Romann, Albrecht Nathanael

Romann, Albrecht Nathanael, a convert from Judaism and missionary among the Jews, was born Nov. 3, 1819, at Kobylin, in the grand-duchy of Posen, He was educated in the school at Rawicz, afterwards al Lissa, and then at Breslau, where he also had the advantage of attending the lectures at the university. In the latter place he fell in with the so called Reform party, and became a most zealous pupil of the late celebrated rabbi Dr. Geiger, who was then flourishing al Breslau. At the age of twenty-four he was appointed teacher in a Jewish industrial school in that city. Having exchanged his strict rabbinical orthodoxy for the hollowness of Reform Judaism, he was in a state-- unsatisfied, perplexed, and longing for something better and more substantial — from which he was relievet through the acquaintance with Teichler and Caro, missionaries of the Berlin Society, and especially with Mr. Cerf, of the Scotch Society. Although at first vehemently opposing them, he finally submitted to his conviction, and on Nov. 28, 1847, he was baptized in the Reformed Church by the Rev. Consistorialrath Wachler, Mr. Cerf, Prof. Dr. Oehler, and the general superintendent Dr. Hahn being his sponsors. He now resolved to qualify himself as a Christian schoolmaster, and to effect this the Rev. C. Richter kindly received him into his own house at Rankam; and after having passed his examination at the seminary in Breslau, he obtained a situation as schoolmaster in Ziegenhals, near Neisse, in Silesia. In the year 1851 he was appointed assistant to the Rev. J.C. Hartmann, senior missionary of the London Society at Breslau. His time of probation being over, he was admitted to the society's college at London for further instruction in divinity and the English language, and returned in 1854 as a missionary to Breslau. In 1868 he was removed to Berlin to take charge of the mission there by the side of Prof. Dr. Cassel. For three years he was allowed to carry on the work of his Master in that city, and died Aug. 15, 1871. See Jewish Intelligencer, 1871, p. 247 sq.; Dibre Emeth, oder Stimmen der Wahrheit, 1871, p. 161 sq. (B.P.)