GRUNWALD, MAX

GRUNWALD, MAX (1871–1953), rabbi, historian, and folklorist. Born at Hindenburg (now Zabrze, Silesia), Grunwald served as rabbi in Hamburg (1895–1903) and Vienna (1905–35). He settled in Jerusalem in 1938. Grunwald was a many-sided and productive scholar. He wrote on the history of the communities which he served (Hamburgs deutsche Juden–1811, 1904; Portugiesengraeber auf deutscher Erde; Juden als Reeder und Seefahrer, 1902; and on Vienna: Geschichte der Juden in Wien (for schools, 1926); Wiener Hevra Kaddisha, 1910; Vienna, 1936 (in the Jewish Communities series of the Jewish Publication Society of America)). Grunwald also wrote on such famous Viennese Jews as S. Oppenheimer (Samuel Oppenheimer und sein Kreis, 1913) and S. Wertheimer and his descendants (in: Juedische Familienforschung, 1926). Of more general historical interest is his anthology of the accounts of Jewish participants in Napoleon's campaigns (Die Feldzuege Napoleons…, 1913).

Grunwald's main interest, however, was Jewish folklore, and his contribution in this field is of lasting importance. In 1897 he founded the Gesellschaft fuer juedische Volkskunde and edited and largely wrote its organ, the Mitteillungen (1897–1922), which was succeeded by the Jahrbuecher fuer juedische Volkskunde (1923–25). In this area he contributed also to other periodicals as well as to a number of Festschriften (J. Lewy, 1911; Gaster Anniversary Volume,…) and published important studies such as Hebraeische Frauennamen (1894– ), Eigennamen des alten Testaments (1895), and in the related field of Jewish art Holzsynagogen in Polen (with others, 1934). Among Grunwald's other interests were Spinoza, on whom he had written his dissertation (1892) and a prizewinning Spinoza in Deutschland (1897). On the occasion of the international exhibition on hygiene in Dresden in 1911 he published a book on that subject, Hygiene der Juden (1912). He also edited a German prayer book for women (Beruria, 1913²) and one for serving soldiers (Gebetbuch fuer israelitische Soldaten im Kriege, 1914). On the occasion of Grunwald's 70^th birthday Omanut, the publication of the Bezalel Museum in Jerusalem, issued his bibliography (1941).

His son, kurt (1901–1990), was a banker, economist, and public figure in Jerusalem. He wrote on aspects of Jewish economic history including Tuerkenhirsch (1966), a study of Baron de *Hirsch.

[Eliyahu Feldman]