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Abraham Geiger (Hebrew language: ʼAvrāhām Gayger; 24 May 181023 October 1874) was a German rabbi and scholar who is considered the founding father of Reform Judaism and the academic field of Quranic studies. Emphasizing Judaism's constant development through its history and Universalism traits, Geiger sought to re-formulate received forms and design what he regarded as a religion compliant with modern times.
Geiger's friends provided him with financial assistance which enabled him to attend the University in Heidelberg, to the great disappointment of his family. His main focus was centered on the areas of philology, Syriac language, Hebrew, and classics, but he also attended lectures in philosophy and archaeology. After one semester, he transferred to the University of Bonn, where he studied at the same time as Samson Raphael Hirsch. Hirsch initially formed a friendship with Geiger, and with him organized a society of Jewish students for the stated purpose of practicing homiletics, but with the deeper intention of bringing them closer to Jewish values. It was to this society that Geiger preached his first sermon (January 2, 1830). In later years, he and Hirsch became bitter opponents as the leaders of two opposing Jewish movements.
At Bonn, Geiger began an intense study of Arabic and the Koran, winning a prize for his essay, written originally in Latin, and later published in German under the title Was hat Mohammed aus dem Judenthume aufgenommen? ("What did Mohammed take from Judaism?"). The essay earned Geiger a doctorate at the University of Marburg. It demonstrated that large parts of the Koran were taken from, or based on, rabbinic literature. This book was Geiger's first step in a much larger intellectual project. Geiger sought to demonstrate Judaism's central influence on Christianity and Islam. He believed that neither movement possessed religious originality, but were simply a vehicle to transmit the Jewish monotheistic belief to the pagan world.
At this time, no university professorships were available in Germany to Jews; so, Geiger was forced to seek a position as rabbi. He found a position in the Jewish community of Wiesbaden (1832–1837). There, he continued his academic publications primarily through the scholarly journals he founded and edited, including Wissenschaftliche Zeitschrift für jüdische Theologie (1835–1839) and Jüdische Zeitschrift für Wissenschaft und Leben (1862–1875). His journals became important vehicles in their day for publishing Jewish scholarship, chiefly historical and theological studies, as well as a discussion of contemporary events.
By that time, Geiger had begun his program of religious reforms, chiefly in the synagogue Jewish liturgy. For example, he abolished the prayers of mourning for the Temple, believing that since Jews were German citizens, such prayers would appear to be disloyal to the ruling power and could possibly spark anti-Semitism. Geiger was the driving force in convening several synods of reform-minded rabbis with the intention of formulating a program of progressive Judaism. However, unlike Samuel Holdheim, he did not want to create a separate community. Rather, his goal was to change Judaism from within.Meyer, Michael A. Response to Modernity: A History of the Reform Movement in Judaism. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1988, p. 90, 419 (footnote #109). Conclusions based on published correspondence between Abraham Geiger and a close friend, Joseph Derenbourg.
Geiger was not only a scholar and researcher commenting on important subjects and characters in Jewish history – he was also a rabbi responsible for much of the reform doctrine of the mid-19th century. He contributed much of the character to the reform movement that remains today. Reform historian Michael A. Meyer has stated that, if any one person can be called the founder of Reform Judaism, it must be Geiger.
Much of Geiger's writing has been translated into English from the original German. There have been many biographical and research texts about him, such as the work Abraham Geiger and the Jewish Jesus by Susannah Heschel (1998), which chronicles Geiger's radical contention that the "New Testament" illustrates Jesus was a Pharisee teaching Judaism.
Some of Geiger's studies are included in edited by Ibn Warraq. Other works are Judaism and Islam (1833), and An Appeal to My Community (1842).
Some critics also attacked Geiger's opposition to a Jewish national identity; most notably, he was criticized when he refused to intervene during the Damascus affair, a blood libel, in 1840. However, Jewish historian Steven Bayme has concluded that Geiger had actually vigorously protested on humanitarian grounds.
Throughout his time in Breslau as Chief Rabbi and after, the Positive-Historical School of Rabbi Zecharias Frankel continued to reject Geiger's philosophies. In 1841, he and Frankel clashed at the second Hamburg Temple dispute. When the Jewish Theological Seminary was founded there in 1854, thanks in part to Geiger's efforts, he was not appointed to its faculty, though he had long been at the forefront of attempts to establish a faculty of Jewish theology. More conservatives regarded Geiger's theological stance as too liberal. Therefore, in 1863, Geiger left Breslau to become a Rabbi of liberal communities in Frankfurt and, later, Berlin. "Ultimately, in 1871, he was appointed to the faculty of the newly founded Reform rabbinical college in Berlin, Hochschule für die Wissenschaft des Judentums, where he spent his final years."
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