SALFELD, SIEGMUND

SALFELD, SIEGMUND (1843–1926), German rabbi and historian. Salfeld, who was born in Stadthagen, Germany, served as rabbi in Dessau from 1870, and in Mainz from 1880. Salfeld received the title professor from the grand duke of Hesse in 1912. His scholarly interest was devoted to the history of German Jewry, and especially of the Mainz community. He described the political and social conditions of German Jews in the Middle Ages, based on research into source material, and his major work in this area was Bilder aus der Vergangenheit der juedischen Gemeinde Mainz (1903). Salfeld's most important work was Das Martyrologium des Nuernberger Memorbuches (1898), which connected the memorbuch found in Mainz with Nuremberg, a contention disputed by M. Weinberg who assigned it to Mainz (Die Memorbuecher der juedischen Gemeinden in Bayern (1937–38),3–4). Many of Salfeld's studies appeared in learned periodicals and Festschriften. In 1879 he published Das Hohelied Salomo's bei den juedischen Erklaerern des Mittelalters. -BIBLIOGRAPHY: Gedenkreden beim Heimgang des Altrabbiners S. Salfeld (1926). (Jacob Rothschild)