Education
Born in Pilisvörösvár, Hungary, into a family of German-speaking merchants, he studied with his maternal grandfather rabbi Simon Wiener.
Born in Pilisvörösvár, Hungary, into a family of German-speaking merchants, he studied with his maternal grandfather rabbi Simon Wiener.
His father-in-law died in December 1888, and Breuer succeeded him as the rabbi of the Frankfurt Austrittsgemeinde (secessioned community) in 1890. In Frankfurt he participated in the Freie Vereinigung, a national organisation of Orthodox communities, and created its rabbinical representative body, the Verband der orthodoxen Rabbiner Deutschlands (Union of Orthodox rabbis in Germany). As part of his efforts to foster Jewish education in Frankfurt, he opened a yeshiva, the Torah Lehranstalt, in 1893, which he modeled after the yeshivot he had attended in Hungary.
Little of Breuer"s work remains in writing.
He had eight children. Simon died in childhood.
Raphael Breuer was rabbi in Aschaffenburg, Joseph Breuer taught at the Torah Lehranstalt and recreated the Frankfurt community in 1940"s New York, Isaac Breuer was an ideologue of Agudat Yisrael, Moses Breuer was a linguist, Samson Breuer a mathematician and actuary, and Joshua Breuer a pediatrician. Breuer died in Frankfurt.
He would later also be one of the founding members of Agudas Yisroel, and was a strong opponent of political Zionism. He viewed participation in the Zionist movement as an implicit approval of the idea that a Jewish state can replace Jewish religious identity.