Unless otherwise indicated, all quotes are from “Life, Letters, and Addresses of Aaron Friedenwald, M.D.” by his son Harry Friedenwald, M. D. The book was printed for private circulation by The Lord Baltimore Press in 1906. The book may be downloaded at no charge from books.google.com.
Last month’s column dealt with the life of Jonas Friedenwald, who came to Baltimore in 1832. Jonas’s youngest son, Aaron, was born on December 20, 1836, and eventually became a well-known physician. Many Jews born in America during the 19th century abandoned the Orthodox practices of their parents. Aaron, however, lived his entire life as an observant Jew. This was no small accomplishment in light of the fact that the Reform movement was very much on the ascent during this period.
Early Life and Medical Studies
The first ordained rabbi to settle in America, Avraham Rice, became the rav of Baltimore Hebrew Congregation in 1840. Realizing that education of youth was the key to the preservation of traditional Judaism in America, Rabbi Rice started a day school shortly after arriving in Baltimore. Aaron attended this school, where he received both a secular and religious education.
His early religious training was received at the congregational school. His [religious] instructors were Mr. Weil, Mr. Dannenberg, Mr. Sachs, and, later on, Reverend Dr. Henry Hochheimer, who, soon after his arrival in this country, prepared my father for the Bar-Mizwah (Mitzvah) ceremony, and introduced him to the study of Rashi’s Biblical commentary. He early acquired for the study of Hebrew a love which he retained throughout his life. He was an apt scholar, and in later years looked back to his school days as pleasant memories.An important influence on the formation of his character was that exerted by the late Reverend Abraham Rice, the first Rabbi of the Baltimore Hebrew Congregation and an intimate friend of the family. [Rabbi] Rice was a very pious man, whose congenial nature and religious fervor attracted the thoughtful boy, and it is to his influence rather than to any other that I should ascribe the consistent [Orthodox] religious views which marked the whole course of my father’s life. His loving veneration for [Rabbi] Rice appeared in his frequent references to him and in his unvarying custom of having the prayer for the dead recited in his memory on the Day of Atonement. He mentioned on several occasions his intention of publishing a biography of the rabbi, together with a selection from his sermons, some of which my father transcribed; this intention, however, was never carried out.
Aaron’s formal schooling was over by the time he turned 15, and he went to work as a bookkeeper in his brothers’ clothing business. He soon realized he wanted to do other things with his life and began preparing for a career change.
His evenings were devoted in great part to study and general reading. He took lessons from Mr. Jonas Goldsmith in French, making considerable progress in that language; and he learned to know English literature well, being particularly interested in fiction and in history. The sciences, especially physics, chemistry, and mathematics, were also diligently studied, and he gained so thorough a knowledge of them that in later years his children never brought him a question in science or a problem in algebra or geometry which he could not help them to unravel.
When Aaron reached the age of twenty-one, he informed his parents he had decided to leave his job and study medicine. In the spring of 1858 he enrolled as a student at the University of Maryland.