Salomon Munk

He received his first instruction in Hebrew from his father, an official of the Jewish community; and on the latter's death he joined the Talmud class of R. Jacob Joseph Oettinger.

At the age of fourteen he was able to officiate as "ba'al ḳoreh" (reader of the Torah) in the synagogue of the Malbish 'Arummim society at Gross Glogau.

As no Jews were at that time eligible for government positions in Prussia, Munk left the university without taking a degree, deciding to go to France.

In this way he gathered the necessary material for his edition of the Arabic text of the Moreh, with translation and annotations, which he published in three large volumes, long after he had become blind (1856, 1861, 1866).

He paid homage to the truth despite his fears, as he said himself, of availing the Promised Land to pagan mockery, "Pudet dicere latitudinem terrae repromissionis, ne ethnicis occasionem blasphemandi dedisse uideamur".

Mention must also be made of his interpretations of Phoenician inscriptions at Marseilles and on the sarcophagus of Eshmun'azar, King of Sidon, which he deciphered after losing his sight; of his discovery of the Arabic manuscript of Al-Biruni's description of India, written in the first part of the eleventh century; and of his letter to F. Arago, of the Academy of Sciences, relating to a question on the history of astronomy, which gave rise to a controversy between Biot and Sédillot.