הרב עזריאל הילדסהיימר

Rav Azriel (Esriel) Hildesheimer (27 Iyar 5580/1820–4 Tammuz 5659/1899) was rav of Eisenstadt in Hungary, rav of the Adass Jisroel kehillah of Berlin, and the founder of the rabbinical seminary of Berlin. Born in Halberstadt to Rav Yehuda Leib, he studied as a boy at the Hasharat Zvi school — the first Ashkenazi Orthodox school to include secular subjects — and from the age of seventeen at the yeshiva of Rav Yaakov Ettlinger in Altona, where Chacham Yitzchak Bernays served him as a model of the darshan. Alongside his learning he took up classical languages, attended the University of Berlin, and earned a doctorate at Halle in 5604/1844. He married Henrietta Hirsch and returned to Halberstadt.

In 5611/1851 he was appointed rav of Eisenstadt, one of the Sheva Kehillot. There he founded a boys’ school whose lessons were given in German and joined limud kodesh to secular study, and then a yeshiva that admitted students already grounded in secular learning; from a handful at its start it grew to some 128 talmidim by 5628/1868, drawing pupils from as far as the United States. In 5629/1869 the Adass Jisroel kehillah of Berlin called him as its rav, and there he opened the Rabbiner-Seminar known by his name, together with a religious school; with the help of Meir Lehmann, editor of Der Israelit, he published works in defense of tradition.

Hildesheimer gave much of his energy to the yishuv in Eretz Yisrael. As a gabbai of Kollel Hod he advanced the plan for a self-standing Jewish quarter in Yerushalayim, and the Batei Machseh houses were built on land he helped acquire; in 5648/1888 he founded the society “Lema’an Zion” to support the parnasah of Jews in the Land, aiding families in Ramle, fishermen in Teveryah, and the settlers of Petach Tikvah through Rav Aryeh Leib Frumkin. He was niftar in Berlin and buried in the Adass Jisroel cemetery at Weissensee. A moshav, Azri’el, carries his name, as do streets in Yerushalayim, Bnei Brak, and Tel Aviv.