I. Family Background and Education
Born into a distinguished rabbinical family in Budapest, Hungary, Alexander Guttmann was the son of Camilla (née Schnürer) and the renowned Talmudist, Mihaly (Michael) Guttmann (1872–1942). His father, originally from Budapest, had initially served as a rabbi in a small Hungarian town before being called to the capital to assume a prestigious position at the local rabbinical seminary.1 Alexander spent his formative years in Budapest, where he attended high school alongside his younger brother, Heinrich (Henry) Guttmann, who was born on March 16, 1909.2
In 1921, a significant transition occurred when Michael Guttmann’s academic career took the family to Breslau, where he was appointed Professor of Talmud and Halakhah at the Breslau rabbinical seminary, the Jüdisch-Theologisches Seminar (Fraenckel’sche Stiftung). Although Alexander had already started his studies in Budapest a year earlier, he transferred to the Breslau rabbinical seminary and university to continue his education. He completed his doctoral studies at the University of Breslau in 1924 with a dissertation that would earn considerable recognition. His thesis, titled Das redaktionelle und sachliche Verhaeltnis zwischen Misna und Tosefta (The Editorial and Factual Relationship between Mishna and Tosefta), earned the prestigious Israel Lewy Prize from the University of Breslau. Three years later, in 1927, he achieved rabbinic ordination at the Breslau Rabbinical Seminary. Heinrich followed a similar path, studying at the Seminary from 1924 and receiving his own rabbinic ordination in 1930.
II. Berlin
Following his ordination in 1927, Alexander Guttmann relocated to Berlin, though he chose not to pursue the career of a congregational rabbi. Instead, he dedicated himself entirely to academic pursuits and Jewish education. After a brief two-month tenure as director of the Jewish Home for the Blind in Berlin, he transitioned to teach Talmud at the Berlin Jewish Community, before he joined Fritz Bamberger’s Jüdische Lehrerbildungsanstalt, the liberal Jewish teacher’s college. Thanks to his reputation as an exceptional Talmudist, his scholarly trajectory continued to ascend. Despite his young age, he was called to join the faculty of the Hochschule für die Wissenschaft des Judentums in 1935, initially teaching Talmud as a substitute for Chanoch Albeck, a pioneer of a modern approach to Mishna study and later a professor of Talmud at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. He eventually assumed Albeck’s full position and remained at the institution until 1940.3 During this period, he met his future wife, Manya Kampf, who was among his students. The couple married in 1937 and would later welcome four children: Ari, Judy (later Guttmann Mizrachi), Naomi (later Guttmann Klatzkin) and Esther (later Guttmann Whitman).4
As Professor of Talmud at this esteemed institution, he held the exclusive right to formally ordain rabbis, a position that placed him at the very center of the theological faculty, which he later described as constituting the “heart of the Hochschule.”5 In the years 1937 to 1940, he ordained numerous students, including several who would achieve prominence after emigrating to the United States, such as Emil Fackenheim and Abraham Heschel. In retrospect, he emphasized the egalitarian nature of the institutional structure6 and praised the overall tolerance towards different approaches to religious rites within the seminary community.7
In an oral history interview conducted in 1972 by Herbert Strauss, himself one of the Hochschule’s last students, Guttmann stated that he had already been deeply alarmed by the virulent Nazi terror in the 1920s.8 Unlike some of his contemporaries who according to Guttmann initially dismissed the threat, he took the mounting antisemitic hostility in Germany with profound seriousness from the very onset.9 This awareness is further evident in the book he edited in 1930, Enthüllte Talmudzitate (Revealed Talmud Quotes), which systematically collected passages from the Talmud that had previously been taken out of context and deliberately misused to support antisemitic propaganda – passages which had already been addressed by his father. In this work, he continued his father’s apologetic tradition by explicitly dedicating the collection to the fight against antisemitism.10
Throughout the 1930s, it became increasingly apparent to Guttmann and those in his narrower circle that emigration represented the only viable path to survival. Although some colleagues harbored hopes that Hitler’s rhetoric of extermination was merely political hyperbole, Guttmann himself had long attempted, albeit initially without success, to obtain visas for himself and his family, deeply fearing the trajectory of developments in Germany.11
III. Flight to the United States
There were limited opportunities to emigrate. The USA was the most appealing option for many Jews trying to escape Nazi-occupied Europe, but it was accessible to very few due to its restrictive immigration policy. Rather than a refugee regulation system, there was only a tightly controlled national immigration quota. One way to circumvent the quota system was to obtain a “non-quota visa.” These could be obtained by scholars if local institutions invited them and the state authorities were convinced of the need for their presence and that the necessary financial resources were available to support them.
