GREENWALD (Grunwald), JEKUTHIEL JUDAH

GREENWALD (Grunwald ), JEKUTHIEL JUDAH (Yekusiel Yehudah ; Leopold ; 1889–1955), U.S. rabbi and scholar. Greenwald, born in Hungary, studied in yeshivot in that country and in Frankfurt on the Main under Nehemiah *Nobel. In 1924 he settled in the United States, where he was the rabbi of Orthodox congregations in New York and of Congregation Beth Jacob in Columbus, Ohio, where he served for the last three decades of his life. Neither a great orator nor skilled pastor, Greenwald was a prolific writer and regarded as an authority on Jewish law and history. He wrote numerous monographs and articles in Hungarian, Yiddish, and Hebrew, was especially interested in rabbinic authorities and Jewish communities of Hungary, on which he wrote Ha-Yehudim be-Ungarya (1913) and Toyznt Yor Idish Lebn in Ungarn (1945). His work Le-Toledot ha-Reformaẓyon ha-Datit be-Germanyah uve-Ungarya (1948) is a history of the Reform movement in Germany and Hungary (this work contains a bibliography of Greenwald's work up to 1948 and an evaluation by C. Bloch, 1–28, second pagination). He also wrote works on the history of the Sanhedrin and biographies of leading rabbis, such as Joseph Caro and Moses Sofer. In the latter category are Beit Yehonatan (1908) about Jonathan *Eybeschuetz, and Toledot Mishpaḥat Rosenthal (1920) about the Rosenthal family, which included several rabbis. Greenwald compiled an important manual of traditional laws and rites of mourning, Kol-Bo Avelut (3 vols., 1947–52).

bibliography:

N. Katzburg, in: Sinai, 37 (1955), 277–81; 40 (1957), 313–4; Kressel, Leksikon, 1 (1965), 511–2; eẒd, 1 (1958), 589–96. add. bibliography: M.L. Raphael, Jews and Judaism in a Midwestern Jewish Community: Columbus, Ohio 1840–1953 (1979). M.D. Sherman, Orthodox Judaism in America: A Biographical Dictionary and Sourcebook (1996).

[Eisig Silberschlag /

Michael Berenbaum (2^nd ed.)]