The Gentile Scholar Who Became the First Campus Rabbi

In 1759, Rabbi Zvi Hirsch Lifshuetz gave a Danish Protestant named Olaf Gerhard Tychsen a document certifying him as a ḥaver, or fellow—a sort of junior version of a rabbinic degree. This is likely the only case in history of traditional rabbinic ordination of any sort being granted to a non-Jew. Previously, Tychsen had studied under Jonathan Eybeschuetz, considered one of the foremost rabbis of his day. Edward Reichman shares some new research into Tychsen’s subsequent activities:

One year after his ordination, toward the end of 1760, Tychsen was appointed professor of Oriental Languages at the newly established University of Bützow in Mecklenburg, [Germany]. It is in this capacity that Tychsen exercised a rabbinic role, becoming a university campus rabbi of sorts for a select group of Jews at the university. Though he may not actually have had a “minyan” of students, nonetheless, his impact on this select group was profound and long lasting.

Reichmann notes that Tychsen, who became the leading scholar of coins from the Islamic world, carried out correspondence in fluid Hebrew with Jewish colleagues, which he peppered with learned puns and allusions in the rabbinic style of the day. He developed a particularly close friendship with a medical student named Markus Moses:

Tychsen had a working academic relationship with Moses, as evidenced by the multiple research papers Moses wrote under his mentorship. It is remarkable that all of the papers were on Jewish topics. I have found a number of cases, though relatively few in number, of Jewish medical students throughout the centuries who wrote their medical school dissertations on a Jewish related topic, but I have never encountered any student who authored so many Jewish related papers as part of their medical training. The topics included the Samaritan Bible, a discussion of kosher and non-kosher animals based on the work of Maimonides, and an essay on the diseases of the old as reflected in Ecclesiastes 12. Moses’ dissertation . . . was also on a Jewish topic and was supervised by Tychsen.

An oath was . . . part of the graduation ceremony, and it typically involved avowing one’s belief in Christianity. Tychsen intervened with the duke of Mecklenberg on Moses’ behalf to allow him to take his graduation oath invoking the name of the God of Israel as opposed to the Christian deity. He even publicly conversed with Moses in Yiddish at the graduation.

Read more at Seforim

More about: Jewish-Christian relations, Rabbis

 

Egypt Is Trapped by the Gaza Dilemma It Helped to Create

Feb. 14 2025

Recent satellite imagery has shown a buildup of Egyptian tanks near the Israeli border, in violation of Egypt-Israel agreements going back to the 1970s. It’s possible Cairo wants to prevent Palestinians from entering the Sinai from Gaza, or perhaps it wants to send a message to the U.S. that it will take all measures necessary to keep that from happening. But there is also a chance, however small, that it could be preparing for something more dangerous. David Wurmser examines President Abdel Fatah el-Sisi’s predicament:

Egypt’s abysmal behavior in allowing its common border with Gaza to be used for the dangerous smuggling of weapons, money, and materiel to Hamas built the problem that exploded on October 7. Hamas could arm only to the level that Egypt enabled it. Once exposed, rather than help Israel fix the problem it enabled, Egypt manufactured tensions with Israel to divert attention from its own culpability.

Now that the Trump administration is threatening to remove the population of Gaza, President Sisi is reaping the consequences of a problem he and his predecessors helped to sow. That, writes Wurmser, leaves him with a dilemma:

On one hand, Egypt fears for its regime’s survival if it accepts Trump’s plan. It would position Cairo as a participant in a second disaster, or nakba. It knows from its own history; King Farouk was overthrown in 1952 in part for his failure to prevent the first nakba in 1948. Any leader who fails to stop a second nakba, let alone participates in it, risks losing legitimacy and being seen as weak. The perception of buckling on the Palestine issue also resulted in the Egyptian president Anwar Sadat’s assassination in 1981. President Sisi risks being seen by his own population as too weak to stand up to Israel or the United States, as not upholding his manliness.

In a worst-case scenario, Wurmser argues, Sisi might decide that he’d rather fight a disastrous war with Israel and blow up his relationship with Washington than display that kind of weakness.

Read more at The Editors

More about: Egypt, Gaza War 2023