As early as 1938, Alexander Guttmann’s father had already sent urgent letters to HUC urging the institution to protect his son from deportation by granting him a position.12 Ultimately, Alexander Guttmann was chosen among a fortunate group of excellent scholars who managed to emigrate to the United States in time to escape the Holocaust.13 After Ismar Elbogen, the former unofficial head of the Hochschule, arrived at Hebrew Union College in Cincinnati in late 1938, he compiled a list of scholars who would be eligible for temporary fellowships under the leadership of HUC’s president, Julian Morgenstern.14
Even after receiving a formal invitation to Cincinnati, obtaining a non-quota visa presented a particular challenge for Alexander Guttmann. As a Hungarian citizen living in Germany, he struggled to gather all the documents needed to leave the country. In his interview with Herbert Strauss, he furthermore recounted the American authorities’ outright refusal to grant him and his family the necessary visa, a bureaucratic obstacle that delayed his entry to the United States by an agonizing full year. Authorities generally tried to keep immigration at a minimum and non-quota visas, though a loophole in theory, required a massive amount of bureaucratic effort to obtain.15
With extensive and persistent support from Julian Morgenstern, he finally managed to enter the United States and arrive in Cincinnati in June 1940.16 His brother Heinrich, who had emigrated to Hungary in 1934, was only able to follow him to the United States in 1945, having tragically lost the rest of his family to the Holocaust.17
IV. Cincinnati
While the initial years at HUC proved economically precarious for many refugee scholars,18 Guttmann eventually established himself as a permanent and valued member of teaching staff, where he remained until his retirement.
In the 1972 interview, he thoughtfully summarized the differences between HUC and the Hochschule, noting that in Cincinnati, the practical aspects of the rabbinate received significantly greater emphasis in the curriculum, whereas in Berlin, theoretical education and scholarship in Talmud and Rabbinics had been more prominent.19 During his tenure at HUC, he continued to produce important scholarly works, including the 1970 book Rabbinic Judaism in the Making, which he dedicated not only to his wife, but also explicitly to his father with a personalized foreword.
In the early 1980s, Alexander Guttmann returned to Germany to teach at the newly founded College of Jewish Studies in Heidelberg. He expressed considerable enthusiasm about the opportunity to contribute to the education of a new generation of rabbis in Germany.20
Guttmann became a figure of considerable public interest in the 1980s, following a legal dispute. This controversy was connected with an organized rescue of the Hochschule für die Wissenschaft des Judentum’s library, parts of which members of the institution entrusted to him in 1940. Thus, as he fled Nazi Germany, he smuggled 60 precious books and manuscripts out of the country, concealing them among his personal belongings in order to save them from destruction and Nazi looting. In 1984, these rescued volumes unexpectedly resurfaced at a Sotheby Parke Bernet auction in New York entitled “Highly Important Hebrew Printed Books and Manuscripts,” after Guttmann had kept them among his private book collection for over 40 years. When several Jewish advocacy organizations objected to the auction, this resulted in a court order prohibiting the sale, a complex trial, and heated public debate over the rightful ownership of the books. The case was finally settled with the Guttmann family, who received financial compensation. A Judaica Conservation Foundation was established to administer these manuscripts and distribute them to various Jewish institutions.21
American Jewish Archives. Finding Aid to the Alexander Guttmann Papers, Manuscript Collection No. 663, https://collections.americanjewisharchives.org/ms/ms0663/ms0663.html.
“Guttmann, Henry.” In International Biographical Dictionary of Central European Emigrés 1933–1945, edited by Herbert A. Strauss and Werner Röder. München: K. G. Saur, 1999.
“Nine More Exiled Scholars Added to the Hebrew Union College Staff.” The Sentinel (18 July 1940): 3.
