David Kaufmann

David Kaufmann (7 June 1852 – 6 July 1899) (Hebrew: דוד קויפמן) was a Jewish-Austrian scholar born at Kojetín, Moravia (now in the Czech Republic). From 1861 to 1867, he attended the gymnasium at Kroměříž, Moravia, where he studied the Bible and Talmud with Jacob Brüll, rabbi of Kojetín, and with the latter's son Nehemiah. Kaufmann was born to a father who managed a farm. He received a Jewish education as a young boy, then went to piarist school to complete his primary education. In 1867, he went to the Jewish Theological Seminary at Breslau, where he studied for ten years, while simultaneously taking courses at the University of Breslau. In the summer of 1874, he received his Ph.D. from the University of Leipzig; and on 29 January 1877, he was ordained rabbi. In the latter year, he declined the offer of a professorship at the Jewish Theological Seminary, preferring to accept instead the chairs of history, philosophy of religion, and homiletics at the newly founded Rabbinical Seminary of Budapest, which he continued to hold till his death. He also taught Greek and German in the preparatory school of the same institution, carrying on this work in the Hungarian language, which he had rapidly mastered. As librarian of the seminary, he acquired the large library of Lelio della Torre of Padua, which made the seminary one of the most valuable Hebrew libraries of Europe. As a teacher, Kaufmann was highly successful; and his relation to his students was that of a friendly adviser.