JUDAICA - Wisdom In Torah

sey (1901–2) and served as recording secretary of the Federated
Zionists of America. In 1903, he assumed the pulpit of
Congregation Adath Jeshurun of Philadelphia, where he was
one of the nucleus of founders of the Alumni Association of
the Jewish Theological Seminary (the forerunner of the Rabbinical
Assembly). In 1906, after affiliating with the Reform
movement’s Central Conference of American Rabbis, he became
rabbi of Kahl Montgomery in Montgomery, Alabama,
where he was also active in the Jewish Welfare Board, the
Montgomery Chamber of Commerce, the Graduate Menorah
Society, and the American Jewish Congress. During World
War I, he served as a welfare worker in the military base at
Camp Sheridan, Alabama.
Devoted to the education, character building, and leadership
development of young people, Ehrenreich purchased
a summer camp in Minocqua, Wisconsin, in 1915, named it
Camp Kawaga, and directed it as a Jewish boys’ camp – albeit
heavily influenced by Native American culture – from 1916 to
1951. His philosophy was that he could teach boys the Great
Outdoors (GOD), as well as skills to turn them into men. Over
the years, Kawaga attracted (and continues to attract) thousands
of campers, winning the approval and endorsement of
rabbis and educators from states throughout the Midwest,
the South, and the Southwest. Ehrenreich’s voluminous correspondence
shows that many men stayed in close touch with
“Doc E.” into adulthood and attributed their lifelong allegiance
to Judaism and Jewish values to his influence. Ehrenreich also
became a civic leader in the town of Minocqua, where he
eventually chose to reside for most of the year. During World
War II, although in his late sixties, Ehrenreich traveled as far
afield as Columbia, South Carolina, and Stockton, California,
to volunteer as a replacement for congregational rabbis who
were away serving as military chaplains.
Bibliography: Guide to the Papers of Bernard C. Ehrenreich,
American Jewish Historical Society (http://www.cjh.org/
academic/findingaids/ajhs/nhprc/Ehrenreichf.html); Journal of the
66th Annual Convention of the Central Conference of American Rabbis
(1955).
[Bezalel Gordon (2nd ed.)]
EHRENREICH, ḤAYYIM JUDAH BEN KALONYMUS
(1887–1942), Hungarian rabbi. Ehrenreich served as rabbi of
Holesov, Moravia; Deva, Transylvania; and Humenne, Slovakia.
In this last community, to which he was appointed in 1930,
he devoted himself to a study of talmudic literature. Ehrenreich
planned a scientific edition of the Babylonian Talmud
together with a new commentary of his own, and a similar
one of the Jerusalem Talmud, but nothing was published. Immersed
in this scholarly activity, he hardly engaged in communal
activity, but in 1920 published an important pamphlet
Yisrael bein ha-Amim (“Israel Among the Nations”) dealing
with Jewish survival. His works include Saadiah Gaon’s Shelosh
Esreh Middot (1922); Sefer ha-Pardes (1924); parts of Sefer
Abudarham (1927); Abraham Klausner’s Minhagim (1929); and
Givat ha-Moreh (1936), sermons. From 1920 he published parts
ehrenstein, albert
of Seder Rav Amram Ga’on with his own commentary and edited
a monthly journal, Oẓar ha-Ḥayyim, from 1924–38. He
and his family were killed by the Nazis in Lublin in 1942.
Bibliography: Ehrenreich, in: Oẓar ha-Ḥayyim, 2 (1926),
47; 5 (1929), 260; Wininger, Biog, 6 (c. 1930), 555; S.K. Mirsky (ed.),
Ishim u-Demuyyot… (1959), 432–7; EẒD, 1 (1958), 194–7.
[Naphtali Ben-Menahem]
EHRENSTAMM, family of pioneering textile manufacturers
in the Hapsburg Empire in the 18th–19th centuries. Solomon
Jacob, a son of Phinehas *Illovy, was first known by the family
name of Kolin. He settled in *Prostejov (Prossnitz) in 1752
as a textile importer, but twice went bankrupt because of the
unfavorable government policy on imports. In 1787 he adopted
the family name of Ehrenstamm. His son Feith (d. 1827), who
from 1786 had acquired wealth as an army contractor, took
over the firm in 1790. In 1801 he founded a textile factory with
modern imported machines, initially employing 3,000 workers,
for supplying the army and export. He later added dyeing
departments. In 1812 he accepted a contract for supplying the
quota of textiles for army uniforms imposed on Moravia, and
in 1820, in partnership with Simon von *Laemel, for supplying
the entire Hapsburg army. He took up residence next to
his factory, becoming the first Jew at this time to live outside
the Jewish quarter of a Moravian town. After his death, the
privileges he had received were transferred to his four sons.
They became known for their extravagance, and gave a lavish
reception in honor of Archduke Franz Karl. The firm built
additional factories, but in 1833 went bankrupt. The factories
were liquidated, the bankruptcy proceedings continuing until
1856. One of the brothers committed suicide, and another
immigrated to Hungary in 1852.
Bibliography: Hellig, in: BLBI, 3 (1960), 101–22; R. Kestenberg-Gladstein,
Neuere Geschichte der Juden in den boehmischen
Laendern (1969), 103–15.
EHRENSTEIN, ALBERT (1886–1950), German poet and author.
Born in Vienna of Hungarian parents, Ehrenstein lived
until 1932 mostly in Vienna and Berlin as a freelance writer.
Studying history and geography in Vienna, he published his
first poems in Karl Kraus’ Die Fackel (e.g., “Wanderers Lied”).
The publication of the novel Tubutsch (with drawings by Oskar
Kokoschka, 1911) made Ehrenstein an important exponent of
the expressionist movement. His texts were guided by a new
diaspora politics and aesthetics, understanding modernity as
the overcoming of the bourgeois concept of nation and art.
Ehrenstein’s work is populated by exterritorial figures who suffer
from homelessness and at the same time stand for a modern,
aesthetic cosmopolitanism which transcends the 19th century
concept of nationalism. This constant subject is found in
Ehrenstein’s novels (Der Selbstmord eines Katers, 1912; Nicht
da nicht dort, 1916; Bericht aus einem Tollhaus, 1919; Zaubermerchen,
1919; Die Nacht wird, 1921; Briefe an Gott, 1922; Ritter
des Todes, 1926) as well as in his poetry (Die weisse Zeit,
1914; Die Gedichte, 1920; Wien, 1921; Herbst, 1923; Mein Lied,
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