KLEIN, SALOMON WOLF

KLEIN, SALOMON WOLF (1814–1867), French rabbi. Born in Bischheim near Strasbourg into a family of chiropodists, he began his secular studies at the age of 18 and, in a few years, he acquired an extensive knowledge which included Latin and Greek. He then graduated from the rabbinical seminary of Metz (1839), and served as rabbi successively at Bischheim, Durmenach, and Rixheim (Haut-Rhin). Klein distinguished himself by numerous publications and by his indefatigable struggle against every attempt at reform. He became the leader of French Orthodoxy, but was unsuccessful in his candidacy for the office of chief rabbi of Paris. In 1850 Klein was appointed chief rabbi of the consistory of the Haut-Rhin department at Colmar, and for a long time was also its president. Here he came under attack following a change in composition of the consistory through the accession of liberal elements. His main works are Nouvelle grammaire hébraïque raisonnée et comparée (1846), Guide du traducteur du Pentateuque (2 vols. 1852–53), Le Judaïsme ou la Vérité sur le Talmud (1859), Recueil de lettres pastorales et de discours d'inauguration (1863). He also published some pamphlets in Hebrew, among them Ma'aneh Rakh al Ḥazut Kashah (1846), Mi-Penei Koshet against Zacharias *Frankel (1861), and Ha-Emet ve-ha-Shalom Ehavu (1861), on the position of S.J. *Rapoport vis-à-vis Frankel.

bibliography:

P. Klein, in: Bulletin de nos Communautés, 10 (1954), nos. 10–12.

[Moshe Catane]