STERN, MORITZ

STERN, MORITZ (1864–1939), German rabbi and historian. Stern, who was born in Steinbach, Germany, was rabbi at Kiel (1891–98), head of the Jewish secondary school in Fuerth (Bavaria) until 1899, and of a religious school in Berlin until 1905, when he was appointed librarian of the berlin jewish community library . Under him, this library developed into one of the most important institutions of its kind in Europe with over 70,000 volumes. Stern also acted as curator of the art collection of the Berlin community from its inception in 1917 until 1930, and organized in 1929 the Moses Mendelssohn bicentenary exhibition. Stern's main interests in scholarship were his researches into the history of German Jews in the Middle Ages, the blood libel, and communal, family, and individual histories. He compiled the "Bibliographie der Schriften A. Geigers," in Ludwig Geiger's Abraham Geiger (1910). -BIBLIOGRAPHY: Shunami, Bibl., nos. 2271–72, 3549.