Landesrabbiner - in The 19th Century

In The 19th Century

By the 19th century, only some of the small states of Germany still had a Landesrabbiner, namely, Mecklenburg-Schwerin, Mecklenburg-Strelitz, Oldenburg, Birkenfeld, Saxe-Meiningen, Anhalt, Brunswick, and Schwarzburg-Sondershausen. Prussia, which always proclaimed the principle of non-interference in internal Jewish affairs, retained the office in some of the provinces annexed in 1866, as in the 3 districts of Hanover and in the province of Hesse-Nassau (Cassel). The office of Landesrabbiner for the province of Brandenburg, which existed in Berlin and in Frankfort-on-the-Oder, survived, as in other countries, up to the end of the 18th century by virtue of the rabbi's capacity as civil judge. The last one to hold the title was Hirschel Lewin, while his successor, Simon Mayer Weyl (d. 1828), held the title of "Viceoberlandesrabbiner". As an exceptional favor the government in 1849 gave to Gedaliah Tiktin of Breslau the title of Landesrabbiner, which was interpreted as a manifestation of the government in favor of Orthodoxy and as a disapproval of the Reform movement (L. Geiger, "Abraham Geiger's Leben in Briefen", pp. 113 et seq., Berlin, 1878).

In Austria Samson Hirsch held the office for the province of Moravia from 1847 to 1851. He was elected according to the complicated method prescribed in the law issued by Maria Theresa. At the time of his resignation the legal position of the Jewish communities was in a state of chaos owing to the events of 1848, which had played havoc with the principles on which the legislation rested. The government then appointed as substitute Abraham Placzek of Boskowitz, who in his last years had his son Baruch Placzek of Brünn appointed as his assistant. An attempt made by Baron Moritz Königswarter, who was a member of the House of Lords, to introduce into the law of 1890 regulating the legal status of the Austrian Jewish congregations a clause reestablishing the office of Landesrabbiner of Moravia was defeated in the lower house of the Reichsrath (Löw, "Das Mährische Landesrabbinat", in "Gesammelte Schriften", ii. 215–218, Szegedin, 1890; D'Elvert, "Zur Gesch. der Juden in Mähren und Oesterreich. Schlesien", pp. 209–211, Brünn, 1895; Willibald Müller, "Beiträge zur Geschichte der Mährischen Judenschaft", pp. 157–165, Olmütz, 1903). Baruch Placzek is, however, officially addressed by the government authorities as "Landesrabbiner"; he recently appointed Solomon Funk, rabbi of Boskowitz, as his substitute, an appointment which the government confirmed ("Oesterr. Wochenschrift", 1904, p. 190). The office existed also in Siebenbürgen early in the 19th century.

A similar institution is that of Chief Rabbi of the United Hebrew Congregations of the British Empire, which, however, rests exclusively on voluntary acknowledgement on the part of the congregations, and does not extend over whole groups of congregations like the Portuguese, the Reform, and the Polish organizations. The office of the Grand Rabbin du Consistoire Central in France is also of similar nature, but differs in that the chief rabbi acts merely in his capacity as member of the consistory, and not as hierarchic chief.