Gottschalk, Alfred. “The Guttmann Papers.” The Indiana Jewish Post and Opinion (13 November 1985): 15.
LBI. The Oral History Collection of the Research Foundation for Jewish Immigration AR 25385, Oral History Interview Alexander Guttmann and Manya Guttmann by Herbert Strauss, 1972. https://digipres.cjh.org/delivery/DeliveryManagerServlet?dps_pid=IE9399362.
Guttmann, Alexander. “Hochschule Retrospective.” Central Conference American Rabbis (CCAR) Journal 19, no. 4: 73–79.
Guttmann, Alexander. “Vorwort.” Enthüllte Talmudzitate, edited by Alexander Guttmann. Berlin: Philo, 1930.
Herr, Moshe David. “Guttmann, Michael.” In Encyclopaedia Judaica 8, edited by Fred Skolnik, 158. Jerusalem: Keter Publishing House, 2007.
Jahresbericht der Lehranstalt für die Wissenschaft den Judentums 50, edited by the Kuratorium der Hochschule für die Wissenschaft des Judentums. Berlin: publisher unknown, 1936.
Jahresbericht der Lehranstalt für die Wissenschaft des Judentums 51, edited by the Kuratorium der Hochschule für die Wissenschaft des Judentums. Berlin: publisher unknown, 1938.
Mihaly, Eugene. “Guttmann, Alexander.” In Encyclopaedia Judaica 8, edited by Fred Skolnik, 156. Jerusalem: Keter Publishing House, 2007.
Library of the Lost Books. “Alexander Guttmann”. https://libraryoflostbooks.com/reading-room/alexander-guttmann/.
Neusner, Jacob. “The Guttmann Papers.” The Indiana Jewish Post and Opinion (23 October 1985): 5, 13.
Steilen, Felix. “Berlin in Cincinnati. Scenes from the End of the ‘Hochschule für die Wissenschaft des Judentums.’” Leo Baeck Institute Year Book 69, no. 1 (2024): 145–162.
Wilhelm, Cornelia. The Last Generation of the German Rabbinate. German Refugee Rabbis in the United States, 1933–2010. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2024.
Zafren, Herbert C. “From the Hochschule to Judaica Conservancy Foundation. The Guttmann Affair.” Jewish Book Annual 47 (1989): 6–26.
American Jewish Archives. Alexander Guttmann Papers, MS 633.
Guttmann, Alexander. Das redaktionelle und sachliche Verhaeltnis zwischen Misna und Tosefta. Breslau: M.& M. Marcus, 1928. https://digipres.cjh.org/delivery/DeliveryManagerServlet?dps_pid=IE3410001.
Guttmann, Alexander. Enthuellte Talmudzitate. Eine Auswahl als Gutachten, erstattet von Michael Guttmann und aus anderen Werken, gesammelt und ergaenzt von Alexander Guttmann. Berlin: Philo, 1930.
Guttmann, Alexander. Rabbinic Judaism in the Making. A Chapter in the History of the Halakhah from Ezra to Judah 1. Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1970.
Guttmann, Alexander. The Struggle Over Reform in Rabbinic Literature During the Last Century and a Half. Jerusalem/New York, The World Union for Progressive Judaism, 1977.
LBI. Guttmann/Sotheby’s Case Collection, AR 6570. https://archives.cjh.org/repositories/5/resources/19005.
LBI. The Oral History Collection of the Research Foundation for Jewish Immigration AR 25385. Oral History Interview Alexander Guttmann and Manya Guttmann by Herbert Strauss, 1972. https://digipres.cjh.org/delivery/DeliveryManagerServlet?dps_pid=IE9399362.
Library of Lost Books. “Alexander Guttmann.” https://libraryoflostbooks.com/reading-room/alexander-guttmann/.
The US National Archives and Records Administration. Flexoline Index Database, Record Group 566. Immigration Record of Alexander Guttmann. https://aad.archives.gov/aad/record-detail.jsp?dt=3340&mtch=1&cat=GP44&tf=F&sc=31133,31135,31136,31140,31148,31170&bc=,sl,fd&txt_31133=Alexander&op_31133=0&nfo_31133=V,25,1900&txt_31135=Guttmann&op_31135=0&nfo_31135=V,39,1900&rpp=10&pg=1&rid=2557729.