POSNER, AKIVA BARUKH

POSNER, AKIVA BARUKH (Arthur ; 1890–1962), rabbi, scholar, librarian, and bibliographer. Born in Samter (Szamotuly), Poznan, Posner taught at Mainz, Halle, and Vienna, and he served as rabbi at Kiel, Schleswig-Holstein, from 1924 to 1934. He was an outspoken and courageous critic of Nazism. After being forced to leave Germany, he settled in Jerusalem where he worked as a librarian, first at the E.L. Prinz Library of the Mizrachi Teachers' Seminary (until 1954), and then at the central rabbinical library at Heikhal Shelomo in Jerusalem.

While still in Germany, Posner published Das Buch das Propheten Micha (1924); Die Psalmen, des Religionsbuch der Menschheit (1925); Prophetisches und Rabbinisches Judentum (1925); and Die Freitag-Abendgebete ("Friday Night Prayers," 1929), with translation and commentary. He later prepared similar editions in Hebrew of the Sanctification of the Moon and Sanctification of the New Moon liturgies (1945, 1948), as well as a siddur of domestic prayers (Le-Veit Yisrael, 1957). Posner wrote communal histories on Czarnkow (Heb. and Eng., 1957), Gniezno (Heb. and Eng., 1958), and Rawicz (with Eng. abstract, 1962) – all towns in his native Poznan. His literary legacy included 35 such histories in manuscript. Among his bibliographical studies were a biography of the book collector E.L. Prinz (E.L. Prinz, Ḥayyav ve-Avodato ha-Sifrutit, 1939); a bibliography of E.M. *Lipschuetz (E.M. Lipschitz, Reshimah Bibliografit, 1941); a monograph on the Hebrew printer Monasch of Krotoszyn (in Aresheth, 1 (1958), 260–78); and a supplement to the index of the first 75 volumes of the mgwj, which is extant in manuscript. A memorial brochure, Zikkaron ba-Sefer la-Rav A.B. Posner, published by Heikhal Shelomo and edited by A. Piczenik (1964), contains a biography of Posner by A.Z. Givon and a bibliography by Rachel Posner.