ZIMMER, NATHAN LÖB DAVID:

By: Joseph Jacobs, Goodman Lipkind

English pietist and scholar; born at Fürth, Bavaria, in March, 1831; died at London Jan. 10, 1895. He was noted in London for his intense piety, which he probably inherited from his father, who was a fervent ẓaddiḳ. Zimmer went to England about 1850 and entered business. He was primarily engrossed with the study of the Law, however, and especially with the more occult commentaries, every moment not absolutely needed for worldly objects being devoted to contemplation and to study of the higher life as revealed in the Cabala. His knowledge of the Cabala, and especially of gemaṭria, was profound, and astronomical calculations also had a strong attraction for him. He compiled an elaborate genealogical table of the chief rabbis of England and was a frequent contributor to the Jewish periodical press on questions of astronomical calculation and of ritual. He was one of the original founders of the London Federation of Synagogues, and issupposed to be the original of Karlkammer in Zangwill's "Children of the Ghetto."

J. G. L.