David Kaufmann

David Kaufmann (1852–1899), portrait by Izidor Thein.

David Kaufmann (7 June 1852 – 6 July 1899) (Hebrew: דוד קויפמן) was a Jewish-Austrian scholar born at Kojetín, Moravia (now in the Czech Republic). From 1861 to 1867, he attended the gymnasium at Kroměříž, Moravia, where he studied the Bible and Talmud with Jacob Brüll, rabbi of Kojetín, and with the latter's son Nehemiah.

Life

Kaufmann was born to a father who managed a farm. He received a Jewish education as a young boy, then went to piarist school to complete his primary education. In 1867, he went to the Jewish Theological Seminary at Breslau, where he studied for ten years, while simultaneously taking courses at the University of Breslau. In the summer of 1874, he received his Ph.D. from the University of Leipzig; and on 29 January 1877, he was ordained rabbi. In the latter year, he declined the offer of a professorship at the Jewish Theological Seminary, preferring to accept instead the chairs of history, philosophy of religion, and homiletics at the newly founded Rabbinical Seminary of Budapest, which he continued to hold till his death. He also taught Greek and German in the preparatory school of the same institution, carrying on this work in the Hungarian language, which he had rapidly mastered.

As librarian of the seminary, he acquired the large library of Lelio della Torre of Padua, which made the seminary one of the most valuable Hebrew libraries of Europe. As a teacher, Kaufmann was highly successful; and his relation to his students was that of a friendly adviser. He maintained a lively correspondence not only with the most eminent Jewish scholars, but also with the leaders in other branches of science. Kaufmann was a corresponding member of the Royal Academy of Sciences of Madrid and a member of the executive committee of the Budapest branch of the Alliance Israélite Universelle. He died in Karlovy Vary, Bohemia, on 6 July 1899.

Works

Title page of Geschichte der Attributenlehre... by David Kaufmann (1877/1967).

Kaufmann displayed a many-sided literary activity. The bibliography of his works, which M. Brann compiled for the Gedenkbuch zur Erinnerung an David Kaufmann (ed. M. Brann and F. Rosenthal, Breslau, 1900), includes 546 items, covering nearly every branch of Jewish science. His voluminous contributions to the periodical literature of the last two decades of the 19th century show him as a finished writer both of German and of Hebrew. His first and most important works, dealing with the philosophy of religion, include:

Contributions to Jewish history

14th century hagaddah

His most important historical monographs are:

On Jewish art

Mamluk lamps in Kaufmann Haggadah

Kaufmann was the first to take up the history of art in the synagogue, challenging the prevalent view that Judaism had always been aniconic. He marshalled a large and comprehensive corpus of data in order to prove it untenable. He was the first to use the term “Jewish art” in an article published in 1878, and is regarded as the founder of the scholarly discipline of Jewish art history. His disciple Dr. Samuel Krauss said in 1901:

As late as ten years ago it would have been absurd to speak about a Jewish art. It is Kaufmann's own merit to have uncovered this art. Not only did he have to prove that such an art existed, he also had to prove that it could exist, as he showed that the idea that the prohibition of images would obstruct the development of such an art was mistaken, and even established it as an irrefutable fact that the art in wide areas was not prohibited insofar as no worship was associated with it.

The following works of his in this field may be mentioned:

Kaufmann also polemicized much on behalf of Judaism. Noteworthy among his writings along this line are:

He was also an active member of the Meḳiẓe Nirdamim, a society for the publication of old Hebrew manuscripts. Kaufmann was the possessor of a large library, which contained many valuable manuscripts (including the Kaufmann Manuscript of the Mishnah), incunabula, and first editions, and of which the Marco Mortara library, acquired by Kaufmann, formed the nucleus.

Jewish encyclopedia bibliography

An entire Kaufmann literature has arisen, of which the following works may be mentioned:

References

  1. ↑ "David Kaufmann". Posen Library of Jewish Culture & Civilization. Retrieved August 7, 2025.
  2. ↑ Miller, Michael. "Kaufmann, David". The YIVO Encyclopedia of Jews in Eastern Europe. Retrieved August 7, 2025.
  3. ↑ Kinga Frojimovics; Géza Komoróczy; Viktoria Pusztai & Andrea Strbik (1999). Jewish Budapest: Monuments, Rites, History. 208: Central European University Press. p. 597. ISBN 963-9116-37-8.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location (link)
  4. ↑ "Kaufman Library Opened in Hungarian Academy; Rare Hebrew Manuscripts". Jewish Telegraphic Agency. April 16, 1926. p. 3. Retrieved August 7, 2025.
  5. ↑ Singer, Isidore; Weisz, Max. "Kaufmann, David". Jewish Encyclopedia. Retrieved August 7, 2025.
  6. ↑ "Kaufmann, David". Jewish Virtual Library. Retrieved 2025-08-07.
  7. ↑ Dávid Kaufmann and his collections Library of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences. Original source: Dr. Samuel Krauss: David Kaufmann. Eine Biographie, p. 45. Berlin 1901 (1902). "Noch vor zehn Jahren wäre es absurd gewesen, von einer jüdischen Kunst zu sprechen. Diese Kunst entdeckt zu haben, ist Kaufmann's eigenstes Verdienst. Nicht nur mußte er beweisen, daß eine solche Kunst existire, er mußte auch beweisen, daß sie existiren könne, indem er die Meinung, als stehe das Bilderverbot der Kunstentfaltung im Judenthum im Wege, als irrig erwies, er es vielmehr als unwiderlegbare Thatsache hinstellte, daß die Kunst auf flachem Raume nie verboten war, insofern kein Götzendienst sich daran knüpfte."