Otto Muneles (1894–1967)

Otto Gabriel Muneles was born to a Jewish family in Prague, Czechoslovakia (then the Austro-Hungarian Empire), mentioned in sources dating back to the 16th century. His parents were Moritz and Cecilie Muneles. He was educated at a German gymnasium in Prague and also studied at a Jewish school. From 1912 to 1915, he studied classical philology at the German University in Prague (a branch of Charles University) and continued to pursue Judaic studies. At the start of World War I, he interrupted his studies and traveled with his friend, poet Jiří Langer, to the Hasidic community in Belz, Galicia (present-day Ukraine). Around this time, he married Barbara or Bejlou Weiss. In 1921, he was ordained a rabbi and returned to Prague. He continued to study classical and Semitic philology at the University of Prague, earning a doctorate with a dissertation on the Septuagint in 1924. After graduating, he worked as a private teacher and continued his literary and scientific studies. In 1943, during World War II, Muneles was deported to the Nazi concentration camp at Terezín (Theresienstadt) along with other members of his family. Here he became the leader of the so-called Talmudkommando, a group of prisoners who catalogued Hebrew books that had been confiscated by the Nazis. He was the only survivor among his entire family killed in the Holocaust and he never recovered from his grief. After the war, he was employed at the Jewish Museum in Prague, where he documented books and archival holdings. His work resulted in the publication in 1952 of an important bibliographical overview of Jewish literature related to Jewish life in that city. He also published several other books on subjects such as Jews in the Renaissance, Jewish tombstone inscriptions in Prague, and Jewish names in Bohemia. In 1954–1956 he taught Jewish studies in the philosophy faculty of Charles University. Prof. Muneles is considered of particular importance for combining traditional rabbinic scholarship and knowledge of the Talmud, Hasidism, and Kabbalah with a critical approach to Jewish and Hebrew literature.