R. Azriel Hildesheimer, (1820–1899), German rabbi, scholar, educator, and leader of Orthodox Jewry. Hildesheimer, who was born in Halberstadt into a family of scholars, received his early education in the local Jewish school, the first in Germany to include general subjects in its curriculum. He continued his talmudic studies under Jacob Ettlinger in Altona, and attended the lectures of R. Isaac Bernays in neighboring Hamburg. At Berlin University he studied Semitics, philosophy, history, and science, and eventually received his doctorate from the University of Halle in 1844. In 1847, he began in earnest to fight the rise of the Reform movement. In response to a campaign on behalf of Reform by Ludwig Phillipson, Hildesheimer wrote a pamphlet, "The Necessity of Protest against the Actions of the Reformers," which was circulated at the Magdeburg Conference in October 1847. In 1848, Hildesheimer succeeded in preventing the Reform community from seceding from the general Jewish community in Halberstadt. However, his overall attempts to maintain the Orthodox hegemony over the German Jewish communities was ultimately unsuccessful. Still and all, he continued to oppose Reform throughout his life. In 1883, he refused to sign a circular meant to counteract an accusation that Judaism had a double standard of ethics, one internal and one external, since it was sponsored by non-Orthodox rabbis. He argued that non-Orthodox rabbis were not to be the proper spokesmen for Judaism. In 1897, he seceded from the General Union of Rabbis in Germany to form the Union of Torah Faithful Rabbis. Nevertheless, he had a very strong belief in kelal yisrael, and was willing to work with all segments of the community, especially for the Jewish community in Israel (see below). In 1851 Hildesheimer was appointed rabbi of the Austro-Hungarian community of Eisenstadt; there he reorganized the educational system and established a yeshivah, where the language of instruction was correct German. He also introduced limited secular studies in the elementary school, while the older students studied mathematics and other subjects that enhanced their yeshivah learning. Many of the courses were taught by Hildesheimer himself. The yeshivah was highly successful, and students came there from all over Europe as well as America. However, despite Hildesheimer's great learning and patent Orthodoxy, the great majority of Orthodox Hungarian rabbis bitterly opposed his modernism and the institution he created. The fact, as reported by his daughter, that he sang German lieder, read German literature, and dressed in contemporary German attire was very irksome to the old-school Orthodox rabbinic elite. At a congress of Hungarian Jewry in 1868–69, which met to decide on the establishment of a rabbinical seminary for the whole of Hungary, Hildesheimer and his sympathizers had to contend with both the Reform and the ultra-Orthodox factions. His moderate proposals might have preserved the unity of Hungarian Jewry, but the congress ended in a radical split. Despairing of success in Hungary, in 1869 Hildesheimer accepted a call from Berlin to become rabbi of the newly founded Orthodox congregation, Adass Jisroel. In 1873 he established a rabbinical seminary which later became the central institution for the training of Orthodox rabbis in Europe. Hildesheimer's students carried with them all over the world the notion that their Orthodoxy was compatible with scientific study of Jewish sources. Aside from the halakhically correct Wissenschaft des Judentums, the Berlin Rabbiner seminars curriculum included Hebrew language as well as secular studies. For Hildesheimer, Torah im derekh erez (Torah and worldly knowledge), was not just a slogan. He firmly believed that only by combining a sophisticated knowledge of Torah with a knowledge of science and other secular subjects could a religious Jew attain the Torah goal of fully recognizing and coming close to God. R. Hildesheimer was an active worker on behalf of stricken Jewish communities throughout the world. In 1864, he published a declaration recognizing the Jewishness of Ethiopian Jewry (republished by M. Waldman, Sinai 95). As a member of the central council of the Hilfsverein der deutschen Juden, he was deeply involved in assisting the victims of Russian pogroms from 1882 onward. He was alone in pleading that the survivors be directed to Erez Israel instead of the New World. Throughout his life, he was an enthusiastic supporter of Palestine Jewry and the building of the yishuv. In 1858, together with his brother-in-law, Joseph Hirsch, he founded the Society for the Support of Erez Israel. In Eisenstadt he had collected large sums for Jerusalem Jewry. The Battei Mazaseh dwellings in the Old City of Jerusalem were erected on his initiative (they were destroyed in 1948 and rebuilt after the Six-Day War of 1967). Hildesheimer supported the Hovevei Zion and the colonization movement; he was in particularly close contact with R. Zevi Hirsch Kalischer. For politico-legal reasons the newly acquired lands of Gederah were registered in his name; his excellent relations with the German Foreign Office were of value in securing its support for the yishuv.

R. Hildesheimer's impact on modern Jewish history is best understood by recognizing him as the father of Modern Orthodoxy.

כרוז מחאה על רקע המאבק בירושלים נגד בתי ספר מודרניים והשכלה חילונית. קבוצת קנאים החרימו את ר' חיים הירשנזון, התפתחה שערוריה וכתוצאה מכך נאסר ר' ליב חפץ, מקנאי ירושלים. בכרוז דברים חריפים נגד הרב עזריאל הילדסהיימר, וילהלם הרצברג ואחרים. חותמים: ר' חיים יצחק אהרן [רפפורט], ר' זאב ב"ר משה הלוי, ר' חיים יצחק בעהם, ר' זבולון חרל"פ ור' שמואל מוילנא. עם המלצות על ר' ליב חפץ מאת ממוני הכוללים בירושלים ומאת בית הדין של העדה האשכנזית ור' שמואל סלאנט.