Biography |
Simon Hevesi (Handler), born 22 March 1868 in Aszod in Hungary, son of rabbi Mark Handler from Tata and his wife Juliane Rosenberg. Hevesy was a rabbi and scholar. He studied at the Budapest rabbinical seminary and at Budapest University. In 1892 he obtained his doctorate and in 1894 became rabbi of Kassa (now Kosice, Slovakia), where he graduated at the local law school. Hevesi was a brilliant speaker. He subsequently became rabbi of Pest and in 1927 chief rabbi, continuing in this position until his death. Hevesi combined traditional Talmudic lerning rabbinical learning with interest in general and Jewish philosophy. From 1905 he was lecturer in homiletics and Jewish philosophy at the rabbinical seminary. He took a leading role in public affairs of Hungarian Jewry, and was active in establishing social and educational organizations, including an association for popular education (OMIKE), the Jewish Mensa Academica and the home for Jewish University Students. The department of arts of the Educational Alliance became a center of dramatic, musical, plastic and graphic arts for Jewish artists and authors who were banned , since from Hungarian stages, concert halls, and art exhibitions from 1939. He was also founder and chairman of the Jewish Patronage Society to combat juvenile delinquency, and chairman of the Hungarian Jewish Handicraft and Agricultural Society. At his initiative a memorials to Jewish soldiers killed during World War I was erected and a Jewish historical museum was opened. Books and essays written and published by him include "Sir ha-shirim" (1892); "Etika a Talmudban" ("Ethics in the Talmud", with Lajos Blau and Miksa Weisz, 1920), "Kant Emanuel" (1925) and in Hungarian "Da'alat Alhairin" (1928) on Maimonides' "Guide of the Perplexed". Hevesi participated in editing the learned periodicals "Ha-Zofeh le-Hokhmat Yisrael", "Magyar Zsido Szemle", and "Yavneh". His works in Hebrew include studies of the Book of Job (in "ha-Zofeh le-Hokhmat Yisrael", 5 (1927), 35-39, 81-89, 156-63, 283-93); and "Ecclesiastes" (in "Festschrift der Landesrabbinerschule 1927").
Hevesy died on February 1, 1843, in Budapest. |