HOLDHEIM, SAMUEL (1806-186o), Jewish rabbi, a leader of reform in the German Synagogue, was born in Posen, and died in Berlin on Aug. 22, 1860. He was educated by his father and then at Prague and Berlin. He was rabbi at Frank fort-on-the-Oder from 1836 to 1840 when he was transferred to the rabbinate of Mecklenburg-Schwerin. He then became an advocate of religious freedom and of reform within the Jewish community. At the rabbinical conferences of Brunswick (1844), Frankfort-on-the-Main (1845) and Breslau (1846), Holdheim strongly advocated the modification of ritual, especially with re gard to Sabbath observance, marriage laws and liturgical customs. In 1846 he was chosen rabbi of the new Berlin congregation. Besides numerous contributions to periodicals and essays, Holdheim published Gottesdienstliche Vortrage (1839), Der religiose Fortschritt im deutschen Judenthume (1840), Die Autonomie der Rabbinen (1843) , V ortrage fiber die Mosaische Religion fur denkende lsraeliten (1844) , Das Ceremonialgesetz im Messiasreich (5845), Gesch. der Jiidischen Re. f ormgemeinde (185 7) and Ma'amar La-Ishut (186o) . See I. H. Ritter in the Jewish Quarterly Review, i. 202 and Ge schichte der judischen Reformation (vol. 3, 1865) ; Graetz, Gesch. der Juden; and D. Philipson's History of the Reform Movement in Juda ism (1906).