Rabbi Dr. Solomon Hershel Lewin

Portrait can be found in London's National Portrait Gallery.

Rabbi Solomon Hirschell (12 February 1762, London – 31 October 1842, London) was the Chief Rabbi of Great Britain, 1802-42. He is best remembered for his unsuccessful attempt to stop the spread of Reform Judaism in Britain by excommunicating its leaders.

His name is also spelt Hirschel and Herschell.

His father was a Polish Jew from Galicia, Hirschel Levin, Chief Rabbi of London and Berlin and a friend of Moses Mendelssohn. His older brother was the Talmudist Saul Berlin.

References

• "Solomon Hirschel - High Priest of the Jews"
• History of the Great Synagogue, Cecil Roth, Chapter XIII:Rabbi Solomon Hirschell and his contemporaries (Susser archive)
• Rubinstein, Hilary L. (2004). "Hirschell , Solomon (1762–1842)". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/13363. Retrieved 2011-12-09. (subscription or UK public library membership required)
• The British Chief Rabbinate

  ---

  
  

http://chiefrabbi.org/history-chief-rabbinate/

HERSCHELL, SOLOMON: By: Joseph Jacobs, Goodman Lipkind

Chief rabbi of the Ashkenazim in England; born in London 1762, during the rabbinate of his father, R. Hirsch Levin; died there Oct. 31, 1842. His family could boast a long genealogy of learned men, including R. Meïr of Padua. When he was only two years old Herschell was taken from England by his father, who left the English rabbinate in 1764 to fill a similar office in Halberstadt. He was educated in Germany and Poland, Jewish theology and mathematics being his favorite studies. He married at the age of seventeen, and was first called to the ministry at Prenzlau, Prussia. For nine years he ministered there, when, at the age of forty, his reputation and the circumstance of his being a native of London procured for him the office of chief rabbi of the Great Synagogue (1802). Gradually his jurisdiction extended over all the Ashkenazim in England. The period of his administration was marked by the uniting of the scattered elements of English Jewry, and by the growing prominence of the Ashkenazic congregation in London and the removal of the barriers that divided it from the Sephardim. His rabbinate was notable also for the many important institutions which sprang into existence, and which included the Neveh Ẓedeḳ, the Jews' Free School, and several other institutions.

Though representing the spirit of a bygone age, he was tolerant and just in disposition. When, however, the Reform movement came to a head in 1841, toward the close of his rabbinate, the secessionists found in him an uncompromising opponent;and the drastic measures he adopted in treating with them were one of the chief causes of the schism.

The excellent library which he had collected passed at his death into the possession of the London bet ha-midrash. Bibliography:

   European Magazine, 1842;

   Voice of Jacob, Nov. 11, 1842;

   H. Adler, Chief Rabbis of England;

   Jew. World, Dec. 19, 1879;

   Jew. Chron. Feb. 10, 1860; July 31 and Aug. 7, 1903;

   Morais, Eminent Israelites, s.v.;

   Picciotto, Sketches.

