"The Festpredigten" festival sermons were originally published in German in Frankfurt am Main in 1903. A window into the past, they offer a fascinating glimpse of German Jewry at the turn of the century. The author, Isaac Rosenberg, received his semichah at the Rabbiner-Seminar (Hildesheimer) in Berlin in 1888, and graced the synagogue pulpit in the eastern German city of Thorn for twenty-fififive years. He belonged to a new class of rabbis known as Rabbiner Doktor with Ph.D.s as well as rabbinic ordination. A leader in his community, Dr. Rosenberg delivered passionate sermons in impeccable High German sermons that uplifted and inspired rather than rebuked. Yet they contain messages that are as fresh today as they were a century ago. This English volume includes an intriguing introduction by Dr. Fred Gottlieb on the history of German- Jewish homiletics and associated controversies."

Auteur
Isaac Rosenberg was born on October 5, 1860, the youngest of six children, in the West German town of Rosenthal in Hessen, near the city of Kassel. He attended the Jewish Teacher Seminary in Kassel during the years 1876 to 1879. Following two years in various teaching positions, he enrolled in the University of Marburg, where he studied Oriental philology, philosophy, and literature. His doctoral thesis, "The Aramaic Verb in the Babylonian Talmud" was published in 1887 under the auspices of the University of Leipzig. Rosenberg's Sermons.In the course of his rabbinic career, Rosenberg composed thousands of sermons sermons for the synagogue on Sabbaths and Festivals, as well as weddings, circumcisions, Bar Mitzvahs, and funerals - in Thorn as well as in the surrounding Jewish communities. Their composition and delivery became a special passion of his, and he recorded in his diary the specific Biblical text upon which each week s sermon was based. He firmly believed that sermons must be memorized and delivered without notes as a way of conveying the preacher s sincerity. With unintended humor, he subjected each sermon to critical evaluation, each sermon called superb or very well received (2) In fact, reviews of this volume in Jewish newspapers at the time of publication were uniformly favorable in their praise for the clarity, style, elegance and content of the sermons. Among the early influences on Rosenberg s style of preaching, was Azriel Hildesheimer, founder and head of the Rabbiner-Seminar, who, among others, delivered lectures on homiletics. A rich source of homiletics was the extensive 1890 manual by Sigmund. Maybaum, a docent at the Lehranstalt fuer die Wissenschaft des Judentums in Berlin (Reform). A perusal of Rosenberg s Festival Sermons suggests that he was familiar with this work. An equally extensive treatise on homiletics by Joseph Wohlgemuth (Orthodox) was published at the time that the sermons in this volume were delivered. Since this was a supplement to a year book from the Rabbiner-Seminar, Rosenberg must have been well acquainted with this publication as well as its author.