Biography
Jacob studied in the Rabbinical Seminary and University of his native Breslau (now Wrocław, Poland). He served as a rabbi between the years 1891-1929 until he retired to Hamburg to concentrate on his exegetical work.
Already in his student years he was active in the fight against antisemitism, he founded a Jewish student's society that introduced fencing duels as a method of defending the honor of Judaism when it was degraded by antisemitic students. He was also an active author and orator in the fight against German antisemitism in the years following World War I. He opposed Zionism not only because of his belief in a Jewish-German synthesis, but also because he saw in Zionism a complete secularization of Judaism and a basis for Jewish atheism.
Read more about this topic: Benno Jacob
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