Some Jewish Witnesses For Christ
LICHTENSTEIN, Johann Daniel, son of the above, who was baptized in his
youth, became afterwards a very devoted Pastor in Frankfort. It is
recorded that he displayed self-sacrificing activity, especially among
the sick and the prisoners. He died in 1862, and in allusion to his name
"Lightstone," the people said of him that "he was a light which consumed
itself."
LICHTENSTEIN, Moritz, born 1824, embraced Christianity in 1842 together
with his mother and brothers and sisters. Moritz became a preacher of
the Gospel in 1855, and died 1876.
LICHTENSTEIN, Rabbi J., is one of the most remarkable converts to
Christianity in the nineteenth century. The story is briefly this:
Finding one day a New Testament in the school under his charge, he took
it away, and hid it in his library. Then during an anti-Semitic
agitation in Hungary he, thinking that there must be something in the
teaching of the New Testament, which excited enmity against the Jews,
examined it carefully, and was convinced of the contrary, and more, he
began to admire and to love the Lord Jesus, and gradually to quote
passages from the New Testament in his sermons in the synagogue of Tapio
Szele, of which he had been minister for forty years. He also wrote
three pamphlets--"Der Talmud auf der Anklage Bank," Budapesth, 1866;
"Mein Zeugniss," 1886; "Die Liebe und die Bekehrung, ein sehr ernstes
wort zu sehr ernster Zeit." At last some of his congregation accused him
to the chief rabbi of Budapest of heterodoxy. Rabbi Lichtenstein then
confessed his faith in Jesus Christ crucified. The result was that he
had to resign his office, and to the end of his life he lived as a
Christian, constantly preaching the Gospel in Pesth though not
baptized. He died in the Lord in 1908.
LIPSCHITZ, Benjamin, a convert to Christianity, died 1876, in Vienna,
leaving to the inhabitants of his birthplace, Kriegshaber, near
Augsburg, 70,000 gulden, to be equally divided between Jews and
Christians. Besides this he bequeathed 35,000 gulden to the Jewish
Congregation of Augsburg, 100,000 gulden for the Jewish Home at Munich,
and 100,000 gulden for the Jewish Home at Vienna.
LIPSHYTZ, Christlieb T., Director of the Barbican Mission to the Jews,
London. Born in 1858 at Warsaw, the capital of Poland, he was brought up
in strict Judaism, according to the principles of his orthodox Jewish
parents. It was essential that he should undergo a Talmudical Jewish
training, and in addition he was given a thorough secular education.
When he was five years of age, his eldest sister became a Christian, and
for this she endured severe persecution. Her testimony made a deep
impression on the mind of her brother, and awakened a desire in his
heart to know what it was that Christianity really taught. So strong was
this desire that while at the secular high school in his native city, he
embraced every possible opportunity of listening to the religious
instruction given to the Gentile pupils. For this he was chastised by
his father, but the severe punishment inflicted was of no avail, for the
Spirit of God had directed the message of the Gospel home to his heart,
and within a short time he surrendered to the Lord. The bitter
persecution through which his sister had passed was a vivid and painful
memory, and it is not surprising that Lipshytz hesitated to incur the
same suffering by making a public confession in his native place.
Eventually he went away to Königsberg. Here, after a course of
instruction by a missionary of the London Jews' Society (Mr. Skolkowski)
and the Rev. Konsistorialrath Dr. Kahle, he was baptized on the 19th
October, 1878. After further study and preparation he worked under the
auspices of the home mission in the North of Germany, and afterwards in
connexion with the mission among Jews in the West of Germany. Coming to
England, Mr. Lipshytz was for some time superintendent of the Wanderers'
Home, under the direction of the late Rev. J. M. Eppstein. At the close
of 1887 he became assistant missionary to the Rev. Paul Warschawski.
When the latter relinquished the mission on account of failing health,
the work was in danger of coming to an untimely end. At this crisis
Prebendary Gordon Calthrop, who became the first President, called
together a number of friends, with the result that Mr. Lipshytz was
asked to undertake the re-organization of the work. After prayerful
consideration, the invitation was accepted. For two years and a-half the
mission was housed in London Wall, thence a removal was made to larger
premises in Finsbury Square, which were occupied for seven years. From
the first, Mr. Lipshytz exercised remarkable tact and ability, and it
became increasingly evident that under his able direction the mission
was destined to become a powerful agency in proclaiming the Gospel to
the Jews and winning their allegiance to Christ. Prebendary Gordon
Calthrop had now passed to his rest, and Archdeacon Sinclair succeeded
as President, to be followed after a time by Prebendary H. W.
Webb-Peploe, a life-long friend of Israel. With his unfailing energy and
enthusiasm, Mr. Lipshytz set about raising a memorial to the memory of
the first President of the mission, and in this he had from the first
the hearty co-operation of the devoted men who formed his council. The
outcome was the erection of the perfectly equipped and commodious
headquarters of the Barbican Mission situated on the main thoroughfare
of Whitechapel, and known as "The Gordon Calthrop Memorial," which was
dedicated and opened in the spring of 1901. Besides the mission house
and church, the property includes a spacious open-air preaching ground,
with a stone pulpit. The entire scheme involved an outlay of £13,000,
the whole of which sum was soon raised. Having succeeded in this matter,
Mr. Lipshytz realized the necessity for providing a Home for Converts
and Enquirers, and a permanent residence for the head of the mission.
