Rabbi and scholar, born in Félegyháza, Hungary. Called to New York as rabbi of Congregation Ahavath Chesed (1885), he soon launched a series of sermons against Reform Judaism. He helped found and taught at the conservative Jewish Theological Seminary of America. A respected scholar, he worked for years on the modernizing of an 11th-c rabbinical dictionary.
George Alexander Kohut (April 22, 1842 – May 25, 1894) was a rabbi and orientalist; died in New York. Amram (called "The Gaon," who died in Safed, Palestine, where he had spent the last years of his life), and R.
Early Training
Kohut's father, Jacob Kohut, was a great linguist, and was well versed in rabbinic literature. There being no Hebrew school (cheder) in his native town, Alexander reached his eighth year without having learned even the rudiments of Hebrew or Hungarian. His family soon removed to Kecskemet, where Kohut received his first instruction. In his fifteenth year, while trying to decipher some foreign words in the Talmud with the aid of Landau's Dictionary, he conceived the plan of writing a complete lexicon of the Talmud, not having found the etymology of many words in Landau.
After finishing the gymnasium course in Kecskemet, he removed to Budapest. He then spent another year in Breslau, devoting his time to Oriental philology and Semitics. Baron Joseph von Eötvös, the famous Hungarian poet and novelist, and afterward "Cultusminister," appointed him superintendent of all the schools in the county, this being the first time that such a position had been tendered to a Jew. The Congress of Jewish notables held in Budapest in 1868 appointed Kohut its secretary. Notable among his literary labors falling in this period is his study entitled "Etwas über die Moral und Abfassungszeit des Buches Tobias," originally published in Geiger's Jüd. In 1872 he was elected chief rabbi of Fünfkirchen, Hungary, remaining there eight years.
Talmud Dictionary
About 1873 Kohut began to compile his Dictionary of the Talmud, entirely in German, encouraged by the promise of a Christian nobleman to bear all costs of publication. Arduous as the merely mechanical labor of copying the manuscript was, he rewrote what he had written, intending to publish the original text of the old 'Aruk, with a German commentary. On the advice of Leopold Zunz and Solomon Buber, however, who argued that the 'Aruk, being a national classic, ought to be compiled in Hebrew throughout, he again rewrote the work in that language, the labor of copying occupying two more years. His Maecenas, in the meantime, had died, and Kohut was left to bear the burden of expense alone, save for the subvention of the Academy of Sciences in Vienna and of the Cultusministerium in Berlin. He called his work Aruch Completum or 'Aruk ha-Shalem, and its production occupied twenty-five years of his life. The first four volumes were printed during his residence in Hungary, and the last four during his sojourn in America, covering a period of fourteen years (Vienna, 1878-92); the supplement appearing from a New York press; Kohut identified in an elaborate special study (printed in the supplement) the often unacknowledged sources of Nathan ben Jehiel's information, though everywhere defending him against the charge of plagiarism.
In 1880 Kohut was called to Grosswardein, Hungary, where he remained until 1884. At Grosswardein he became acquainted with Koloman von Tisza, prime minister of Hungary, who, hearing him speak at a national gathering of notables, was so carried away by his eloquence that he caused him to be called to the Hungarian parliament as representative of the Jews.
In 1885 Kohut was elected rabbi of Congregation Ahavath Chesed in New York. A series of lectures on Ethics of the Fathers, only the first part of which was printed in book form (New York, 1885), clearly set forth his conservatism;
New York
Kohut was associated with the Rev. Sabato Morais in founding the Jewish Theological Seminary of New York, becoming one of its advisory board, and being active as professor of Talmudic methodology up to the time of his death.
A volume containing memorial addresses and tributes was published by Congregation Ahavath Chesed in 1894 in New York; and another, containing learned essays by forty-four noted scholars in Europe and America, entitled Semitic Studies in Memory of Rev. Dr. Alexander Kohut, was published in Berlin in 1897 by his son, G. Kohut. The latter work contains a memoir of Kohut's life written by his brother, Dr. Adolph Kohut.
A complete list of Kohut's published writings has been compiled by G. Kohut, in the appendix to the Proceedings of the Fourth Biennial Convention of the Jewish Theological Seminary Association (New York, 1894) and in Tributes to the Memory of Rev.
His son, George Alexander Kohut, was an American writer and bibliographer; He was educated at the gymnasium in Grosswardein, at the public schools in New York, at Columbia University (1893-1895), the University of Berlin, and the Berlin Hochschule für die Wissenschaft des Judenthums (1895-97). In the year 1897 he became rabbi of the Congregation Emanu-El, Dallas, Texas, a post which he occupied for three years. In 1902 he became superintendent of the religious school of Temple Emanu-El in New York, and as of 1904 was assistant librarian of the Jewish Theological Seminary of America. He wrote on many topics related to Jewish life in America and bibliographical studies related to his father's work.
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