Rosenthal, Solomon

Hungarian scholar; born in Moór, Hungary, June 13, 1764; died at Pesth April 8, 1845. His father, Naphtali Rosenthal, was a personal friend of Moses Mendelssohn in his youth. Rosenthal's teachers were Mordecai Benet, later chief rabbi of Moravia, and Meïr Barby, head of the Presburg yeshibah. For a time Rosenthal engaged in commerce in his native place, devoting himself in his leisure to Jewish literature. He contributed to "Ha-Meassef," "Orient," and "Zion," besides maintaining a literary correspondence with Hartwig Wessely and Isaac Euchel. In 1819 he removed to Pesth.

Rosenthal was the author of "Bet Awen" (Ofen, 1839), in which he attacked Creizenach, Luzzatto, and Reggio; and he published the "Ari Nohem" of Leo da Modena, for which he wrote a preface and notes. He left in manuscript a fragmentary Hebrew translation of Mendelssohn's "Phädon."

Bibliography:

  * Ignatz Reich, Beth El, ii. 334;
  * Alexander Büchler, Das Centenarium S. J. L. Rapoport's, in Bloch's Oesterreichische Wochenschrift, 1890;
  * idem, History of the Jews in Budapest (in Hungarian).



S. A. Bü.