Eliezer Zweifel

Born in Mogilev (present-day Belarus), Eliezer Zweifel was a maskil who worked as a rabbi, teacher, and writer in Hebrew and Yiddish. He wandered throughout Eastern Europe until 1853. He then taught at the government-run rabbinical seminary in Zhitomir, whose mission was to create rabbis with a modern outlook, a mission that Zweifel himself held in skepticism. Influenced by Nachman Krochmal’s Moreh nevukhe ha-zeman, Zweifel treated Hasidim with much more respect than did other maskilim of the era; he aimed to resolve tensions among major Jewish factions.