KATZBURG, DAVID ẒEVI

KATZBURG, DAVID ẒEVI (1856–1937), talmudic scholar, author, and editor. Katzburg was born in Vác near Budapest to a rabbinic family originating in Moravia. He studied under the most distinguished rabbis of Hungary, including Hezekiah Feivel Plaut of Surány and Simḥah Bunim Sofer of Pressburg. After completing his studies he engaged in business for a short time and also served as rabbi in several communities. In 1892 he returned to Vác, and that same year he began the publication of Tel Talpiot, the first rabbinical periodical in Hungary. It was devoted chiefly to halakhah, both theoretical and practical, and among other things it clarified halakhic problems that had arisen because of contemporary conditions, such as the use of electricity on the Sabbath, machine baking of matzah, civil marriages, and problems of religion during World War i. These discussions had considerable repercussions in the rabbinical world. Tel Talpiot also included articles on homiletics, aggadah, and exegesis, as well as on communal problems. Of considerable historical importance are the discussions on Zionism among the Orthodox that arose as a result of the emergence of political Zionism in 1896 and with the first world congress of the Mizrachi in 1904. Katzburg took up a positive attitude to settlement in Ereẓ Israel. The contributors to Tel Talpiot were mostly from Hungary but also included scholars from Russia, Germany, Holland, and the United States. It appeared at first as a biweekly and after World War i as a monthly. An index to the first 45 volumes appeared in 1967.

Katzburg was the author of: Zer Ẓedek (1878), sermons on and expositions of the Bible and rabbinic dicta; Mevasser Ẓedek (1911), on Avot; Mevasser Ẓedek (1922), sermons; Iggeret Ẓ edek Olamim (1918), on socialism in the light of Torah and Judaism; Yalkut ha-Meliẓot, 2 vols. (1931–36), homilies on the Pentateuch; Raz Hadek (1938), religious philosophy; Pirḥei Kehunnah (1940), talmudic novellae; and Sheloshah Sefarim Niftaḥim (1942), on halakhah and on Zionist topics.

bibliography:

A. Katzburg (ed.), Temunat ha-Gedolim (1925); H. Brody, Festschrift… Misrachi (1927); N. Ben-Menaḥem, Sefer ha-Mizraḥi (1946); idem, Sinai, 24 (1949); N. Katzburg, Aresheth, 1 (1958), 279–98; Ẓ. Zehavi, Toledot ha-Ẓiyyonut be-Hungaryah, 1 (1966).