Solomon Judah Rapoport (known by his acronym Shir; 1790–1867), rabbi and scholar, pioneer of Haskalah and Wissenschaft des Judentums. Rapoport, born in Lemberg, Galicia, received a traditional education and became known for his brilliance as a talmudist. Under the influence of Nachman Krochmal he took an early interest in Haskalah and secular learning, studying classical, Semitic, and modern languages, as well as science. Supported at first by his father-in-law Aryeh Leib Heller, who was one of the leading talmudists of his time, Rapoport later had to take the position of a manager of the government kosher-meat tax. Without income again in 1832, Rapoport tried unsuccessfully to obtain a rabbinical position in Berlin and in Italy through recommendations by L. Zunz and S. D. Luzzatto, but his German was poor and he had no university education. After a period in business in Brody, he became rabbi of Tarnopol (1837), where he had to contend with the violent opposition of the Hasidim, whom he had attacked in a pamphlet (Ner Mitzvah, in: Nahalat Yehudah, 1868) in defense of Haskalah in 1815. Rapoport was appointed chief rabbi of Prague in 1840, successfully opposing the candidacy of R. Zevi Hirsch Chajes for the same position.