FRANKL-GRUEN, ADOLF ABRAHAM

FRANKL-GRUEN, ADOLF ABRAHAM (1847–1916), rabbi and historian in Moravia. Born in Uhersky Brod, Moravia, he officiated as rabbi of Kromeriz (Kremsier) from 1877 to 1911. Frankl-Gruen published many articles on biblical exegesis (see Gesamtindex of mgwj (1966), 18) and homiletics, and a polemic against the antisemite H.S. *Chamberlain (1901). In 1903 he completed Juedische Zeitgeschichte und Zeitgenossen, on the contemporary Jewish scene. His three-volume Geschichte der Juden in Kremsier (1896–1901) and Geschichte der Juden in Ungarisch-Brod (1905), based mainly on documents previously unpublished, remain essential texts for the student of Jewish history in Moravia. In 1889 he became involved in a *blood libel in Kromeriz when a rumor was spread before Passover that a box containing the body of a Christian girl had been sent to him by railway.

His son oscar benjamin frankl (1881–1955) studied philology at Vienna University. In 1918 he founded in Prague the German Urania Institute for adult education which he headed until 1938. He was appointed chief of the German department of the Czechoslovakian government radio and became an international authority on broadcasting. In 1939 he managed to escape to the United States through France. There he served as a researcher for Columbia University (1942–55) and was appointed lecturer at the Rand School of Social Science. His Der Jude in den deutschen Dichtungen des 15., 16., und 17. Jahrhunderts…, on the image of the Jew in German literature of the 15^th to 17^th centuries, and Friedrich Schiller in seinen Beziehungen zu den Juden und zum Judentum, on Friedrich Schiller's relations to Jews and Judaism (both published in 1905), are noteworthy.

bibliography:

H. Gold (ed.), Die Juden und Judengemeinden Maehrens… (1929), 297.