GUENZLER, ABRAHAM

GUENZLER, ABRAHAM (1840–1910), Hungarian rabbinical publicist and polemicist. Born in Satoraljaujhely, Guenzler was gifted from youth with a talent for writing which he employed in defense of traditional Judaism. In 1868, he published a pamphlet, Tokhahat Megullah, in which he attacked Isaac Friedlieber's compilation Divrei Shalom and defended traditional Jewry against the Reform movement, then on the ascendant in Hungary.

Subsequently Guenzler moved to Sziget, a community of Ḥasidim and maskilim, where he began to publish a Hebrew weekly, Ha-Tor. It was the first Hebrew journal published in Hungary and exerted considerable influence. The revival of the Hebrew language was his main ambition, and in 1876 he published in Sziget a booklet, Das Meter Moss, most of which was in Hebrew because "there are people who understand Hebrew better than Yiddish." The journal was published in Sziget for three years (1874–76), but it seems that he could not maintain it there and moved with it to Kolomyya in Galicia and from there to Cracow. Meanwhile the pogroms against the Russian Jews broke out (1881). Guenzler accurately described them in Ha-Tor, with the result that the Russian government banned it from Russia. Since most of the journal's subscribers lived there (he had nearly 300 subscribers in Russia, and about 250 in Austria-Hungary), Ha-Tor ceased publication. Guenzler could not refrain, however, from commenting on contemporary and local issues. He published his articles in Kol Maḥazike Hadas, published fortnightly in Lemberg. Meanwhile R. Simeon Sofer of Cracow founded the weekly Mahazike Hadas and Guenzler was appointed editor. The publishers of Kol Mahazike Hadas sued Guenzler; eventually it was agreed that Mahazike Hadas would stop publication and Guenzler would edit Kol Mahazike Hadas, but he was later forced to resign.

bibliography:

G. Bader, Medinah va-Hakhameha (1934), 65–66.

[Naphtali Ben-Menahem]