FISCHER, GYULA

FISCHER, GYULA (Julius; 1861–1944), Hungarian scholar and rabbi, Born in Sárkeresztur, Fischer studied at the Budapest rabbinical seminary and was appointed rabbi of Györ (Raab) in 1887, Prague in 1898, and Budapest (1905) where he was chief rabbi (1921–43). In 1905 he became lecturer in rabbinic literature and Midrash at the rabbinical seminary, and for a time was acting director of the seminary. A man of wide Jewish and general erudition, Fischer wrote a monograph on Judah ibn Tibbon (1885) and translated into Hungarian Philo's Life of Moses (1925). He contributed many articles and essays in German and Hungarian to Jewish and   general periodicals. Fischer was a gifted orator and one of the first Hungarian Neolog rabbis to support the rebuilding of Ereẓ Israel. -BIBLIOGRAPHY: I. Hahn, in; Catalogue of the Jewish Theological Seminary of Hungary, 67–69 (1946), 22–23 (Hg.). (Baruch Yaron)