GEIGER, ABRAHAM (1810 1874), Jewish theologian and orientalist, was born at Frankfort-on-Main on May 24, 181o, and educated at the universities of Heidelberg and Bonn. In 1832 he went to Wiesbaden as rabbi of the synagogue, and in 1835 helped to found the Zeit schrift fur judisc/ie Theologie and 1842-47). From 1838 to 1863 he lived in Breslau, where he organized the reform movement in Judaism and wrote some of his most important works, in cluding Lehr- and Lesebuch zur Sprache der Mischna (1845) , Studien from Mai monides (1850), translation into German of the poems of Juda ha-Levi (1851), and Urschrift and tfbersetzungen der Bibel in ihrer Abhiingigkeit von der inners Entwickelung des Judentums (1857). In 1863 Geiger became head of the synagogue of Frank fort, and in 1870 he removed to Berlin, where, in addition to his duties as chief rabbi, he took the principal charge of the newly established seminary for Jewish science. His later works included a history of Judaism, Das Judentum and seine Geschichte (1865 71) . He died on Oct. 23, 1874.
See J. Derenbourg in Jiid. Zeitschrift, xi. 299-308; E. Schrieber, Abraham Geiger als Reformator des Judentums (188o), art. (with por trait) in Jewish Encyclopaedia.