Stamp review: Rabbi Azriel Hildesheimer (2020-02-04)

Rabbi Azriel Hildesheimer | הרב עזריאל הילדסהיימר

The "Rabbi Azriel Hildesheimer" stamp was issued by Israel Post on 4 February 2020. Face valued at ₪11.80, the stamp features a grayscale photograph of Rabbi Azriel Hildesheimer (1820-1899) against a background of books on shelves in a library. The tab below the stamp proper highlights the founding of the Rabbinical Seminary in Berlin as the rabbi's most notable achievement. Black, gray and the brownish color of old paper are the stamp's dominant colors. It was designed by Renat Abudraham-Dadon, who has been a stamp designer with Israel Post since 2013.

As indicated in the stamp's release notes, Rabbi Hildesheimer was born in the town of Halberstadt, Germany in 1820. In 1846 he received a PhD in Jewish studies from the University of Halle-Wittenberg and shortly thereafter was appointed secretary of Halberstadt's Jewish community. In his role as secretary, Hildesheimer assisted the local rabbi and taught daily classes on Jewish law and German literature.¹ He also established himself as a force to be reckoned with, intellectually and rhetorically, on the side of Orthodox Judaism in its stand against the Reform movement's growing influence.² In 1851 he began serving as rabbi of Eisenstadt, at the time a city in Hungary, and founded a modernized yeshiva that was the first to teach secular subjects alongside traditional Jewish ones.³

Auctioned manuscript identified as an 1858 letter from Hildesheimer in Eisenstadt to R. Shlomo Zalman Ullman

Hildesheimer's pedagogic approach was essentially a compromise between a hard-line religious conservative leadership that rejected secular modernity and a secular modern leadership that rejected religious conservatism. Rather than his approach serving to mediate between the two camps, however, Hildesheimer found himself their common target. Increasingly frustrated with the situation, the rabbi sought to relocate to a new environment where he could apply his resources and pursue his vision in a more supportive climate. Berlin was his choice, and the "Hildesheimer" stamp notes recount the rabbi's move there:

In 1869, he began his tenure as the rabbi for the "Adass Jisroel" congregation in Berlin, establishing its institutions and education system. In 1873, he opened a seminary for rabbinical studies which subsequently produced generations of rabbis, educators and public leaders who saved Jewish communities from spiritual decline. The rabbinical seminary functioned continuously until 1939, when it was closed by the Nazis.

Hildesheimer's sphere of activity was not limited to Europe. Twice in 1864 he undertook to mobilize Jews in positions of influence on behalf of the Beta Israel community in Ethiopia, efforts that culminated in Joseph Halevy's historic expedition there a few years later.⁴ Throughout his adult life, Hildesheimer was also actively concerned with the welfare of Jews living in and moving to the land of Israel, both of which he supported in words and in action, encouraging Jews fleeing persecution to favor their ancestral homeland over other alternatives and being personally involved in projects to benefit distressed Jews in Jerusalem.⁵ Today there are Azriel Hildesheimer Streets in Jerusalem and elsewhere in Israel, and the moshav of Azriel in Israel's Sharon region is named after the rabbi.

Azriel Hildesheimer St. in Jerusalem

The "Hildesheimer" first day cover features an image identified as the entrance to the rabbinical seminary in Berlin as it appeared in 1873, the year of the seminary's founding. Beside it is a quote from the Book of Proverbs that Hildesheimer adopted as the seminary's motto -- "In all your ways acknowledge Him," implying that secular fields like math and science are also paths to God.

"Rabbi Azriel Hildesheimer" first day cover

Bottom line: 1/5 -- Strong pass. "Azriel Hildesheimer" is currently the leading candidate for most disappointing stamp of 2020. Everything about it smacks of laziness in both concept and practice. Nothing of Hildesheimer's profound legacy is represented in the stamp design, and "design" is hardly an appropriate word to describe the perfunctory slapping of Hildesheimer's photo onto a stock background image of books on shelves. Is the philatelic service to blame? Is it the designer's fault? Whatever the case, the end result is a decidedly uninspiring stamp for a uniquely inspiring individual.

Elhanan Shapira of the philatelic service presenting the Hildesheimer stamp in Tel Aviv, December 2019

It is also regrettable to see the philatelic service fall into line with one of the more absurd decrees of the Academy of the Hebrew Language -- to represent numerical ranges from right to left. The Hebrew-speaking public has consistently rejected this prescription as counterintuitive and impractical, given that numbers are written and read from left to right and that electronic devices process and print numerical ranges from left to right by default even when the input language is set to Hebrew or Arabic. The Hildesheimer stamp's confusing year range of "1899-1820" compellingly demonstrates why the philatelic service should ignore the Academy in this case and stick with what has been for the most part its own long-established convention -- to represent numerical year ranges from left to right.

Rabbi Ovadia Yosef, 1920-2013

SOURCES

1. Gerald J. Blidstein, Judaism's Encounter with Other Cultures
2. David Ellenson, Rabbi Esriel Hildesheimer and the Creation of a Modern Jewish Orthodoxy
3. John Efron, The Jews: A History
4. Steven Kaplan, The Beta Israel (Falasha) in Ethiopia
5. David Ellenson, Jewish Meaning in a World of Choice