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Louis Ginzberg (1873–1953), scholar of Talmud, Midrash, and aggadah, whose comprehensive works in Jewish law and lore made him the doyen of Jewish scholars in the U. S. Ginzberg was born in Kovno, Lithuania, and studied at the yeshivot of Kovno and Telz. Ginzberg was the great-grandnephew of the Vilna Gaon (Elijah ben Solomon Zalman), whose life and work greatly influenced him. After leaving Lithuania he studied history, philosophy, and oriental languages at the universities of Berlin, Strasbourg, where his teacher was T. Noeldeke, and Heidelberg, completing his studies in 1898.
In 1899 Ginzberg immigrated to the United States to accept a position at Hebrew Union College, but when he arrived the invitation was withdrawn. He joined the staff of the Jewish Encyclopedia as editor of the rabbinic department in 1900. Many of his contributions to that publication have remained classical statements of his subject. In 1903 he resigned to accept a position teaching Talmud at the Jewish Theological Seminary, where he remained until his death. In teaching future rabbis and by his halakhic decisions and scholarly output, he became a principal architect of the Conservative movement. He was a founder (1919–20) and president for several years of the American Academy of Jewish Research. In 1928–29 Ginzberg was the first professor of halakhah at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, and in 1934 he was a member of the Hartog Commission, whose recommendations led to important changes in the administration of the Hebrew University.
Ginzberg's work dealt mainly with the origins of aggadah, halakhah, and the literature of the geonim. While exploring the origins of aggadah, Ginzberg uncovered many lost legends of Jewish origins preserved only in early Christian texts. In his major work The Legends of the Jews (7 vols., 1909–38) he combined hundreds of legends, maxims, and parables from the entire midrashic literature into a continous narrative taken from the lives of the fathers of the people of Israel, its heroes, and its prophets. He analyzed the evolution of the legend from rabbinical texts, the external books and Hellenist literature, the early Christian texts, translations, exegeses, and the Kabbalah, correlating the material with the legends of other cultures and attempting to differentiate popular from scholarly creations.
Ginzberg researched the Genizah, culling from it fragments of the Jerusalem Talmud, the midrashim and legends, much geonic literature, and fragments of ancient Karaite texts. His introductions to the various texts are important studies in obscure and difficult problems of talmudic and rabbinical literature. His commentaries and suggestions are actually analyses of the evolution of halakhah and aggadah in Erez Israel and Babylon and include extensive interpretations of the Jerusalem Talmud, the Babylonian Talmud, Mishnah, and Tosefta; comprehensive explorations of historical questions, e.g., the Shammai and Hillel schools, the presidency of R. Eleazar ben Azariah, and the rivalry between Judea and Galilee; and the emergence and development of various customs and institutions, e.g., the Great Knesset, the Sanhedrin, the direction of prayer, kneeling and bowing in prayer, and the interchange of customs between Erez Israel and Babylonia.
Among his publications are Fragments of the Yerushalmi (1909); Geonica (2 vols., 1909); Excerpts of Midrash and Agadah (1925); Pirkoi ben Baboi (1929); The Significance of the Halakhah for Jewish History, (1929); Commentaries and Innovations in the Yerushalmi (3 vols., 1941); Die Haggada bei den Kirchenvaetern (1899–1900); Genizah Studies (2 vols., 1928–29); and Studies in the Origins of the Mishnah (1920). In his study of the Damascus Sect Eine unbekannte juedische Sekte (1922) he stated that it consisted of extreme Pharisees who had first organized during the reign of Alexander Yannai, were not content with the changes made during the reign of Salome Alexandra, and left for Damascus, splitting away from the main body of moderate Pharisees. In Students, Scholars and Saints (1928) Ginzberg presented portraits of great leaders of Jewry, including the Gaon of Vilna, Israel Lipkin Salanter, Zechariah Frankel, and Solomon Schechter. One note which Ginzberg sounded in all his writings was that it was not possible to understand Jewish history and culture without a thorough knowledge of halakhah.
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