HILDESHEIMER, ESRIEL (1820–1899), was a German rabbi and founder of the Orthodox Rabbinical Seminary in Berlin. Hildesheimer was born in Halberstadt, Germany, and was educated in the first Orthodox school in Germany to include secular subjects in its curriculum. He continued his studies with Jacob Ettlinger and Isaac Bernays, rabbis who combined their traditional observance with a receptivity to contemporary thought. Both men encouraged Hildesheimer's interest in secular learning, and under their influence he went on to the universities of Berlin and Halle; from the latter he received in 1846 a Ph.D. for a study of the Septuagint. Hildesheimer emerged from his early years as a staunch opponent of Reform Judaism and a major proponent of the modern Orthodox philosophy of torah ʿim derekh erets, Samson Raphael Hirsch's slogan that affirmed the worth of modern Western culture and traditional Jewish study and belief.

Hildesheimer's first opportunity to...