Isak Elbogen (23 November 1812 â 29 August 1883) was a Czech rabbi. He worked in the synagogue in SmÃÂchov and for almost his entire professional career as a regional rabbi of the Jewish community in Mladá Boleslav (German: Jungbunzlau), then one of the most important in Bohemia.
He was born into the family of Rabbi Josef Elbogen and his wife Ludmilla in SmÃÂchov in Bohemia (now a district of Prague in the Czech Republic). He had two brothers â Jakob and Lazar, and four sisters â Anna, Rosalia, Amalie and Johanna.
He first studied at the local gymnasium, and between 1834 and 1836 completed a three-year degree course at the Charles-Ferdinand University in Prague, graduating in 1841 as Doctor of Philosophy. Around this time he also received semicha (rabbinic ordination) from the beth din in Prague, which was led by Rabbi Samuel Lobe Kauder.
Elbogen first worked in his native SmÃÂchov (until 1922 an independent town with its own Jewish community). In 1843, he left SmÃÂchov to become regional rabbi in Mladá Boleslav where he worked for 37 years, retiring in 1880. He died three years later in Vienna and is buried at the Vienna Central Cemetery.
Elbogen was known an expert on the Talmud and the Mishnah. His book éâéÃÂâÃÂàÃÂÃÂÃÂèàÃÂÃÂéààÃÂâààÃÂÃÂÃÂê ééàáÃÂèàÃÂéàà(à  auà ¡ÃÂm behadrej hamià ¡ná meanná hidot à ¡ià ¡Ã¡ sidrej mià ¡ná) was published in Prague in 1865. He also wrote a selicha commemorating the great fire of the Mladá Boleslav Jewish Quarter and the synagogue on Shabbat, 28 May 1859 entitled áÃÂÃÂÃÂÃÂê ÃÂÃÂÃÂèÃÂàÃÂÃÂé ÃÂéè ÃÂæÃÂàÃÂâÃÂè ÃÂÃÂàÃÂÃÂÃÂàæÃÂÃÂÃÂàÃÂÃÂàéÃÂê çÃÂÃÂé ("Penitential prayers to the memory of the terrible fire that engulfed the city of Mladá Boleslav on the holy Sabbath day twenty-fourth Iyar of the year 1859"), which, until its destruction just before the Second World War, was read aloud annually in Mladá Boleslav synagogue.
He married Friederike Pokorny. They had a son, Guido Elbogen, who went into banking and became President of the Anglo-Austrian Bank in Vienna. Guido's son Heinrich was a sport shooter who represented Austria in the 1912 Summer Olympics. Guido's daughter Jenny Weleminsky was an Esperantist and translator, whose work was published in the Budapest Esperanto-language magazine, Literatura Mondo.