Baruch Placzek

• Name — Baruch Placzek • Birth Name — Baruch Jacob Placzek • Born — 1 October 1834 • Birthplace — Weisskirchen, Moravia, Austrian Empire • Died — 17 September 1922 • Place of death — Moravia, Czechoslovakia • Burial Place — Jewish Cemetery, Brno • Awards — Order of Franz Joseph Baruch Jacob Placzek (1 October 1834 – 17 September 1922), also known by the pen name Benno Planek, was a Moravian rabbi, author, poet, orator, and naturalist. He was the last Landesrabbiner of Moravia, which position he held from 1884 until his death. As a writer, he published numerous sermons, speeches, and obituaries, as well as scientific, lyrical, and narrative works.

Baruch Jacob Placzek was born in Weisskirchen (now Hranice, Czech Republic) to Anna (Hofmann) and Abraham Placzek, Landesrabbiner of Moravia. He was taught Talmud by his father in Boskowitz, and educated at the gymnasia of Nikolsburg and Brünn. He then attended the Universities of Vienna and Leipzig, where he completed a PhD under the supervision of Wilhelm Wachsmuth in November 1856, with a dissertation on the cultural history of the indigenous peoples of Mexico.

Placzek afterwards taught at a Jewish school in Frankfurt, and founded a Bürgerschule in Hamburg in 1858. In 1861 he became Chief Rabbi of Brünn (Brno), a position he held for the next forty-four years. He meanwhile succeeded his father as Landesrabbiner of Moravia in 1884, in which role he was an adherent of moderate religious reform. He promoted the foundation of the Israelitisch-Theologische Lehranstalt seminary in Vienna, for which he served as curator, and was a founder of a number of philanthropic societies. In part under the pseudonym Benno Planek, he besides published the collections of poetry Im Eruw (1867) and Stimmungsbilder (1872), the novel Der Takif (1895), and other works, several of which were translated into English, French, and Hebrew. As a naturalist, he gave natural science lectures at the Natural History Society of Brünn, and contributed to the journals Kosmos (journal) and The Popular Science Monthly. He was a close friend of Gregor Mendel, and corresponded with Charles Darwin, whose theory of evolution he promoted. In one article, Placzek attempted to show that the rabbis in the Talmud put forward ideas akin to Darwinism. Placzek received an honorary doctorate from the University of Leipzig in 1907. He was a knight of the Order of Franz Joseph, and an honorary member of several political societies.