Background
He received his first lessons from his father, Aaron Jacob Kaempf, a Talmudic scholar, and then entered the gymnasium atBerlin and continued the study of the Talmud under E. Rosenstein.
He received his first lessons from his father, Aaron Jacob Kaempf, a Talmudic scholar, and then entered the gymnasium atBerlin and continued the study of the Talmud under E. Rosenstein.
In 1836 he returned to Posen and studied under Akiba Eger.
Four years later he entered the University of Halle, took up philosophy and philology, and became one of the favorite pupils of Gesenius. He received the degree of Doctor of Philosophy and his rabbinical diploma, and accepted a call to Mecklenburg-Strelitz as teacher and preacher, in the same year (1844).
Two years later he was called to Prague as preacher of the Temple Congregation, succeeding Michael Sachs.
He remained there until his retirement in 1890. In 1850 Kaempf became privat-docent in Semitic languages at the University of Prague, his dissertation being Ueber die Bedeutung des Studiums der Semitischen Sprachen (Prague, 1850).
Eight years later he was appointed assistant professor of Oriental languages at the same university.