This he was also able to accomplish, and the Home at Mitcham, which cost
£3,500, was soon freed from debt. With all his undertakings Mr. Lipshytz
was careful to see that the spiritual work of the mission was not
neglected. "First things" were given first place: hence the mission
abundantly prospered in his hands.
LÖBEL, Carl Friedrich Raphael, a native of Lissa, in Prussian Poland,
was baptized by Pastor Hasselman in Soran, in 1825. He studied
Pedagogy, became a very effective schoolmaster, and wrote:--"Gebete für
die Schule," 1836; "Erklärungen der Episteln," 1859. He founded a Rescue
Home, and died in 1869.
LOBGOTT, Abraham Meyer (sometimes called Gottlob), a native of Posen,
was instructed and baptized by Pastor Schultz in Berlin in 1769. He
studied theology in Halle. He translated Elias Levita's "Massoreth ha
Massorah," which Dr. Semler published in 1773. He also translated the
first three chapters of Mendelssohn's Judæo-German Pentateuch into
German, Erlangen, 1786. He published in 1775, during the time of his
studies, "Sententiae Rabb. de successione ab intestato et testimentaria
collectae a R. Joseph Karo" (Schulchan Aruch).
LOPES, Sir Manasseh Massey, Bart., was born in Jamaica in 1755, and died
1838. He belonged to the Sephardim Jews. Both he and his father Mordecai
Rodriguez Lopes embraced Christianity in 1802. In that year Manasseh was
returned to Parliament as member for New Romney and was created a
baronet in 1805. At the next election, he was returned as member for
Barnstaple, and lastly, for Westbury, where he held also the office of
Recorder, in addition to being a magistrate for two counties.
LOTKA, Rev. J., a native of Russian Poland, where he was brought up by
his parents in strict orthodoxy, but as he arrived at the age of
discretion, he somehow managed to study, besides Hebrew and the Talmud,
the Polish and the German languages. Becoming acquainted with much
Christian literature he had a great desire to read the New Testament,
and this led him to give up the position of a Jewish teacher and to come
to London for the purpose of receiving further Christian instruction by
Dr. Ewald, who baptized him on November 22, 1863. About two years later
he went from the Operative Jewish Converts' Institution to Basel,
studied theology, and was sent out to labour as a Pastor among the
Germans in Illinois, U.S.A. In 1879 he was appointed Professor of Hebrew
in an Episcopal Seminary near Chicago, where he did also missionary work
among the Jews. In 1872, he joined the L.J.S. and was sent to Lemberg,
where he laboured for ten years, and visited many towns in Galicia. In
1881, after he had been on a tour of enquiry with the Rev. Frederick
Smith in the Crimea, he was sent to Persia, where he remained from two
to three years, and laid, so to speak, a solid foundation for the
revived mission there. He subsequently laboured for a few years at Posen
and Bucharest, and much longer in Birmingham, and then succeeded the
Rev. J. C. S. Kroenig at Hull. He was the author of several tracts.
LÖWE, H. G. F., a Hebrew Christian living in Hamburg. With a view to
make known, both to Jews, and Christians, the nature of rabbinic
Judaism, he wrote the following works:--1. A translation of the first
chapter of Berachoth (Benedictions), with preface, introduction, and
three appendices, 1836. 2. A translation of four parts of the Shulchan
Aruch Aben Ezra, Hoshen Hamishpat, Orach Hayim and Yoreh Deah,
1836-1840.
LÖWEN, Moses Gotthold (Pseudon, Hananiah Berliner), was born August 8,
1859, just at the time when his father, dressed in mourning, was sitting
on the floor in the synagogue, bewailing the destruction of Jerusalem.
When the father returned home, a near relative presented him with his
firstborn son. His parents educated him after the manner of orthodox
Jews, and he studied diligently the Talmud and the "Shulchan Aruch," but
very little the Old Testament. When the boy was fifteen years of age, he
was employed by the rabbi of Sombar, in Galicia, as a copyist, and for
this he received from him instruction in rabbinical writings, in the
Bible, and in religious philological literature. This distinguished
savant, Joshua Hullas by name, was liberal-minded and exercised a
salutary influence upon the boy. Later on he perceived the untenableness
of the rabbinic views of the world, and gave up the idea of becoming a
rabbi as his parents wished. He then devoted himself to commerce, but
found no pleasure in it. Then he met the Rev. J. Lotka, missionary of
the L.J.S. at Lemberg, and for the first time learned to know the New
Testament and other Christian literature; and after an inward struggle,
lasting ten years, in which the late Professor Franz Delitzsch
encouraged him to persevere, he threw himself at the feet of Jesus, and
became His faithful disciple. He was admitted into the Church of Christ
by baptism, by the Rev. P. E. Gottheil, in Stuttgart, in 1886. Two
years later he entered the service of the Berlin Society for Promoting
Christianity among the Jews, under whom for years he laboured with great
blessing upon his efforts. Löwen's work was mostly of a literary
character. In 1888, he wrote a useful booklet in Yiddish, entitled
"Siach l'Elohim," through which he introduced the jargon of the Eastern
Jews into Christian literature. A year later he joined Chr. Theophilus
Lucky, in editing the Hebrew monthly periodical, "Eduth l'Israel." This
was and remained the first Jewish Christian periodical in the sacred
language. He worked at this difficult post for only two years, but
continued in co-operation with Professor Dalman for fifteen years in the
publication of his monthly Yiddish periodical, "Berith Am." He also
contributed numerous articles, poems, narratives, etc., to "Nathanael"
and to "Messiasbote," publications of the Berlin Society. On Löwen's