Samson Raphael Hirsch - Works and Activism

Works and Activism

Other works (besides the ones mentioned above) were:

• Pamphlet: "Jüdische Anmerkungen zu den Bemerkungen eines Protestanten" (anon.), Emden, 1841 (response to a provocative and antisemitic pamphlet by an anonymous Protestant);
• Pamphlet: "Die Religion im Bunde mit dem Fortschritt (anon.), Frankfurt am Main, 1854 (response to provocations from the side of the Reform-dominated "Main Community");
• "Uebersetzung und Erklärung des Pentateuchs,", 5 volumes 1867-78 (Hirsch's innovative and influential Torah commentary, see below);
• Pamphlets during the Secession Debate:
  • "Das Princip der Gewissensfreiheit," 1874;
  • "Der Austritt aus der Gemeinde," 1876
• "Uebersetzung und Erklärung der Psalmen", 1882 (Hirsch's commentary on the book of Psalms);
• "Ueber die Beziehungen des Talmuds zum Judenthum", 1884 (a defense of Talmudic literature against anti-Semitic slanders in Russia)

He left in manuscript at the time of his death a translation and explanation of the prayer-book which was subsequently published. The publication, in several volumes, of his collected writings (Gesammelte Schriften or Nachalath Zwi) was begun in 1902.

Most of Hirsch's writings have been translated into English and Hebrew by his descendants, starting with "Horeb" in the 1950s (by Dayan Isidore Grunfeld of London) and his Torah commentary in the 1960s (by his grandson Isaac Levi, also of London). The bulk of his Collected Writings, that had previously been published in German in 1902-12 under the title Nachalath Zwi, were translated between 1984 and 2012 in memory of his grandson Joseph Breuer.