Kaufmann Kohler. Das Hohe Lied Übersetzt und Kritisch Neubearbeitet.

(AMERICAN-JUDAICA).

B. Westermann

New York

1878

First edition. The author’s copy, with his signature on upper cover.

Singerman 2680.

A new, American translation into German of the Song of Songs. Kaufmann Kohler (1843-1926) born in Fürth, was a student of two of the towering figures of contemporary German Orthodoxy, Jacob Ettlinger and Samson Raphael Hirsch. However Kohler adopted a radical Reform viewpoint to such a degree that that no rabbinic position was open to him. In 1869, at the suggestion of Abraham Geiger, Kohler moved to the United States where he served as rabbi in Detroit and Chicago before succeeding his father-in-law R. David Einhorn, as rabbi of New York’s Congregation Beth-El. In 1903, he was appointed president of Hebrew Union College whose curriculum he altered to reflect his extremist theology.