Julius Guttmann

Julius Guttmann was born in 1880 in Hildesheim

Guttmann was born in Hildesheim, Germany, in 1880. His father, Jakob Guttmann, was the chief rabbi of Hildesheim from 1874 to 1892 and wrote on philosophy. His mother, Beate Simonsen, came from Copenhagen.

He studied at the Breslau Rabbinical Seminary and the University of Breslau. He wrote his doctoral thesis at Breslau on Kant's concept of God.

He lectured in philosophy at Breslau from 1910 to 1919. In 1919 he joined the Hochschule for the Academic Study of Judaism in Berlin, where he taught Jewish philosophy and served as its academic director. In 1933 he published his book The Philosophy of Judaism.

In 1934 he moved to the Land of Israel and became a full professor at the Hebrew University, heading its chair of Jewish philosophy. His students included Gershom Scholem, Martin Buber and Nechama Leibowitz. He held the post until his death in Jerusalem in 1950 and was buried in the Sanhedria cemetery.