Perles family collection

Rosalie Perles (1839-1932) was a German writer and philanthropist. She was born in Breslau in 1839 as a daughter of S. B. Schefftel. She married Joseph Perles in 1863. While in Munich, she engaged in philanthropic work, as leader of the women’s societies there. Having lost both her husband and her elder son in 1894, she went in 1899 to live with her younger son at Königsberg, where she took up literary work. She was a regular contributor to Jewish Comment, and has also written for The Jewish Encyclopedia, Allgemeine Zeitung des Judenthums, Im Deutschen Reich, and Ost und West She authored Ein Moderner Erlöser des Judentums and edited a volume of her husband’s sermons, with a preface.

Hedwig Perles (1876-1954) was a social worker. She was the wife of Felix Perles, daughter-in-law of Joseph Perles. She was a social worker in Königsberg. In 1934 she emigrated to Palestine. Among other works, she edited the bibliography of her husband Felix Perles.

Max Perles (1867-1894) was a German oculist. He was born in Posen in 1867 as son of Joseph Perles. He studied medicine at the University of Munich (M.D. 1889), and in 1890 went to Berlin, where he studied bacteriology for six months with Robert Koch, and was then appointed assistant at the largest eye infirmary in that city. In 1894 he was recalled to Munich by his father’s fatal illness, and established himself there as an oculist, at the same time continuing his bacteriological studies and perfecting the electrical ophthalmoscope which he had invented. He was about to receive permission to lecture at the University of Munich when he died of a sepsis contracted during his experiments. Perles published the following essays: Über Solanin und Solanidin (dissertation, Munich, 1889); “Embolia Partialis Retinae” (in Centralblatt für Augenheilkunde, 1891); “Über Pigmentstaar bei Diabetes Mellitus” (Centralblatt für Augenheilkunde, 1892); “Über Heilung von Stauungspapillen” (Centralblatt für Augenheilkunde, 1893); “Beobachtungen über Perniciöse Anämie” (in Berliner Klinische Wochenschrift, 1893); “Über die durch den Friedländer’schen Pneumobacillus hervorgerufene Augenentzündung” (in Vorträge der Wiener Naturforscherversammlung, 1894).

Felix Perles (1874-1933) was a German rabbi. He was born in Munich in 1874 as son of Joseph Perles. He received his early training at the Wilhelm-Gymnasium in his native city, and at the same time began his religious studies under his father. He then studied successively at the University of Munich (Orientalia and classical philology), at the University of Breslau as well as at the Jewish Theological Seminary of Breslau. Later, after his father's death, he studied again in Munich (receiving his Ph.D. in 1895), at the Jewish Theological Seminary in Vienna, where he became an adherent of the Zionist movement, and at the seminary at Paris, receiving his rabbinical diploma in 1898. He was then appointed vice-rabbi in Königsberg. Perles’ works, dealing with Biblical science, and more specifically with textual criticism, rabbinical philology, and the science of religion, include: Analekten zur Textkritik des Alten Testaments, Munich, 1895; Zur Althebräischen Strophik, Wien, 1896; Notes Critiques sur le Texte de l'Ecclésiastique, Paris, 1897; Was Lehrt Uns Harnack?, Frankfurt am Main, 1902; Zur Erklärung der Psalmen Salomos, Berlin, 1902; Bousset’s Religion des Judentums im Neutestamentlichen Zeitalter Kritisch Untersucht, Berlin, 1903. He also edited Gesammelte Aufsätze zur Sprach- und Sagenkunde von Max Grünbaum, Berlin, 1901, and contributed with a number of essays and reviews to the Orientalistische Literaturzeitung, Die Welt, Ost und West, and other periodicals.

Joseph Perles (1835-1894) was born in Baja, Hungary, in 1835. He was born into a long line of rabbis and talmudic scholars. His ancestors include the famous talmudist and mathematician Judah Loew ben Bezalel (d. 1609 in Prague) and Asher ben Jehiel, or Asheri, (1250-1327), an outstanding legal codifier and Talmudist. In addition to studying at the Jewish Theological Seminary of Breslau, Joseph Perles also took courses at the University of Breslau. He graduated from the university in Oriental Philology and Philosophy, receiving a Ph.D. in 1859. His dissertation was a treatise on the Syriac version of the Bible. Studying and writing about ancient versions of the Bible became one of his specialties. His work in medieval literature was also extensive. Joseph Perles’s main scholarly contribution was to Hebrew and Aramaic lexicography and philology. Works include Zur rabbinischen Sprach-und Sagenkunde (1873), Die Jüdische Hochzeit in Nachbiblischer Zeit, (1860), and Die Leichenfeierlichkeiten im nachbiblischen Judentum, (1861). He also wrote Beiträge zur Geschichte der Hebräischen und Aramäischen Studien (1884). Topics cover biblical history, German-Jewish history, philology, and linguistics. Joseph Perles served as a preacher of the Brüdergemeinde of Posen (now Poznan, Poland) from 1862-1871. He rejected an offer to serve as a rabbi in Berlin as well as a position to lecture at the newly founded Landesrabbinerschule in Budapest. He opted instead to become rabbi of the Jewish community of Munich in 1871. During his rabbinate, the Munich Jewish community became more cohesive and organized, and a new synagogue was established during his tenure, in 1887. Joseph Perles stayed in Munich until his death in 1894.