STEIN, AUGUST

STEIN, AUGUST (1854–1937), Czech-Jewish communal leader. Son of a rabbi in a small town in southern Bohemia, Czechoslovakia, Stein studied law at Prague University. As a student he joined the Czech national movement as represented by the "Old Czech Party" and became influenced by Siegfried *Kapper, the spiritual father of the Czecho-Jewish assimilationist movement (see Svaz *Čechů-Židů). In 1881 he became the first editor of the Czecho-Jewish almanac. He joined the municipal administration of Prague and headed the "sanitation" program for the old Jewish quarter. In 1922 he was elected president of the Prague Jewish community. During the first years of his administration there were many conflicts between his assimilationist movement and the Zionists, but in later years some reconciliation was achieved. In 1930 the Czecho-Jews were defeated in the elections to the community council and the presidency passed to Stein's Zionist opponent Ludvik *Singer. When the Supreme Council of the Federations of Jewish Religious Congregations of Bohemia, Moravia, and Silesia was constituted in 1926, Stein became its first chairman and served in that capacity until 1931, when he was replaced by Joseph *Popper. He devoted much energy to the translation of the Pentateuch and of the siddur into Czech. His widow and four children perished in concentration camps during the Holocaust.

bibliography:

O. Guth, in: Česko-židovský kalendář (1929/30), 5–6; M. Poper, in: Věstnik, 11 no. 23 (1949), 265.

[Chaim Yahil]