Josef Rosenfeld

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Josef Rosenfeld (1858–1922) was a rabbi and educator who served as Chief Rabbi of Czernowitz (today Chernivtsi) from 1893 until his death in 1922.

He was born December 25, 1858, in Neustadtl (now in Slovakia) to Meir, who led the rabbinical court in his hometown. After finishing high school in Miskolc, he studied at the Rabbinical Seminary in Budapest under Wilhelm Bacher. He was ordained as a rabbi in Berlin in 1883 and earned a Ph.D. from the University of Leipzig.

Rosenfeld worked as a rabbi in Hamburg, then led the Jewish community in Orosháza, Hungary (1886–1893). In 1892 he was elected rabbi of Altona and Schleswig-Holstein, but he served only one year because he did not have German citizenship, which was required for rabbis.

In 1893 he became Chief Rabbi of Czernowitz. There he pushed for Jewish education and literature among young people and was a member of the National Zionist Committee. After Bukovina joined Romania in 1918, he continued as the city’s chief rabbi. On May 16, 1920, he welcomed King Ferdinand I of Romania at the Grand Synagogue in Czernowitz.

Rosenfeld died on September 17, 1922, in Frankfurt am Main, Germany, and was buried there. He was succeeded as Chief Rabbi of Czernowitz by Abraham Jakob Mark.