FISCHER, CAROLUS°

FISCHER, CAROLUS° (Karl; 1755–1844), Christian Hebraist. Fischer was librarian of Prague University and served as government-appointed censor of Hebrew books and translator in Prague from 1788 (see censorship ), the first layman to serve in this capacity. Fischer was on friendly terms with eleazar fleckeles . His query about the validity of a Jew's oath to a gentile appears in Fleckeles' Teshuvah me-Ahavah (no. 26). He wrote notes to moses landau 's Aramaic-German dictionary and an introduction to leopold dukes ' German translation of Rashi's commentary on the Pentateuch. In 1813 he submitted to the authorities a memorandum concerning the use of the term nokhri in talmudic literature; he left a summary of his opinions on Jewish problems based on his experiences in censorship (dated 1814). Fischer's Gutmeinung ueber den Talmud der Hebraeer (completed in 1802) was published by emanuel baumgarten in 1883 as a contribution to the bloch -rohling controversy over the Talmud. Two manuscript volumes mainly containing Fischer's Hebrew correspondence with Eleazar Fleckeles, bezalel ranschburg , and other scholars, as well as paragraphs he had deleted from books, are in the Prague University library. Fischer was in personal contact with members of the gesellschaft der jungen hebraeer , and permitted israel landau and Meir (Marcus) fischer to use the university library, closed until then to Jews. -BIBLIOGRAPHY: G. Kisch, in: JGGJČ, 2 (1930), 469–70; F. Roubík, ibid., 6 (1934), 292–5; 7 (1935), 305–16, 364–8; S.H. Lieben, in: MGWJ, 62 (1918), 49–56; R. Kestenberg-Gladstein, Neuere Geschichteder Juden in den boehmischen Laendern (1969), index; idem, in: Judaica Bohemiae, 4 (1968), 68–70.