Alexander Altmann (1906–1987)

Alexander Altmann was born to an Orthodox Jewish family in Kassa, Austro-Hungarian Empire (present-day Košice, Slovakia). His parents were Malvine (Weisz) and Rabbi Adolf Abraham Altmann, the chief rabbi of Trier, one of the oldest Jewish communities in Germany. He had five siblings. Altmann earned his Ph.D. in philosophy from the University of Berlin in 1931, and was ordained a rabbi the same year. From 1931 to 1938, he served as a rabbi in Berlin and as professor of Jewish philosophy at the Hildesheimer Rabbinical Seminary. In 1938, he fled the Nazis to Manchester, England, and served as a rabbi there for 20 years. He continued his Jewish scholarship, which eventually led him to found and direct the Institute of Jewish Studies from 1953 to 1958. He also edited the Journal of Jewish Studies and Scripta Judaica. In 1959, Rabbi Altmann moved to the USA to join the faculty of Brandeis University in Waltham, Massachusetts. He became the Philip W. Lown Professor of Jewish Philosophy and History of Ideas, a position he held until his retirement in 1976. From 1976 to 1978, he was a visiting professor at Harvard University and at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. From 1978 to 1987, he was an associate at the Harvard University Center for Jewish Studies. During his long career, Prof. Altmann published a number of important works in German, English, and Hebrew. His primary interests were medieval Jewish philosophy, Jewish mysticism, and the life and work of the pioneering thinker Moses Mendelssohn. His last book, The Meaning of Jewish Existence: Theological Essays 1930–1939, was published posthumously in 1991.