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Speech for R. Abraham ben Samson ha-Kohen Onderwijzer delivered by Sigmund Seeligmann. Privately published, this is copy 71 with the signature Immanuel Konyvtar Low. The title page says that it is Opperrabbin A. S. Onderwijzer in de lijst van zijn tijd de Joodsche Gemeenschap te Amsterdam (in the passage of his time, in the Jewish community in Amsterdam), Woord ter herdenking van den Voorzitter in da Bestuursvergadering der Vereeniging (a word of the commemoration of the President in the board meeting of the Vereeniging) on Hachnosas Ourehim, delivered 10 January, 1935 by Sigmund Seeligmann. This copy has the ex-libre of the Jewish Natinal and University Library with a stamp in Hebrew saying removed.
R. Abraham ben Samson ha-Kohen Onderwijzer, (1862–1934), Dutch rabbi. Born in Muiden, near Amsterdam, R. Onderwijzer studied at the rabbinical seminary of Amsterdam under Rabbi J. Duenner. In 1888 he was appointed rabbi of the Ashkenazi community in Amsterdam and in 1917, chief rabbi of the town and of the province of North Holland. R. Onderwijzer translated the Pentateuch with Rashi's commentary into Dutch and added his own explanations (1895–1901). In 1895 he founded Bezalel, an organization of Jewish workers, for the amelioration of the religious and economic conditions of the Jewish workers in Amsterdam, most of whom worked in the diamond industry. Bezalel acted in conjunction with the general diamond workers' trade union (A.N.D.B.B.) in Holland.
R. Sigmund Seeligmann, (1873–1940), bibliographer and historian. Born in Karlsruhe, Germany, Seeligmann went to Amsterdam in 1884, later studying at its rabbinical seminary. Maintaining worldwide contact with Jewish scholars, he put his rich knowledge and important library at their disposal. Of his many articles and monographs on Jewish bibliography and the history of the Jews in the Netherlands, especially important are: "Het geestelijk leven in de Hoogduitsche Joodsche Gemeente te's Gravenhage" ("The Spiritual Life of the Dutch Jewish Community in The Hague," in: D. S. van Zuiden, De Hoogduitsche Joden in 's Gravenhage ("The Dutch Jewish Community in The Hague" (1913)); Bibliographie en Historie; bijdrage tot de geschiedenis der eerste Sephardim in Amsterdam (Bibliography and History; Contribution to the History of the First Sephardim in Amsterdam, 1927). Many of his writings are collected in his Varia (1935), nos. 1–36, in one volume. His original theories about the settlement of Marranos in Holland and his emphasis on the special character of Dutch Jewry greatly stimulated the study of this chapter of Jewish history. He founded the Genootschap voor Joodsche Wetenschap in Nederland ("Society for the Science of Judaism in the Netherlands"), and was active in many Jewish institutions, including a term as president of the Dutch Zionist. |
