Religionיצחק היינמן

Isaac Heinemann

Isaac Heinemann was a rabbinical scholar and professor of classical and Hellenistic literature and philology who received the Israel Prize for Jewish studies in 1955.

1876 to 1957Study of Hellenistic literatureGerman translation of PhiloThe Methods of the AggadahIsrael Prize for Jewish studies

Born: 5 June 1876, Frankfurt
Died: 29 July 1957, Jerusalem
Occupation: rabbi, university teacher, literary theorist, classical philologist

Isaac Heinemann was born in 1876 in Frankfurt

Heinemann was born in Frankfurt, Germany, in 1876. As a young man he studied with Rabbi Marcus Horovitz alongside secular studies.

He studied at the universities of Strasbourg, Göttingen and Berlin, and in Berlin he also attended the rabbinical seminary. He received ordination in 1897.

From 1900 to 1939 he edited a monthly journal on Jewish history and Jewish studies. He taught at the rabbinical seminary in Breslau from 1919 to 1938 and became a professor at the University of Breslau in 1930.

In 1939 he moved to Mandatory Palestine, where he taught at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and at a religious teachers seminary in Bayit VeGan. His research dealt with Hellenistic, Greek and ancient Jewish literature, and he translated the writings of Philo of Alexandria into German. He was an editor of the Biblical Encyclopedia and received the Israel Prize in 1955. He died in 1957.