[Avodah] R' Unna

[Jonathan Baker]

RSBA cautions against taking R' Unna seriously because (horrors) the Leo
Baeck Institute website references him.

I found a book (David Ellenson, president of HUC) with a chapter
title that seems to indicate R' Unna was Orthodox:

# 12. Gemeindeorthodoxie in Weimar Germany
# The Approaches of Nehemiah Anton Nobel and Isak Unna

at http://www.wsupress.wayne.edu/judaica/thought/ellensonae/ellensonc.html

So he wasn't Hirschian Orthodox, but Gemeinde-Orthodox, which I think
was more R' Hildesheimer's milieu.

See pp 267-271 of Ellenson's book discussing R' Unna's position on
areivut extending to the Reform (based on R' I.E. Spektor) here
http://tinyurl.com/2x56xf despite Reform's persecution of the
Orthodox minority in Germany.

In fact, he was one of the early members of Agudat Yisrael, and
participated in their 1923 Vienna congress - from Ellenson's book.

If anyone wants to read one of R' Unna's books, there's one available
through GOogle Books (onscreen or PDF) at http://tinyurl.com/23dpkt
Die Leichenverbrennung vom Standpunkt des Judenthums: Ein Vortrag

Other books by R' Unna, via Google Books: lives of Ramban (1942), the
Gra (1921), and Resh Lakish (1908), the social and political organizations
of German Jewry (1919), Marriage in Judaism (1928), books on the Klaus-
Synagogue of Mannheim, on Aguna, on Shechita, and Shoalin veDorshin
(1964), a book of shu"t, and others whose titles I can't figure out in
German.

Oh, and here's an article by R' Unna to tickle R'Mi's theory about
the name Shneur-Zalman http://tinyurl.com/2yrqgk.  "R Senior Salman
aus Ladi, der Begrunder der Chabad"

A biography, "Lema'an ha-ah'dut veha-yih'ud : mishnato ve-hayav shel
... Yitshak' ben ... Mosheh Una zatsal." was published in 1975.

A picture and brief biography can be found here:
http://www.hausderjugend-bdkj-ma.de/juedischer%20Rundgang/friedhof.html


I would caution against taking the first "fishy" Google reference
and using it to discredit a true Jewish leader.

--
        name: jon baker              web: http://www.panix.com/~jjbaker
     address: jjbaker at panix.com     blog: http://thanbook.blogspot.com