Hungarian. He wrote extensively on Jewish history, Halachic literature and Jewish education, among other topics, and also took part in both the 1848–49 Hungarian revolution and the struggle that led to the emancipation of Hungary’s Jews in 1867. His first born son, Immanuel Löw (1854–1944), the revered rabbi of Szeged in southern Hungary – at that time a booming town with a thriving Jewish community – excelled not just as a scholar of Oriental languages and religions, but also as a botanist, with many publications gaining international recognition. Lajos Blau (1861–1936), the worldly director of the Budapest Rabbinical Seminary, professor of the Bible and the Talmud, as well as of Hebrew and Aramaic, was also a prolific scholar of Judaism, writing some 50 books and over 700 articles. The legendary rabbi of Budapest’s Great Synagogue on Dohány utca (street), Simon Hevesi (1868–1943) was a historian of philosophy and religion (and of the philosophy of religion); his books on the enigmatic Job and the prophet Jeremiah, medieval Jewish philosophy and Kant are still relevant today, a hundred years after their first publication. The renowned rabbi of Nagyvárad (Oradea, Romania, today), Lipót Kecskeméti (1865–1936) was admired unanimously by Jews and non-Jews alike (among the latter, the language-proud poet Endre Ady), and was probably the most famous orator of his age, as well as a literary scholar and historian of religion. His brother, Ármin Kecskeméti (1874–1944), the beloved rabbi of the southern Hungarian town of Makó, was an outstanding literary scholar who also ventured into intellectual, social and economic history.

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