ROSENTHAL, FERDINAND

ROSENTHAL, FERDINAND (1838–1921), rabbi and scholar. Rosenthal, who was born in Kenese, Hungary, studied with E. Hildesheimer at the Eisenstadt Yeshivah and at Berlin and Leipzig universities. He served as rabbi at Beuthen, Silesia (from 1862) and Breslau (from 1878). He was the first Orthodox rabbi to join the Allgemeiner Deutscher Rabbinerverband, the majority of whose members were Reform. Rosenthal's scholarly interest lay chiefly in early talmudic history. His published works include: Erlaesse Caesars und die Senatsconsulte in Josephus (1879) and Vier apokryphische Buecher (1885). Rosenthal edited the responsa of jacob tam (from his Sefer ha-Yashar, 1898) and was coeditor of the D. Kaufmann memorial volume (1900), to which he contributed Kaufmann's biography.