STEINHARDT, MENAHEM MENDEL BEN SIMEON

STEINHARDT, MENAHEM MENDEL BEN SIMEON (1768–1825), rabbi and author. Steinhardt, a nephew of Joseph *Steinhardt, was born in Fuerth. He published his responsa, Divrei Menaḥem (Offenbach, 1804), while he served as rabbi in Minden, and in the same year he was appointed rabbi of Hildesheim. When the consistory of the kingdom of Westphalia was set up in 1808 in Cassel by Israel *Jacobson, Steinhardt was appointed one of its members, together with Leib Meir Berlin and Simeon Isaac Kalkar. They were requested by the government to adopt and formulate the constitution and theology of Judaism on the pattern of the French *Sanhedrin established on the initiative of Napoleon. Steinhardt, like the other members of the consistory, aspired to a moderate form of Judaism, an aspiration well reflected in Divrei Menaḥem and in Divrei Iggeret (Roedelheim, 1812). The latter work was published by his friend Binyamin Ze'ev *Heidenheim, who added notes and glosses to the book. Steinhardt was the first German rabbi to omit portions from the liturgy. One of his well-known lenient rulings – permitting the use of legumes on Passover – aroused the vehement opposition of the Orthodox rabbis. He was one of the first rabbis to deliver sermons in German. In 1810 he taught Talmud at the Teachers' Training Seminary in Cassel. In 1813 he was appointed rabbi of Warburg, and in 1815 became rabbi of Paderborn, where he spent the rest of his life.

bibliography:

Graetz, Gesch, 11 (1900²), 280f., 375; Zunz, Ritus (1919²), 171; Lewin, in: mgwj, 53 (1909), 363; Lazarus, ibid., 58 (1914), 185f., 459–82, 542–61.

[Abraham David]