Gottfried, Philip Selig, born in 1722 in a little town near Halle. When ten years old his mother died, and the Jewish authorities would not allow her to be buried there, because they had heard a rumour that "she had in her dying hour committed her soul into the hands of Jesus Christ the Saviour of the world." His father had to take her at night to Halle for burial. Philip was then sent to a school at Fürth, where he studied the Talmud diligently. He narrates in his autobiography, 3 volumes, Leipzig, 1755: "I can, without boasting, say that when I was 13 years old I could repeat by heart 500 pages of the Talmud without mistake, and deliver a Derashah (sermon) on a solemn occasion." His father then got a theological student to instruct him in Latin and German, but made it a condition that he should not mention the subject of religion to the boy. However, the teacher and his clever, inquisitive, pupil soon had disputations together. It happened one day that a Jewish girl passed by their house, dressed in black and accompanied by a number of Christians leading her to church to be baptized. A neighbour asked Gottfried whether he liked the procession, and his reply was that "it looks like leading a criminal to the place of execution." "Quite right," said the other, "the girl is led as a sinner to Jesus to have her sins washed away by the blood which He shed on the cross." Gottfried continued his disputes about Christianity with his teacher, who sometimes was perplexed in not knowing how to answer his objections. He brought a Hebrew scholar to him and they read Isaiah liii. together, Gottfried quoting the rabbinical interpretations of it, and the other refuting them. After the debate was over, Gottfried earnestly reflected upon the subject, and was convinced that the Christians are right. He then bought a New Testament for 12 groschen, and studied it critically. After a long inward struggle and earnest prayer, he by the aid of the Holy Spirit triumphed over his intense prejudices, and applied to a pastor for Christian instruction. Before his baptism, in 1738, he had to answer 400 questions in his examination. Two sisters followed his example. The father disinherited them all. The convert Friedrich Augusti was then very kind to him. In 1788 he published a Kabbalistic work entitled "Sepher Shimush Tehillim." His chief work was his weekly paper, "Der Jude," in 9 volumes, Leipzig, 1767-1771.
Gottheil, Rev. Paul Eduard, brother of Rabbi Gustav Gottheil, of the Temple Emmanuel, New York, born at Franstadt (Germany), April 5, 1818, died at Stuttgart in 1893. He was one of the most distinguished converts and missionaries in the nineteenth century. He studied theology at Basel and then entered the service of the British Society in 1848, in which he continued all his life. He was for many years minister of the English Church at Canstadt, and then minister of the Diakonessenhaus at Stuttgart. In both offices he was very successful. Some of those he baptized at Nuremberg, Canstadt and Stuttgart, have become ministers of the Gospel or missionaries to the Jews, like Bahri and Löwen, who both laboured at Vienna. He published "Blätter für die Evangelische Mission unter Israel," 1850-1858; "Der Messias Israel's Hoffnung und aller Völker Verlangen," 1863 (translated into English); "Mishan Lehem, Lebensbrot für Gottes Volk aus Gotteswort" (Hebrew and German), 1871, Yiddish and German 1873; "Die Arbeit an den Einzelnen," in "Nathaniel," 1891, No. 6; an extensive Memoir of Professor Franz Delitzsch in "The Everlasting Nation," 1890.
Gottlieb, K. J., was a native of Sadagora (Bukovina, Austria), a town which has been the residence of several generations of wonder-working rabbis for about a hundred years, and has become the Mecca of the Chassidim. Naturally he was brought up in strict orthodoxy. An elder brother of his, however, managed to learn German and to study medicine, and settle as a practitioner in Pesth. At the age of 16 Gottlieb visited his brother, in whose house he found a Hebrew Bible with a German translation, which he diligently read, and his brother explained to him difficult passages, directing his special attention to Messianic prophecies without at once disclosing his own views. This excited his interest, and he began to enquire into the subject. He then happened to meet with a Jewish tract, entitled "Source of Salvation," in which the year 1864 was assigned for the advent of the Messiah, but in which the Messiahship of Jesus was distinctly repudiated. This caused him to ask his brother if he could throw light on the subject, and to his surprise he found that his brother had long been a baptized Christian, and he resolved to become one likewise if he should by instruction be convinced. A place was then found for him as Hebrew teacher in the Scotch Mission school, and he received Christian instruction from Pastor König and Pastor Wagner. However, it was found advisable to send him to Prague, where, after receiving further instruction from Mr. Schönberger, he was baptized by him in 1876. Gottlieb studied afterwards at Basel, and for a time was a missionary of the Free Church of Scotland, but most of his missionary career was in the service of the Berlin Society, in Berlin, Jassy, Chernowitz, near his home, and lastly in Stanislau. In all these places he was much beloved for his excellent qualities and true Christian piety. He died comparatively young, and "the remembrance of his name is for a blessing."
Green, Rev. Samuel J., was baptized in 1859 by the Rev. John Wilkinson, the founder of the Mildmay Mission to the Jews. He went to Australia and preached the Gospel to the Jews at Bathurst, where he also built a church in 1879.
