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This chapter looks at Rabbi Jehiel Jacob Weinberg's life during the Weimar Republic. It begins with a brief overview of German Orthodoxy and the various political and religious disputes which persisted even after the First World War. From there, the chapter turns to Weinberg's academic life in the University of Giessen, where he received his first intensive exposure to modern scholarship. While Weinberg was in Giessen, significant events were occurring in Berlin, which eventually led to his appointment as a lecturer in Talmud and Codes. This effectively made him the resident halakhist of his seminary. The new position also established him as the supreme halakhic authority for the numerous communal rabbis who were seminary graduates, as well as for many others who had no formal connection to the institution. He was thus ensured a central role in German Orthodox life. Finally, the chapter explores some of Weinberg's writings during the Weimar years.

This chapter examines Rabbi Jehiel Jacob Weinberg's shift from a very public life to a more private one during his final years, which were spent in Montreux, Switzerland. It shows how his failing health and postwar developments have affected him and his intellectual work. Although in the post-war years Weinberg was able to write productively on Talmudic and halakhic themes, it was much more difficult for him to be involved with modern Jewish scholarship. In spite of the logistical difficulties, Weinberg was never totally removed from modern Jewish scholarship, and it was important to him that his views should find favour in the academic community. In addition, the chapter addresses the changes which impacted the Orthodox Jewish world in the aftermath of the war. Finally, the chapter discusses the most important aspects of Weinberg's writings — his postwar responsa.

This chapter discusses the challenges faced by Rabbi Jehiel Jacob Weinberg and the rest of the German Jewry during the Nazi regime. Aside from the political challenges in Nazi Germany, there were many pressing religious issues brought on by the policies of the regime. It was in this area that Weinberg assumed a prominent role. The chapter thus embarks on a few of the halakhic issues with which he had to deal, to illustrate the difficult circumstances in which Orthodox Jews found themselves. Despite these challenges, however, the chapter also shows that Weinberg and the Berlin Rabbinical Seminary experienced a rather productive period, as the seminary became the focus of German Jews' social, cultural, and intellectual engagement — and all this was accomplished without government interference. The chapter also describes the decline of the Torah im Derekh Eretz ideal among the younger generations, despite Weinberg's attempts to defend it. To conclude, the chapter closes with the events of the Kristallnacht and the closure of the seminary despite Weinberg's persistently optimistic views regarding the Nazis' treatment of the Jews.

This chapter details Rabbi Jehiel Jacob Weinberg's time in Pilwishki, Lithuania, during which he was able to establish a growing presence within the Russian and Lithuanian Orthodox community. It begins with his appointment to the Pilwishki rabbinate, made possible by his loveless marriage to Esther Levin, the daughter of Pilwishki's late rabbi. From there, the chapter shows how his most significant work began appearing in the two leading Orthodox Hebrew newspapers, Hamodia of Poltava (Ukraine) and Ha'ivri of Berlin. As contributions to a newspaper were often regarded as a signal of one's ideological commitment, the fact that Weinberg simultaneously wrote for both apparently shows that he had not committed himself one way or the other regarding Zionism. This open mind is also seen in his relationship with Rabbi Isaac Jacob Reines, the founder of the Mizrachi movement, who had started a yeshiva in Lida whose purpose was to combine Torah and secular studies. Finally, this chapter discusses some of Weinberg's German and East European influences as well as his early thought.

This chapter details Rabbi Jehiel Jacob Weinberg's experiences during World War I. Weinberg had travelled to Germany for medical treatment during the early stages of the war. He eventually found himself heavily involved within Berlin's Jewish cultural and intellectual life. There, Weinberg grappled with issues surrounding the traditional east European school system, the ḥeder. The ḥeder system invited debates about educational reform within German Orthodox circles. He also had to contend with the efforts to bring German-style Orthodoxy to eastern Europe — a move he was personally against, as he felt it unsuitable for Lithuania. Despite continuing to look toward the East, however, the chapter also shows Weinberg's extended stay in Germany and his increasing engagement with the ideas of the West.

This chapter takes a step back to consider the state of the German Jewry at length after the rise of Adolf Hitler to power in 1933. Rabbi Jehiel Jacob Weinberg, for his part, held a rather hopeful view of the situation that year, going so far as to repeatedly express that the Jews had nothing to fear from the Nazis, and the controversies his optimistic views caused within the German Jewish intellectual community. In the meantime, Hitler was beginning to implement more antisemitic reforms. His banning of the sheḥitah — the Jewish practice of ritually slaughtering meat — in particular shocked the Jewish community. At the same time that discussions about the sheḥitah issue were going on, Weinberg was confronted by plans to transfer the Berlin Rabbinical Seminary to Palestine. Though a minor episode in Weinberg's life, through it the chapter provides further insight into the relationship between east European talmudists and the modern rabbinical seminary.