Schottlaender, Bendet
SCHOTTLAENDER, BENDET
SCHOTTLAENDER, BENDET (Benedict Schott ; 1763–1846), German educator and reformer. Schottlaender, who was orphaned at an early age, received a traditional education before coming under the influence of the ideas of the Enlightenment. He supported himself by tutoring until he met Israel *Jacobson, who appointed him teacher and subsequently principal of the *Seesen school. An able administrator and controversial reformer and innovator (concerning confirmation, use of German in the liturgy, music, etc.), he held this post for 33 years. He was also Jacobson's influential aide in the Jewish Consistory of *Westphalia and was partly responsible for its daring and unpopular reforms, which he tried to make acceptable by stressing education as the panacea for the ills of German Jewry. In this vein he contributed to Ha-Me'assef and Sulamith. In 1806 Schottlaender presented a memorandum on the necessity for improved education for Jews to the Paris *Assembly of Jewish Notables convened by Napoleon. In 1808 he published his pamphlet Sendschreiben an meine Brueder die Israeliten in Westfalen, die Einrichtung eines juedischen Consistoriums betreffend.
bibliography:
J.R. Marcus, in: huca, 7 (1930), 537–77.
[Henry Wasserman /
Noam Zadoff (2nd ed.)]