Obituary of Professor S. Hammerschlag from Contributions to the Neue Freie Presse

S. Hammerschlag, who relinquished his activity as a Jewish religious teacher about thirty years ago, was one of those personalities who possess the gift of leaving ineradicable impressions on the development of their pupils. A spark from the same fire which animated the spirit of the great Jewish seers and prophets burned in him and was not extinguished until old age weakened his powers. But the passionate side of his nature was happily tempered by the ideal of humanism of our German classical period which governed him, and his method of education was based on the foundation of the philological and classical studies to which he had devoted his own youth. Religious instruction served him as a way of educating towards love of the humanities, and from the material of Jewish history he was able to find means of tapping the sources of enthusiasm hidden in the hearts of young people and of making it flow out far beyond the limitations of nationalism or dogma. Those of his pupils who were later allowed to seek him out in his own home gained a paternally solicitous friend in him and were able to perceive