RUBO, JULIUS:

German jurist; born at Halberstadt June 9, 1794; died at Berlin March 13, 1866. He attended the gymnasium in Halberstadt, and, after serving as a volunteer in the war with Napoleon, he studied jurisprudence at the universities of Göttingen and Berlin, obtaining his degree in 1817. A war of pamphlets which raged about that time affords evidence of the fact that he had won repute as a legal scholar. One Th. Grupp maintained that none but Christian jurists should be honored with the degree of doctor of jurisprudence; in a reply in Kamptz's "Jahrbücher" (xv. 486) Grupp was asked whether he seriously proposed to withhold the right to compete for this dignity from the coreligionists of Rubo, who had recently won it with so much credit. But his academic reputation availed Rubo little when he strove to establish a practise successively in Hamburg, Holstein, and Brunswick; and, seeing that the practise of law was closed to him on account of his religion, he settled at Halle as privatdocent.

The legislation of 1822, however, declaring Jews ineligible for academic positions, deprived Rubo of his office, and he went to Berlin to seek a livelihood in literary work. His first production was "Versuch einer Erklärung der Fragmente Lex II, III, IV, LXXXV, Digest de Verborum Obligationibus (45, 1), über die Theilbarkeit und Untheilbarkeit der Obligationen nach der Grundsätzen des Römischen Rechts" (Berlin, 1822). In 1824 he was appointed "Syndikus" of the Jewish congregation in Berlin, which position he held for twenty-five years. It was during his tenure of this position that he wrote "Die Rechtsverhältnisse der Jüdischen Gemeinden in Denjenigen Landestheilen des Preussischen Staates, in Welchen das Edict vom 11 März, 1812, zur Anwendung Kommt. Eine Beantwortung von 11 Fragen, mit Besonderer Räcksicht auf die Jüdische Gemeinde in Berlin" (ib. 1844). In 1849 a newly elected board of directors suddenly removed him from office. He immediately began legal proceedings, which, after a number of years, ended in his reinstatement.

Rubo contributed to Zunz's "Zeitschrift" a review of Lips' "Staarsbürgerrecht der Juden." He cooperated actively in the founding of the Wissenschaftliche Institut established by the Verein für Cultur und Wissenschaft der Juden.

Bibliography:
  • L. Geiger, Gesch. der Juden in Berlin, p. 296;
  • Lebrecht, in Vossische Zeitung, May 5, 1866.
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