Hermann Leberecht Strack (6 May 1848 – 5 October 1922) was a German Protestant theologian and orientalist; born in Berlin.
From 1877, Strack was assistant professor of Old Testament exegesis and Semitic languages at the University of Berlin. He was the foremost Christian authority in Germany on Talmudic and rabbinic literature, and studied rabbinics under Steinschneider. Since the reappearance of anti-Semitism in Germany, Strack had been the champion of the Jews against the attacks of such men as Hofprediger Adolf Stoecker, Professor August Rohling, and others. In 1885 Strack became the editor of Nathanael. Zeitschrift für die Arbeit der Evangelischen Kirche an Israel, published at Berlin; and in 1883 he founded the Institutum Judaicum, which aimed at the conversion of Jews to Christianity. In the beginning of his career the Prussian government sent Strack to St. Petersburg to examine the Bible manuscripts there; on this occasion he examined also the antiquities of the Firkovich collection, which he declared to be forgeries. This claim was found to be untrue: the Firkovich collection is closely related to Cairo Geniza material found by Solomon Schechter.
Since 1886 Strack was associated with Zoeckler in editing the Kurzgefasster Kommentar zu den Schriften des Alten und Neuen Testaments (Nördlingen and Munich). Strack was also a member of the Foreign Board of Consulting Editors of the Jewish Encyclopedia.
This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Singer, Isidore; et al., eds. (1901–1906). "Hermann Strack". The Jewish Encyclopedia. New York: Funk & Wagnalls.
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