Dr. Samuel Hirsch Margulies

Dr. Samuel Hirsch Margulies (1858-1922), was an Orthodox Rabbi and a scholar. He was born in Berezhany, western Ukraine (then mainly Polish speaking town with mixed Polish, Ukrainian and Jewish population in the kingdom of Galicia of Austro-Hungarian Empire), and studied at the Breslau Jewish Theological Seminary and at the universities of Breslau and Leipzig. He was Rabbi in Hamburg, district rabbi of Hesse Nassau, and in 1890 was appointed chief rabbi of Florence. In 1899 he became principal of Italy’s only rabbinical seminary, the Collegio Rabbinico Italiano when it transferred from Rome to Florence. Margulies was a powerful spiritual force in Italy and trained many of its religious leaders. He founded and edited Rivista Israelitica, the learned journal published by the Seminary. His scholarly publications included an edition of Rabbi Saadiah’s Arabic translation of the Psalms.