Isaac Noah Mannheimer

Isaac Noah Mannheimer (; October 17, 1793, Copenhagen – March 17, 1865, Vienna) was a rabbi and member of the House of Deputies.

Biography The son of a hazzan, he began the study of the Talmud at an early age, though not to the neglect of secular studies. On completing the course of the cathedral school at Copenhagen, he studied philosophy, Oriental languages, and theology in university, while at the same time continuing his studies in Talmud and Judaics. When the Jews of Denmark were emancipated in 1814, confirmation was made obligatory, and the office of Catechist was instituted by the state, Mannheimer being the first incumbent (1816). The first confirmation took place May 1817. In 1821 Mannheimer went to Vienna, where there was then no congregation because the community was divided into two factions, Reform and Orthodox. Mannheimer, who was welcomed by both factions, soon succeeded in organizing a congregation, drafting a program and ritual on the traditional basis and harmonizing the views of the two parties. He returned to Copenhagen in December of the same year. Failing in his attempt to secure a new synagogue for Reform services, he accepted a call to the pulpit left vacant by Zunz in Berlin. German services, however, were interdicted in that city; the temple formerly under the ministry of B. Beer was closed, and the royal cabinet order of 26 December 1823, obtained by the Orthodox party, frustrated the attempt to adapt the old ritual to new forms by delivering German sermons in the chief synagogue. Mannheimer therefore left Berlin and took temporary charge of the pulpit of Hamburg, preaching also at Leipzig during the fairs. In 1824 he married Liseke Damier, and in November of the same year he was called to what was then a new synagogue, the state-supported Stadttempel, in Vienna at the prompting of wealthy Reform businessman, Michael Lazar Biedermann. Because of Austrian law, he could not receive the title of preacher or rabbi; he was inducted, in June 1825, as headmaster of a religious school, or more specifically "Direktor der Wiener K. K. Genehmigten Oeffentlichen Israelitischen Religionsschule"; he dedicated the new synagogue in April 1826, and officiated there until 1829.

Mannheimer was active in trying to improve and recognizing the political status of Jews in Austria. In 1826, he began the practice of recording the births, marriages, and deaths of the Viennese Jewish community; in 1831, he was formally commissioned by the government to maintain these in a central registry.

Mannheimer was the first Jewish leader in Vienna to introduce a coming-of-age ceremony (confirmation) for girls, prior to the advent of a bat mitzvah.

Works Mannheimer published the following works: Prædikener Holdte ved det Mosaiske Troes-Samfund's Andagts-Övelser i Modersmaalet i Sommerhalvaaret 1819 (Copenhagen, 1819); Gottesdienstliche Vorträge Gehalten im Israelitischen Bethause zu Wien im Monate Tischri 5594 (Vienna, 1834); Gottesdienstliche Vorträge für die Wochenabschnitte des Jahres, vol. i, Genesis and Exodus (ib. 1835; partly translated into Hebrew by E Kuttner, ib. 1865); a translation of the prayer-book and of the fast-day prayers according to the ritual of the Vienna Temple (1840; frequently reprinted). His polemics and responsa include: Gutachten für das Gebetbuch des Hamburger Tempels (1841); Gutachten Gegen die Reformpartei in Frankfurt-am-Main in Angelegenheit der Beschneidungsfrage (1843); Einige Worte über Juden und Judenthum (supplement to the Oesterreichische Medicinische Wochenschrift, 1842, No. 34), directed against Professor Rosa's statements in reference to the Jewish Question (1848). Two numbers of his Gottesdienstliche Vorträge appeared posthumously, edited by S. Hammerschlag (Vienna, 1876).