Michael Friedländer
orientalist, Bible translator, translator (1833-1910)
Michael Friedländer (29 April 1833 – 10 December 1910) was an Orientalist and principal of Jews' College, London. He is best known for his English translation of Maimonides' Guide to the Perplexed, which was the most popular such translation until the more recent work of Shlomo Pines, and still remains in print.
Biography
Friedländer was born at Jutroschin, in the Grand Duchy of Posen. His early secular education was at a local Catholic school, and his Jewish education came from attendance of a Cheder, and from his father, who was a talmudist and Hebrew grammarian. He then attended the gymnasium, while continuing his Jewish studies under Rabbi Jacob Joseph Oettinger and Rabbi Elchanan Rosenstein.
In 1856, he began studies in classical languages and mathematics at the universities of Berlin and Halle/Saale (Ph.D. 1862), and concurrently with the university studies he pursued Talmudic learning. Settling in Berlin, he was appointed principal of the Talmud school, a position which he resigned in 1865 to accept that of the principal of Jews' College, London, in succession to Barnett Abrahams. There he taught theology, biblical and rabbinical exegesis, Talmud, Jewish history, mathematics, and Arabic.
He retired from this position in 1907, and died on 10 December 1910. His son-in-law was Moses Gaster (1856–1939), the Hakham of the Spanish and Portuguese congregation, London, and a Hebrew linguist.
“Michael Friedländer” enters the record as orientalist, Bible translator, translator (1833-1910). Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Michael, Friedländer and orientalist can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jun 7, 2025. The linked authority identifier is Q3308207. VIAF identifies the subject as 75887987. The Library of Congress control number is no93017840. 4 of 4 selected statements include explicit references; 1 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1833, 1910, 1856 and 1862.
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This entry incorporates text from “Michael Friedländer” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.