Paul Eduard Gottheil 1818-1893
Gottheil was born at Fraustadt in 1818 and died at Stuttgart in 1893. After coming to faith he studied theology in Basel, and then in 1848 he entered the service of the British Society for the Propagation of the Gospel Among the Jews, with which he was connected until the end of his life.
He studied theology at Basel and was for many years minister of the English church at Cannstadt, near Stuttgart, and then minister of the Diakonissenhaus in Stuttgart. As a missionary he was very successful. Some of those whom he instructed and baptized at Nuremberg, Cannstadt, and Stuttgart have become ministers of the gospel or missionaries among the Jews.
He published “Blätter für die Evangelische Mission Unter Israel,” 1850-58; “Der Messias, Israels Hoffnung und Aller Völker Verlangen,” 1863 (translated into English); “Mischan Lechem, Lebensbrot für Gottes Volk aus Gottes Wort” (Hebrew and German), 1871; (Yiddish and German), 1873; “Die Arbeit an den Einzelnen,” in “Nathanael,” 1891, No. 6.
He was a brother of Rabbi Gustav Gottheil (1827-1903) of Temple Immanuel in New York. Interestingly enough, the paths of the two brothers seem to have run parallel in many ways. Of Rabbi Gottheil it is written: Gottheil was the most prominent American rabbi at the first World Zionist Congress (1897), and he became one of the founders of the Federation of American Zionists, later the Zionist Organization of America. He was one of the earliest rabbis in this country to reach out to the Christian community. (Gorgias Press.)
Sources
De le Roi, Johann. Geschichte der Evangelischen Juden-Mission. ii. 266;
article Gottheil, in Der Freund Israels, Basel, 1893;
Dunlop, John. Gospel Triumphs Among the Jews in the Victorian Era.S. B. P.