Jacob Ettlinger
One of the first German rabbis with academic training, Jacob Ettlinger was born in Karlsruhe and educated at the university in Würzburg. In 1826, he served as a rabbi in the Mannheim area. Ten years later, he was appointed chief rabbi of Altona; in this capacity, he was a prominent spokesman for German neo-Ortho-doxy, a combination of adaptations to modernity, secular learning, and strict halakhic observance. He was a strong opponent of Reform Judaism; in 1844, he led a protest against the Brunswick Conference of Reform rabbis. He is known best for his work of Talmudic scholarship, Arukh la-ner. His disciples included other major German rabbis such as Samson Raphael Hirsch and Esriel Hildesheimer. (Excerpts of Ettlinger’s major works appear in this volume.)