Michael Creizenach was a German Jewish educator and theologian.
Education
Creizenach was educated in the traditional way, devoting his whole time to Talmudic studies. And he was sixteen years old when he began to acquire the elements of secular knowledge. He studied mathematics with great zeal, and wrote text-books on it science.
Career
Creizenach is typical of the era of transition, following the epoch of Moses Mendelssohn. This was during the French occupation. Through his influence a Jewish school was founded in Mayence, whose principal he was, at the same time giving private instruction.
He held services regularly in the hall of the school, and introduced confirmation exercises.
With this object he wrote his "Shulḥan "Aruk," in which he essayed to prove that the Talmud as a whole was untenable, but that a compromise with modern ideas could be effected in the same dialectical way in which the Rabbis had harmonized the Law with the exigencies of their time. In spite of his Reform tendencies, Creizenach was deeply interested in Hebrew literature, especially in Hebrew fiction, and during the last two years of his life edited with his friend Jost the Hebrew periodical Zion.