ECKMAN, JULIUS

ECKMAN, JULIUS (1805–1877), U.S. rabbi. Eckman was born in Rawicz, Posen. He began a mercantile career in London at the age of 14, but after three years left for Berlin to resume his studies. In 1846 he was appointed rabbi in Mobile, Alabama, and subsequently in New Orleans, Richmond, and Charleston. In 1854 he was appointed rabbi of Congregation Emanu-El, San Francisco, but his appointment was terminated after one year. A man of high principles and constant devotion to scholarship, Eckman was in demand on account of his ability to preach in English as well as in German, but the reclusive bachelor lacked the temperament to cope with the conditions of congregational life in pioneer America. Eckman remained in San Francisco for the greater part of his life. He took over the congregational school as a private venture and devoted himself to the education of Jewish children. In 1856 he established a periodical The Gleaner, which he published until 1862 and resumed in 1864. Shortly thereafter he merged it with the Hebrew Observer. Eckman served as rabbi of congregations in Portland, Oregon, during 1863–66 and 1869–72. -BIBLIOGRAPHY: J. Voorsanger, Chronicles of Emanu-El (1900), 141–51; O.P. Fitzgerald, California Sketches (1880). ADD. BIBLIOGRAPHY: F. Rosenbaum, Visions of Reform (2000). (Sefton D. Temkin / Fred S. Rosenbaum (2nd ed.)