Eliyahu Guttmacher Papers

Rabbi Eliyahu Guttmacher, Talmudic scholar, mystic, forerunner of Zionism, and an early advocate of Jewish settlement in Palestine, was born in Borek in the district of Posen (Poznan, Western Poland) to Rabbi Shlomo and Tzipporah Guttmacher on August 5, 1796. At the age of nineteen, he entered the yeshiva of famous scholar Rabbi Akiva Eiger of Posen, where he became his disciple. There he began to study Kabbalah in addition to traditional Talmudic literature.

In 1822, Guttmacher was appointed the rabbi of Pleschen (Polish Pleszew). In 1841, he became the rabbi of Grätz (Polish: Grodzisk Wielkopolski) in the Poznan province of Western Poland where he remained until his death on October 5, 1874.

Guttmacher's study of Kabbalah led him to delve into mysticism and Hasidism. While Guttmacher was not a Hasid, he adopted an austere way of life and acquired a reputation as a holy man. People began coming to him for blessings, cures, amulets, and advice despite his efforts to discourage them. During his later years at Grätz, he received thousands of visitors and letters, mostly from Poland and Russia but also from Prussia, France, England, and America. Guttmacher was the only rabbi in Western Poland to be revered and sought after by masses of Jews in the manner of the Hasidic rabbis of Eastern Poland. Toward the end of his life he became known as the Tsadik of Grätz.

Guttmacher's study of Kabbalah also led him to develop mystical Zionist theories and to support the activities of Rabbi Zvi Hirsch Kalischer, forerunner of the Hibbat Zion movement, whose work Drishat Tsiyon outlined the first practical plan for Jewish settlement in Palestine. Guttmacher believed that the Jewish people would be redeemed only after they returned to the land of Israel, worked the land, and observed the commandments relating to the land. Instead of waiting passively for the Messiah, Jews should purchase land in Palestine, establish agricultural settlements, and send poor Jews from Europe to be farmers. In the interim, Guttmacher urged increased financial support for Talmudic scholars in Palestine and issued a public appeal for funds in 1860 together with Rabbi Jacob Ettlinger of Altona.

To implement his ideas, Guttmacher joined Rabbi Kalischer in various appeals to European Jewry to raise money for Jewish settlement in Palestine. Together with Kalischer he attended the conference in Thorn (Torun, Western Poland) in 1860 which laid the groundwork for a society to promote such settlement. Later, he became an active member of the Society for the Settlement of the Land of Israel which was founded at Frankfort [Frankfurt am Main] by Dr. Haim Turia. When the society foundered, Guttmacher and Kalischer reestablished it and served as its directors. Like Kalischer, he was in contact with Adolph Cremieux of the Alliance Israelite Universelle of France and with Sir Moses Montefiore in an effort to secure financing for settlement projects. He collected funds for Mikveh Israel, the agricultural school established near Jaffa in 1870, and for Petah Tikva, the first settlement outside Jerusalem, established in 1878.

Guttmacher also organized a Kabbalist study group in Jerusalem, "Shenot Eliyahu," and, with the help of Rabbi Yaakov Mordechai Hershenson, he founded two societies for the support of Talmudic scholars in Jerusalem, "Sukkat Shalom," and "Meor Yaakov." He solicited yearly contributions to these funds from visitors, students, and disciples and also forwarded to Jerusalem monies collected for these and other institutions by emissaries (agents) who traveled to the Jewish communities of Europe.

Although less of an activist than Kalischer, Guttmacher lent his considerable rabbinic stature to the support of the early Zionist movement. He wrote "haskamot" (a preface and statement of approval) for Kalischer's Drishat Tsiyon and for the writings of another Zionist, Rabbi Nathan Friedland. He also wrote letters of recommendation for rabbis who undertook to raise money, corresponded on matters of Jewish law with activists in Palestine, issued a pamphlet on the renewal of sacrifice in the Holy Land, and helped lessen the opposition of the Ashkenazic rabbis of Jerusalem (led by Rabbi Meir Auerbach, formerly of Kalisz) to Zionist projects.

Guttmacher's influence extended beyond his immediate community because of his reputation as a rabbinic scholar. He was recognized unofficially as the rabbinic authority for many small communities in Poznan and throughout Germany. In addition, many of his students who became religious functionaries in Europe and America turned to him for advice in dealing with communal problems. He published commentaries on Mishna and Talmud and composed numerous novellae and responsa, most of which are still in manuscript form at the Hebrew University and the Mossad Harav Kook in Jerusalem.

Guttmacher's published works include Zafenath Paneah (Brody, 1875), Shenot Eliyahu (1879), Sukkat Shalom (1883) and commentaries in the Vilna edition of the Talmud published by Romm publishing house. Letters and essays by Guttmacher may also be found in the published works of Rabbi Zvi Hirsch Kalischer, Rabbi Nathan Friedland, and R.A. Slutzki.

Two works that have appeared about Rabbi Guttmacher are: Aliyat Eliyahu, a memorial volume published by the Kabbalists of Jerusalem, and Hadrat Eliyahu, a book of wonder tales by Rabbi Yudel Rosenberg (which was translated into Yiddish as Der Graiditzer, Piotrkow-Warsaw).

Guttmacher's rabbinate coincided with the rise of the Reform movement in Germany. Although opposed to the movement and to the Reform rabbinate, Guttmacher nevertheless permitted his students to study German and to enroll in secular universities so that they would be able to make a living.

Bibliography

• Sokolow, Nahum Hibbath Zion 1934, p. 17-28.
• Bromberg, A. Harav Eliyahu Guttmacher, Jerusalem, 1969.
• Enziklopedia shel ha-ziyyonut ha-datit, 1958, p. 448-56.