Lazarus Jacob Riesser (, ; 1763 – March 7, 1828) was a German rabbi. He was the father of

Gabriel Riesser Gabriel Riesser (2 April 1806 – 22 April 1863) was a German politician and lawyer. Life Both of Riesser's grandfathers were rabbis; his paternal grandfather was Jakob Pinchas Katzenellenbogen, rabbi in Lemberg, and later Oettingen, an ...

Biography

Riesser was born in the valley of Riess, the son of Jacob Katzenellenbogen, rabbi of

Öttingen-Wallerstein The House of Oettingen was a high-ranking noble Franconian and Swabian family. It ruled various estates that composed the County of Oettingen between the 12th century and the beginning of the 19th century. In 1674 the house was raised to the rank ...

. Riesser was known for his great erudition in the Talmud and his keen intellect, which led to his being chosen as the son-in-law of Raphael Cohen, the incumbent of the rabbinate of Altona-

Hamburg Hamburg (, ; ), officially the Free and Hanseatic City of Hamburg,. is the List of cities in Germany by population, second-largest city in Germany after Berlin and List of cities in the European Union by population within city limits, 7th-lar ...

Wandsbek Wandsbek () is the second-largest of seven Boroughs and quarters of Hamburg#Boroughs, boroughs that make up the city and state of Hamburg, Germany. The name of the district is derived from the river Wandse which passes through here. Hamburg-Wandsb ...

. He resided in Altona and worked as the secretary to the '' beth din''. When Kohen resigned his post in 1799 due to disagreements with the Danish government, Riesser lost his office and moved to Hamburg with his father-in-law. There, he entered the business world but met with little success. In his spare time, he wrote his father-in-law's biography, titled ''Ma'alele Ish''. This, along with two sermons by Raphael Cohen, was published under the title ''Zekher Tzaddik'' in Altona in 1805. In 1813, when Hamburg was blockaded by the Russians, Riesser moved to

Lübeck Lübeck (; or ; Latin: ), officially the Hanseatic League, Hanseatic City of Lübeck (), is a city in Northern Germany. With around 220,000 inhabitants, it is the second-largest city on the German Baltic Sea, Baltic coast and the second-larg ...

. He returned to Hamburg in 1816. Riesser's correspondence with his son Gabriel, consisting of 20 letters from May 7, 1824 to February 22, 1828, was published by Isler in ''Gabriel Riesser's Leben'' (pp. 36–61). The Heimann I. Michael collection in the

Bodleian Library The Bodleian Library () is the main research library of the University of Oxford. Founded in 1602 by Sir Thomas Bodley, it is one of the oldest libraries in Europe. With over 13 million printed items, it is the second-largest library in ...

contains some of Riesser's manuscripts.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Riesser, Lazarus Jacob 1763 births 1828 deaths 18th-century German rabbis 19th-century German rabbis