David Einhorn (rabbi)

David Einhorn (November 10, 1809 – November 2, 1879) was a German rabbi and leader of the Jewish reform movement in the United States. Einhorn was chosen in 1855 as the first rabbi of the Har Sinai Congregation in Baltimore, the oldest congregation in the United States that has been affiliated with the Reform movement since its inception. While there he created an early American prayer book for the congregation that became one of the progenitors of the 1894 Union Prayer Book. In 1861, Einhorn was forced to flee to Philadelphia, where he became rabbi of Congregation Keneseth Israel. He moved to New York City in 1866, where he became rabbi of Congregation Adath Israel.

Biography

He was born in Diespeck, Bavaria on November 10, 1809, to Maier and Karoline Einhorn. He was educated at the rabbinical school of Fuerth, where he earned his rabbinical ordination at age 17. He then studied at the universities of Erlangen, Munich and Wurzburg, where he studied from 1828 to 1834, supported by his mother following the death of his father. He was a supporter of the principles of Abraham Geiger, and while still in Germany advocated the introduction of prayers in the vernacular German, the exclusion of nationalistic hopes and the restoration of the Temple in Jerusalem and the sacrificial services there from the synagogue service, and other ritual modifications, lobbying on behalf of these changes at the 1844 Frankfurt...
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