BÜDINGER, MOSES MORDECAI:
German educator; born at Maidorf, a village in Hessen, Jan., 1783; died at Cassel Jan. 31, 1841. At the age of twenty he became a servant in the house of a petty Jewish merchant, and later, by dint of indefatigable zeal, became shoḥet, ḥazan, and religious teacher in a small congregation. After making the necessary preparatory studies during his four years' residence in Naumburg, where he was private teacher, he went to the University of Marburg. In 1820 he became tutor in the family of the court banker Kaulla, in Stuttgart. From 1824 he occupied with great distinction the position of principal teacher of the Jewish pedagogical seminary at Cassel. Büdinger was also a prominent preacher, and very often delivered lectures in the little synagogue attached to the seminary, on moral and religious subjects. In 1830 the philosophical faculty of the University of Marburg gave him the degree Ph.D. for his "Leitfaden beim Unterrichte der Religion." The government rewarded him by appointing him member of the "Landrabbinat." His only son was the historian Max Büdinger.
Büdinger's first work was "Derek Emunah, oder die Kleine Bibel" (1823), which was introduced as a text-book in many schools. Of his numerous sermons and addresses may be mentioned "Zehn Geistliche Reden" (Stuttgart, 1821).
- Steinheim, Moses Mordecai Büdinger: Lebensbeschreibung eines Israelitischen Schulmannes, Altona, 1844.