GEDCOM Note

CY-184, CY-270

__________________________
From Meir Koppekmann's memoirs:

Concerning my maternal ancestors, I have had the possibility to trace our family tree
to the end of the 15th century. By a fortuitous circumstance, I obtained this material from a
grandchild of a cousin of my late grandmother, Gnesja Zetlin, nee Landau. It had been
collected by a Hermann Landau, who died in 1885. With the help of various Jewish
encyclopedias, I was able to complete this information, so that the above-mentioned date of
the origin of our family, that is late 15th century, is unquestionable, and evidence attests to the
connection with the Family Meheran. In turn, the family tree of the Meherans, according to
oral tradition, is said to reach back to the time of King David. This last bit, however, I leave
to faith.
It is interesting to note that all our ancestors, most of whom were rabbis, were
Missnagim, and stood far from the Chassidic movement. The origin of the Family Meheran
in Padua, shows that the family originally was Sephardic and only later went to the East.
Around the year 1600, one finds them in Poland, where they produced a line of outstanding
Kopelman/MY ANCESTORS 21
rabbis. One of our ancestors whose identity can be authenticated was Rabbi Efraim Hirsch,
Rabbi of Brest-Litovsk. The name Hirsch in no way denotes a family name, those did not
exist at that time. It can perhaps be explained by the fact that a seal ring belonging to
Salomon Hirschel, The Chief Rabbi of London, who was my grandmother’s grandfather,
showed a shield framed by two deer rearing on their hind legs. This ring, which I still
remember on the hand of my grandmother is unfortunately lost.
The son of Efraim Hirsch was Rabbi Saul. He was rabbi in Lublin. His son,
Yehoshuah, was first rabbi in the same town and later in Nikeburg. This shows a move
westward, but not too far. He died in Krakow in 1663.
His son was the learned Rabbi Saul. As a young man, he was rabbi in Rschesche,
Poland, then Country Rabbi in Krakow and then received as the first one of our ancestors, a
call from abroad, a call to Amsterdam. Unfortunately, he died on the journey to assume his
new position and was buried 1707 in Glogau. His son was Arie Loeb, born 1690 in BrestLitovsk. Around 1730 he became a rabbi in Rschschov, then in Tarnopol and later in
Glogau, where he pronounced the ban on Moshe Chaim Luzzate. He married the daughter of
the famous Chacham Zwi. In 1740 he was called to Amsterdam, as his grandfather had been.
He there built the large Lehrhaus, Study House.
Arie Loeb was a center point in the great “Amulet Battle,” that was raging there at the
time. His brother-in-law, Jacob Emden, a well-known rabbi in Altona, Denmark, had
accused the equally well-kown Rabbi Eibenschutz of selling amulets bearing Kabbalistic
signs, which smacked of the false teachings of Sabbatei. This quarrel divided the rabbis of
the time in two irreconcilable camps, to the extent that the Danish Kaiser had to interfere.
Loeb was in the camp of his brother-in-law, whose funeral oration at Loeb’s death is
particularly well-known.
His son was Zevi Hirschel Loebel, a.k.a Hart Lyon, the great-grandfather of my
grandmother, also known as Hirsch Lewin, born in 1721. The name Lewin appears to
already be a family name, but it was not inherited and so was lost. Already at the age of 36,
on the recommendation of his Uncle Jacob Emden, he became Rabbi of Askenazi Jews at the
great Synagogue in London. In 1764 he went to Halberstadt where he remained 6 years and
then spent two years in Mannheim. In 1772, he was called to Berlin, where he officiated for
twenty-eight years. He was the last Landesrabbiner and is known as the Berliner Rov. He
Kopelman/MY ANCESTORS 22
used to say, jokingly: that “. . in London I had money, but no Jews; in Mannheim I had Jews
but no money; in Berlin I had neither Jews nor money.”
Like his father, he too, took the part of Emden in the great quarrel. A friend of Moses
Mendelson, it was Hirschel Loeb who granted Mendelson the approbation to translate the
bible into German, later praising the resulting volume as “God pleasing.” He was also
tolerant toward the Haskala, the Enlightenment Movement, but he came out very sharply
against the assimilationist writing of Wessely. This last earned him the enmity of Berlin’s
assimilated merchant families, such as that of Itzig Friedlander. Hirschel Loeb died in Berlin
in 1801 and is buried together with his wife in the old Berlin cemetery in the Hamburger
Strasse.
Hirschel Loeb was a man of great erudition and sharp intelligence, and left a great
deal of writing, only a small part of which was ever published. He was an avid book
collector and had a notable library, which later was augmented by his son and in 1845 was
bought and presented to the Great Synagogue Beth Hamidrash in London.
(This library was sold and dispersed at Christie’s, London, 06/23/1999. GK has
catalogue and also excerpts from TLS (London Times Literary Supplement) articles by H.
Rabinovicz, discussing and strongly disapproving of the sale. The first is entitled “Selling
the Family Silver,” the second “Selling the Heritage.)
Kopelman/MY ANCESTORS 23

RABBI SALOMON HIRSCHEL, CHIEF RABBI OF LONDON
His son was Salomon Hirschel, the grandfather of my grandmother. He was born
1761 in London, while his father was rabbi there. Since his father left London soon
thereafter, Salomon Hirschel received his education in Poland and Germany. He was first
rabbi in Prenzlau and was then appointed to the same post in London that his father had held.
He acted as Chief Rabbi of London for forty years. His wife was a Rebekka Lippmann from
Koenigsberg. He died in London and was buried there in 1842. Salomon Hirschel entered
the history of English Jewry as the “Londoner Rov” and a portrait of him hangs in the
London Synagogue. I know the painting from an etching in the house of my mother, where
he is depicted in the rabbinical costume of the time. (See etching above) He did not continue
his father’s name of Lewin. As so many Jews who are surnamed after cities, some of his
ancestors carry the name of London.
One of Salomon Hirschel’s daughters married into the house of the famous Goa,
Jecheskiel Landau, Rabbi of Prague. But about him, you can learn in any Jewish
encyclopedia. A story by Max Brod, Der Bustag, “The Day of Repentence,” from his book
“Jewish Feasts-Jewish Customs,” deals with a pilgrimage to his grave in Prague. He was
misnagid, but was also honored by Chassidim.

הרב שלמה ברלינר היה רב בלונדון