Marcus Jastrow

Marcus Jastrow was born in Rogasen in the Posen region of Germany (today Rogoźno, Poland), a hotbed of contestation between German and Polish nationalist sentiment. Receiving both a traditional and secular education, in 1853 he received rabbinic ordination and in 1856, a doctorate of philosophy from the University of Halle. Appointed to the pulpit of the reform-minded and Polonophile Daniłowiczowska Street synagogue in Warsaw, which was then a city under Russian rule but also a vibrant center of Polish nationalist and liberationist sentiment, Jastrow delivered his sermons in Polish and introduced Polonophile programming for youth. A fervent supporter of the Polish cause, he was arrested in 1861 for anti-Russian demonstrations with Catholic and Jewish clergy in Warsaw and participated in the January Uprising of 1863. In 1866, Jastrow accepted an appointment at Philadelphia’s Congregation Rodeph Shalom. In addition to his landmark talmudic dictionary, Jastrow was an editor of the Jewish Encyclopedia and the Jewish Publication Society’s translation of the Bible, and in 1886, he cofounded the Jewish Theological Seminary of America.