Background
Drach received his first instruction at the hands of his father, a renowned Hebraist and Talmudic scholar.
Drach received his first instruction at the hands of his father, a renowned Hebraist and Talmudic scholar.
This course of study, lasting ordinarily for three years, he completed in one year, and entered the second division of the Talmudic school in Bischheim the following year. He graduated in eighteen months and then matriculated in Westhofen to qualify as a teacher of the Talmud.
At the age of twelve Drach entered the first division of the Talmudic school in Edendorf near Strasbourg. When only sixteen years of age he accepted the position of instructor in Rappoltsweiler, remaining there three years. Afterwards he followed the same profession in Colmar.
Here the youth devoted himself to the study of secular sciences to which he had already seriously applied himself during his Talmudic studies.
Having obtained the rather unwilling permission of his father, in 1812 he went to Paris, where he received a call to a prominent position in the Central Jewish Consistory and at the same time fulfilled the duties of tutor for the children of Baruch Weil. He now applied himself studiously to patristic theology and specialized in the study of the Septuagint in order to investigate accusations made by certain rabbis that the Alexandrian translators had been unfaithful to the original Hebrew.
These studies resulted in his unquestioned belief in the divinity and Messiahship of Jesus Christ. Two daughters and an infant son were also baptized.
David Paul DRACH was married to Sara DEUTZ, born October 1794 in Oberwesel, Germany.
Sara DEUTZ was the daughter of Judith BERMANN and Rabbi Emanuel DEUTZ, chief Rabbi of Paris. They were returned, however, after two years from London to France. After a few years Drach went to Rome, where he was appointed librarian of the Propaganda (1827), which office he held at his death.