JUDAICA - Wisdom In Torah

Feldheim, Philipp
one of the five members of the Beth Din of the Rabbinical
Council of America.
[Richard Menkis (2nd ed.)]
FELDHEIM, PHILIPP (1901–1990), U.S. publisher of sacred
books and translations in English translation. Born in
Vienna, Feldheim was sent away to a series of yeshivot in Europe
where he studied under the direction of Rabbi Joseph
Ẓevi *Duschinksy. He returned to Vienna, where he was active
in communal affairs, most especially Agudat Israel. Arrested
on *Kristallnacht Feldheim resolved to leave Austria
and immigrated to the United States with thirty dollars in his
pocket. He settled in Williamsburg, where he first sold books
from his apartment and received shipments of Jewish sacred
books from Europe. From his apartment he moved to rented
quarters and then decided to publish books instead of only
importing them.
He was involved in printing the first Talmud to be printed
in the United States. He moved to Washington Heights in 1950,
where he came under the influence of Rabbi Joseph *Breuer,
who encouraged him to translate important Jewish books
into English, much as the community in Germany had made
sacred works available in German. Feldheim undertook the
publication of the English translation of the writings of Rabbi
Samson Raphael Hirsch and Rabbi Elie Monk, and such works
as The Path of the Just and the Gates of Repentance and Irving
Bunim’s Ethics from Sinai. He was both a distributor and publisher
and spearheaded the creation of an English-language
ultra-Orthodox corpus of works, essential for reaching a new
generation of Jews comfortable in the English language.
[Michael Berenbaum (2nd ed.)]
FELDMAN, ABRAHAM JEHIEL (1893–1977), U.S. Reform
rabbi and a Zionist leader. Feldman was born in Kiev,
Ukraine, immigrating to New York in 1906 and settling in the
lower East Side. He went to college at the University of Cincinatti
where he received his B.A. (1917) and he was ordained
at Hebrew Union College (1918). He then served in pulpits at
the Free Synagogue in Flushing, the Congregation Children
of Israel in Athens, Georgia, and Keneseth Israel in Philadelphia,
where the illness of the senior rabbi forced him to assume
responsibilities ordinarily not given to a younger rabbi.
In 1925, he moved to Beth Israel of Hartford, Conn., where
he served as rabbi until his retirement in 1968, setting a tradition
of longevity that was to mark the religious leadership
of Connecticut’s capital. In the New Deal, he served as education
director for the National Recovery Administration in
Connecticut and later was State Chairman of the National Recovery
Administration Adjustment Board. He was a founder
with Samuel Neusner of the Connecticut Jewish Ledger and
served as editor until 1977. He was a master orator, who felt
that the sermon may not only inform the mind but shape the
heart. He perceived himself as the Jewish ambassador to the
non-Jewish world and taught a course at the Hartford Theological
Seminary. A distinguished leader in state and commu-
nal affairs, he has also been prominent in rabbinical circles
and was president of the Central Conference of American
Rabbis during 1947–49, President of the interdenominational
Synagogue Council of America (1955–57). A prolific author
and journalist, activist rabbi and communal Rabbi Feldman
wrote 26 books and many scholarly articles as well as literally
thousands of journalistic pieces. Among his books are Why
I am a Zionist (1945) and American Reform Rabbi (1965), as
well as many articles.
Bibliography: L. Karol, “Rabbinic Leadership in the Reform
Movement as Reflected in the Life and Writings of Abraham Jehiel
Feldman” (Rabbinic Thesis, Hebrew Union College); A.J. Feldman,
The American Jew (1964).
[Abram Vossen Goodman]
FELDMAN, HERMAN (1889–1969), U.S. army officer. Born
in New York, Feldman joined the army as a private in the
field artillery. During World War I he was sent to France and
was commissioned in the field artillery. During World War II
Feldman again served in the quartermaster corps, eventually
being promoted to major general. At the end of the war, Feldman
was awarded the Legion of Merit for outstanding services
in England and North Africa. A second Legion of Merit was
awarded by Admiral Nimitz for outstanding service in the
Pacific. He also earned the Distinguished Service Medal and
Army Commendation Medal for his service in World War II.
In 1949 Feldman was nominated by President Truman as quartermaster
general. He retired in 1951 after a distinguished 43year
army career.
[Ruth Beloff (2nd ed.)]
FELDMAN, IRVING (1928– ), U.S. poet. Feldman taught
at Kenyon College from 1958 to 1964, and subsequently at the
New York State University in Buffalo. His poetry, including
The Pripet Marshes (1965), is frequently on Jewish themes. In
his reading of Feldman’s poetry, found in The Hollins Critic of
February 1997, David Slavitt has called the poem “The Pripet
Marches” “one of the dozen or so most interesting and powerful
poems of our generation.” Feldman’s poems are found,
as well, in his Collected Poems, 1954–2004 (2004).
Bibliography: H. Schweizer (ed.), The Poetry of Irving Feldman
(1992).
[Lewis Fried (2nd ed.)]
FELDMAN, LOUIS H. (1926– ), U.S. professor of classics
and literature. Born in Hartford, Connecticut, Feldman received
his undergraduate degree from Trinity College in 1946,
and his master’s degree in 1947; his doctoral degree in classical
philology is from Harvard University (1951). He was a teaching
fellow at Trinity in 1951 and 1952, then an instructor in classics
in 1952 and 1953. He was an instructor at Hobart and William
Smith Colleges from 1953 to 1955, then joined Yeshiva University
of New York as an instructor in humanities and history. He
was an assistant professor at Yeshiva University from 1956 to
1961, an associate professor from 1961, and he was appointed
a professor of classics in 1966. He subsequently became the
746 ENCYCLOPAEDIA JUDAICA, Second Edition, Volume 6