Breuer, Solomon
BREUER, SOLOMON
BREUER, SOLOMON (1850–1926), rabbi and author, leader of German Orthodoxy (Trennungsorthodoxie). After studying at the Pressburg yeshivah under A.S.B. Schreiber and at German universities, Breuer officiated as rabbi in Papa, Hungary. He married the youngest daughter of Samson Raphael *Hirsch, and in 1888 he succeeded his father-in-law, in Frankfurt. A firm advocate of strict Orthodoxy, Breuer founded the Association of Orthodox Rabbis in Germany, excluding from it Orthodox rabbis who cooperated in communal work with Reform Jews. He was president of the Freie Vereinigung ("Free Union") for the advancement of Orthodoxy and cofounder of the Agudat Israel movement, barring members of mixed Reform-Orthodox communities from the leadership of this movement. In 1890 he founded a yeshivah and directed it for 36 years. In conjunction with Phinehas (Pinchas) *Kohn he published the periodical Juedische Monatshefte (Hebrew subtitle, Doresh Tov le-Ammo) from 1913 to 1920. His writings include Ḥokhmah im Naḥalah (4 vols., 1930–35), sermons, and Divrei Shelomo (1948), interpretations of halakhah and aggadah.
bibliography:
S. Breuer, Divrei Shelomo (1948), introd.; H. Schwab, History of Orthodox Jewry in Germany (1950), index; idem, Chachme Ashkenaz (Eng., 1964), 35; I. Grunfeld, Three Generations (1958), index.
[Moshe Nahum Zobel]