GEIGER, ABRAILVM, a Jewish scholar, was b. at Frankfort-on-the-Maine, May 24, 1810. According to old rabbinical practice, his teachers were his father and elder brother, till he reached the age of eleven. After that, Laving received a more regular education for some years, he went, in 1829, to the university of Heidelberg, and slimily afterwards to that of Bonn. While engaged there in the study of philosophy and of the Oriental languages, he gained a prize for an essay on the Jewish sources of the Koran, which at a later period appeared in print under the title, Was hat Moltamm«l aus dent Judenthum aufgenommeni (Bonn, 1833). In Nov., 1832, he was called as rabbi to Wiesbaden, and there, under the impulse to the scientific study of Judaism which proceeded from Berlin, he devoted himself zealously to Jewish theology, especially in its relation to practical life. In 1835, he joined with several able men in editing the Zeitsehrift fur Judisehe Theologie. The spirit of inquiry, however, with which Ise dis cussed prevalent opinions and usages, brought him into collision with the conservative -Jews, especially after 1838, when lie became assessor of the rabbinate at Breslau; but the great majority of educated men in the sect continued attached to him. It was be who gave the first impulse to the Celebrated assemblies of the rabbis, three of which have beenheld since 1844 at Brunswick, Frankfort-on-the-Mathe, and Breslau. At the second of these he was vice-president, and president at the third. Though Geiger thus
took an active part in the reform movement, he could not abandon his historical point of view, which made him unwilling to break entirely with the past; and therefore he refused a call to be preacher to the Berlin reform society. Besides sermons, pamphlets, and numerous contributions to the above-mentioned periodical, Geiger published seine historical monographs, which are distinguished by thoroughness of investigation and many-sided learning. Among these may be mentioned the 3Ielo ChrfTajiin. (Berlin, 1840), on Joseph Salomo del Medigo.,and the ffaamanim (Berlin, 1847), on the exe getical school of northern France. His Lehr- and Lesebach zur Spraehe der ..1fisehna (1845) also is of great value to the oriental philologist. In 1850 appeared the first num ber of Studien on Moses-Ben-Maimon; and in 1851,a translation of the Divan of the Cas tilian .Ahu'l-Hassan dada ha-Levi, accompanied by a biography of the poet and explana tory remarks. Besides.some specimens of .Jewish mediaeval apologetics and numerous articles in the reviews, Geiger published Ursehrift and Uebersetzvagen der Bibel in ihrer Abluing1;91.:eit von der inn.eren. Enticiekelvng des Judenthums (1857); Des Judenthum and seine Gesehichte (1864-65); Unser Gottes-dienst (1868); Israel. Gebetbueh,; etc. From 1863 to 1870, Geiger was rabbi in Frankfort; and thence until his death (Oct., 1874) in Berlin.