Biography

Perles born in Baja

Baja, Hungary

Baja is a city in , southern Hungary. It is the second largest city in the county, after the county seat at Kecskemét, and is home to around 37,000 people....

 Hungary

Hungary

Hungary , officially the Republic of Hungary , is a landlocked country in Central Europe. It is situated in the Carpathian Basin and is bordered by Slovakia to the north, Ukraine and Romania to the east, Serbia and Croatia to the south, Slovenia to the southwest and Austria to the west. The...

 on November 26, 1835. Having received his early instruction in the Talmud

Talmud

The Talmud is a central text of mainstream Judaism. It takes the form of a record of rabbinic discussions pertaining to Jewish law, ethics, philosophy, customs and history....

 from his father, Baruch Asher Perles, he was educated successively at the gymnasium of his native city, was one of the first rabbis trained at the new type of rabbinical seminary

Seminary

A seminary, theological college, or divinity school is an institution of secondary or post-secondary education for educating students in theology, generally to prepare them for ordination as clergy or for other ministry...

 at Breslau, and the university of that city (Oriental philology and philosophy; Ph.D. 1859, presenting as his dissertation Meletemata Peschitthoniana).

Perles was awarded his rabbinical diploma in 1862. He had already received a call, in the autumn of the previous year, as preacher to the community of Posen

Poznan

Poznań is a city on the Warta river in west-central Poland, with a population of 556,022 in June 2009. It is among the oldest cities in Poland, and was one of the most important centres in the early Polish state, whose first rulers were buried at Poznań's cathedral. It is sometimes claimed to be...

; and in that city he founded a religious school. In 1863 he married Rosalie, the eldest daughter of Simon Baruch Schefftel. In the same year he declined a call to Budapest

Budapest

Budapest is the capital of Hungary. As the largest city of Hungary, it is the country's principal political, cultural, commercial, industrial, and transportation centre. In 2011, Budapest had 1,733,685 inhabitants, down from its 1989 peak of 2,113,645 due to suburbanization. The Budapest Commuter...

; but in 1871 he accepted the rabbinate of Münich, being the first rabbi of modern training to fill that office. As the registration law which had restricted the expansion of the communities had not been abrogated until 1861, Perles found an undeveloped community; but under his management it soon began to flourish, and in 1887 he dedicated the new synagogue

Synagogue

A synagogue is a Jewish house of prayer. This use of the Greek term synagogue originates in the Septuagint where it sometimes translates the Hebrew word for assembly, kahal...

. He declined not only a call to succeed Abraham Geiger

Abraham Geiger

Abraham Geiger was a German rabbi and scholar who led the founding of Reform Judaism...

 as rabbi in Berlin

Berlin

Berlin is the capital city of Germany and is one of the 16 states of Germany. With a population of 3.45 million people, Berlin is Germany's largest city. It is the second most populous city proper and the seventh most populous urban area in the European Union...

, but also a chair at the newly founded seminary in Budapest. He died at Munich

Munich

Munich The city's motto is "" . Before 2006, it was "Weltstadt mit Herz" . Its native name, , is derived from the Old High German Munichen, meaning "by the monks' place". The city's name derives from the monks of the Benedictine order who founded the city; hence the monk depicted on the city's coat...

 on March 4, 1894.

Works

Perles' most important essays were on folklore

Folklore

Folklore consists of legends, music, oral history, proverbs, jokes, popular beliefs, fairy tales and customs that are the traditions of a culture, subculture, or group. It is also the set of practices through which those expressive genres are shared. The study of folklore is sometimes called...

 and custom. There is much that is striking and original in his history of marriage (Die Judische Hochzeit in nachbiblischer Zeit, 1860), and of mourning customs (Die Leichenfeierlichkeitcn ins nachbiblischen Judenthum, 1861), his contributions to the sources of the Arabian Nights (Zur rabbinischen Sprach-und Sagenkunde, 1873), and his notes on rabbinic antiquities (Beitrage zur rabbiniscizen Sprachund Altertumskunde, 1893). Perles' essays are rich in suggestiveness, and have been the starting-point of much fruitful research. He also wrote an essay on Nachmanides, and a biography and critical appreciation of Rashba (1863).