Immánuel Löw Archive

Immanuel Löw (1854-1944) was a Hungarian rabbi, scholar and politician. He was the son of Leopold Löw (1811–1875) whom he succeeded in 1878 as rabbi of Szeged, and whose collected works he published. Like his father, Immanuel was a great preacher in the Hungarian language, and several hundred of his sermons were published in four volumes between 1900 and 1939. He studied at the Hochschule für die Wissenschaft des Judentums ('Higher School of Jewish Studies') in Berlin, graduated as rabbi and received his PhD from the University of Leipzig in 1878. During the 'White Terror' of 1920-1921 he was imprisoned for 13 months for alleged statements against Admiral Miklós Horthy. While in prison, he worked on his Die Flora der Juden ('The Flora of the Jews'), on terminology of plants in Jewish sources. Besides his work on Aramaic plant names, he also wrote on minerals. The Szeged Synagogue built in 1903 was designed according to his plans. From 1927 he represented the Neolog (non-Orthodox) communities in the upper chamber of the Hungarian parliament and he also was a member of the Jewish Agency for Palestine. In June 1944, at age 90, he was taked with the entire Jewish community of Szeged to Auschwitz or Strasshof, but was released from the transport in Budapest. He died there in the same year from starvation. Read more