Gurland, Rev. Rudolf Hermann, born in Wilna, 1836, of a family which were Spanish Gentile Christians, who became Jews and had fled from the Inquisition at the beginning of the eighteenth century into Russia. The father was a strictly orthodox and bigoted Jew, and sent his son to various yeshivas (rabbinical colleges), so that in 1857 he received the title of Doctor, and was called to be the President of the Seminary at Berditscheff, where he remained till 1860. He tried at first to introduce reform in the Synagogue, and wrote a work under the title "Das Judenthum und die Reformversuche des 17 und 18 Jahrhundert" (only in M.S.), but won no sympathy for his attempt. Meeting a traveller in 1862, he received from him a Hebrew New Testament, and at the same time learned from him about Pastor Faltin's missionary activity at Kischineff. He went there and became rabbi of a congregation. One day he came to Faltin and asked him if he could get him pupils for caligraphy and drawing, and showed him some specimens of his work. Faltin tried to do so but failed, and then proposed that they should read the Hebrew Bible together. Gurland agreed, but made it a condition that the main issue between Judaism and Christianity should not be introduced. Some time passed in reading book after book of the Old Testament, and Gurland gave no sign of any change in him. They were reading Isaiah liii. for the second time. When Faltin finished, Gurland said, "Read it over again," but he could not wait till he had done so, because he was inwardly moved, and went home in silence. Faltin then fell on his knees and earnestly prayed that God might open the eyes of the rabbi to see Christ in all His glory. The next time Gurland came, he asked Faltin to read again the same chapter; and then he could no longer resist the striving of the spirit within his heart, and exclaimed, "I do not know what it is, I now find much in the Bible which I have not found before, although I know it by heart. The chapter must refer to your Jesus, and I must soon acknowledge that He is the promised Messiah." The result of this meeting was, that the rabbi became the pupil of the pastor, receiving frequent instruction from him in the doctrines of the Gospel. But this frequent intercourse between them could not fail to be observed by the Jews, yet they at first had not the slightest suspicion of the rabbi's intention, but on the contrary thought that Faltin was inclined to embrace Judaism. In fact, one of them told this to one of his congregation. This man came to the pastor and questioned him about it, and was assured by him that he would never deny his Saviour, but it was possible that Gurland might embrace Christianity. Several rabbis came now to Gurland and, like the Protestant, asked him whether Faltin wished to become a Ger (proselyte) to Judaism. This brought the matter to a climax, and he confessed before them all that Jesus was the Messiah and proved his convictions from the Bible. They cried, "You have a false Bible," but he answered, "Compare it with your own and see whether it is false." What he had to suffer afterwards, need not here be described. He and his wife were baptized on Easter Sunday, 1864, before a large congregation of Christians and Jews. He then studied theology in Berlin, returned to Kischineff and became assistant pastor to Faltin, when many Jewish converts were the result of their labours. Gurland was later chief pastor at Mitau, working at the same time among the Jews. His latter years were devoted to spreading the New Testament in Wilna, Odessa and the Baltic provinces, under the auspices of the Mildmay Mission to the Jews. Professor Delitzsch called him "A noble soul."
Gutenhauer, Gutschalk Eduard, after having been won for Christ and baptized by the Rev. W. Ayerst in Berlin in 1836, studied philosophy and became Professor at the University of Breslau in 1841. There he published a work about Leibnitz, and another about Lessing, 1842, 1852.
Halbmillion, Jacob, a convert of the L.J.S. at Jerusalem, was afterwards house-father of the Wanderers' Home in London, under Dr. Stern, and then one of the first missionaries of the Mildmay Mission, zealously labouring in London and then in North Africa. He died in Morocco in 1888.
Hamburger, a convert in Holland, died in 1872. Da Costa delivered an oration at his funeral.
Händler, Rev. H. G., born in Warsaw in the thirties of the nineteenth century. In his youth he became distinguished for his Talmudical learning, so that the epithet Harif or Nilley (expert) was applied to him at that time. Gifted with a good memory, he easily acquired a knowledge of German, Polish, Latin, and Greek, and he compiled a collection of noble sayings in the Greek Classics. When quite a young man he came to London, and was converted to Christianity under the ministry of Dr. McCaul, Reichardt, and others, in Palestine Place. After four years at the Operative Jewish Converts' Institution he studied in the L.J.S. Hebrew College, and then laboured as a missionary in Breslau, and in Tunis. In 1873 he opened a school for Jewish children (mostly girls) at Cracow, and carried it on successfully for about ten years. In 1883, he was transferred to Vienna, where he had many tokens of Divine blessing upon his efforts. One of his converts has for many years been a Chaplain in India, and is still there. Händler assisted Professor Delitzsch in his translation of the New Testament into Hebrew, and furnished the abbreviations to Professor Dalman's Chaldaic Dictionary, revised Biesenthal's rabbinic "Commentar der Romans," wrote several tracts, and revised the Judæo-German translation of the Bible for the Trinitarian Bible Society.
Harzuge, Johannes, brought out a German translation of the New Testament in Hebrew characters in 1550. Some Hebrew words were retained in this translation for the purpose of making it more intelligible to the Jewish readers at that time. A specimen of this translation will be found in Wolff, (Bibliotheca Hebraica iv. 205).