Biographical/Historical Information
Guido Kisch was born in Prague on January 22, 1889, a son of Prague’s Chief Rabbi, Alexander Kisch and his wife Charlotte née Polacek. Guido attended the University of Prague from 1909 to 1912, studying jurisprudence, history, and philosophy. He qualified to become a judge in 1912 and worked as a substitute judge in Prague from 1913 to 1915. In 1915, Guido began his distinguished scholarly career when he became a professor of legal history at the University of Leipzig. He was appointed to an endowed chair in 1922 at the University of Halle, where he worked until 1933, when he was fired by the Nazi government. His most prominent publications were about the legal status of Jews in medieval Germany. Guido Kisch, his wife Hildegarde née Feywulowitz, and their son Alexander moved to New York in 1935, where Guido taught Jewish history at the Jewish Institute of Religion/Hebrew Union College. He and his wife returned to Europe in 1962, and he spent his remaining years in Basel, Switzerland, where he taught at the University’s law school. Guido Kisch died in 1985.
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Citation
Guido Kisch, Leo Baeck Institute, F 01 AR 26008.