Frensdorff, Solomon
FRENSDORFF, SOLOMON
FRENSDORFF, SOLOMON (1803–1880), German masoretic scholar. Frensdorff was born in Hamburg, the son of a rabbi. He studied with Isaac *Bernays and later at the University of Bonn, where he took up Semitic languages. A. *Geiger and S.R. *Hirsch were his contemporaries and friends. Between 1834 and 1837 he was assistant rabbi in Frankfurt; from 1837 he taught at the religious school in Hanover; and from 1848 he was head of the newly founded Teachers' Training College there. Frensdorff's major contribution to Jewish learning consists of a series of still valuable works on the masorah. He edited Darkhei ha-Nikkud ve-ha-Neginot (1847), ascribed to Moses ha-Nakdan, and the masoretic work Okhlah ve-Okhlah (1864, repr. 1969) from a Paris manuscript; the latter work had been published previously in a different version appended to rabbinic Bibles. Of a planned edition of Die Massora Magna, only the first part, an introduction, Massoretisches Woerterbuch (1876, repr. 1967), with a prolegomenon by G.E. Weil, appeared; the masorah notes are arranged alphabetically according to key words, giving the Bible passages where they occur. Part of Frensdorff's library is in the Jewish National and University Library in Jerusalem.
bibliography:
Kressel, Leksikon, 2 (1967), 681; Zum Andenken an unsern Vater… Sal. Frensdorff (1903), contains sermons by S. Groneman and L. Knoller.