Kecskeméti, Lipót
KECSKEMÉTI, LIPÓT
KECSKEMÉTI, LIPÓT (1865–1936), Hungarian rabbi and scholar. Kecskeméti was born in Kecskemét. He studied at the rabbinical seminary and the University of Budapest and at the Lehranstalt fuer die Wissenschaft des Judentums in Berlin. He served as rabbi of Nagyvárad from 1890 to his death. Kecskeméti, a magnificent orator and a highly respected leader, was a convinced anti-Zionist and assimilationist and a Hungarian patriot, courageously resisting attempts to Romanianize Nagyvárad and the other Hungarian regions transferred to Romania after World War i. He founded a Jewish high school there. Among his published works are Zsidó költőkből ("By Jewish Poets," 1887), an anthology of medieval Jewish poetry; his Ph.D. thesis, A pokol a középkori zsidó költészetben ("Hell in Medieval Jewish Poetry," 1888); Egy zsidó vallás van-e, több-e? ("Is There One Jewish Religion or More?" 1913); Azizraelita vallás története ("History of Jewish Religion," 4 vols., 1932); Jeremiás proféta és kora ("The Prophet Jeremiah and His Age," 3 vols., 1932); Ezsajás ("Isaiah," 3 vols., 1935); and many articles in Hungarian-Jewish periodicals. He also translated the Prophets for a Hungarian edition of the Bible.
bibliography:
F. Fischer, Das Buch von Dr. L. Kecskeméti " Gibt es blos eine juedische Religion oder mehrere" (1934); Emlékkönyv Dr. Kecskeméti Lipót (1936).
[Alexander Scheiber]