Isaac Rülf

Rabbi Dr. Isaac (Yitzhak) Rülf (February 10, 1831 – September 18, 1902) was a Jewish teacher, journalist and philosopher. He became widely known for his aid work and as a prominent early Zionist.

Rülf was born in Rauischholzhausen, Hesse, Germany. He received a teaching certificate in 1849, became an assistant to the county rabbi and then taught in other small communities. He received his rabbinical certificate in 1854 from the University of Marburg and his Ph.D in 1865 at the . That year he became the rabbi of Memel, East Prussia.

Rülf first found fame for his part in the 'Jankel Widutzky case' in which an English minister attempted to convert Widutzky, a Jewish youth, in Memel. Rülf attacked the missionary in the article Jankel Widutzky, der den Händen der Judenbekehrungs Mission entzogene Knabe (1867), sparking indignation in Germany. Widutzky was thus not converted and entered Rabbinical college.

Memel, in addition to being an important port on the Baltic, was a frontier town and a crossroads between East and West – it lay at the tip of East Prussia, on the border of Russia's Lithuanian province (the Kovner Gubernie).

The Jewish community in Memel was divided between Western Jews (Prussian/German) and the Eastern Jews (Polish/Russian/Lithuanian), with the different groups having their own institutions and leaders. This mirrored a continent-wide division based largely on the Easterners' fixation on traditional religious education and their perceived ignorance of worldly affairs. Rülf arrived as rabbi of the German Jews but tried to unite the communities. Beginning in the late 1860s with his relief works, Rülf gained an international reputation for his assistance to Russian Jews. Thereafter, he strove to establish himself as expert on Eastern European Jewry and as a spokesman and intercessor on their behalf. He would use the press and public opinion as leverage for this activity, making the most important change in the tactics of intercession during the 19th century.

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