R' Dr Rudolf Plaut was born in Mackenzell in 1843 and died in Frankfurt-on-Main in 1914. He was the son of Heinemann Plaut (1801-1889), son of Jacob Plaut.

He became a Rabbi in Schwersenz and Karlsbad and later in Frankfurt-on-Main. He was a friend of Baron Mayer Carl Rothschild (1820-1886) of Frankfurt who arranged his Rabbinical appointment. Alfred Plaut said of his father Rudolf:

My father was born as one of many children of a cattle dealer and cattle farmer in Mackenzell near Fulda. (Mackenzell means that some Monk had his cell there. It was a Catholic country). The other brothers and sisters stayed in the small town and became little merchants, bakers and butchers. This boy, his name was Ruben, which he Germanized to Rudolf, appeared intelligent, so they sent him to become a Rabbi. He studied in the rabbinical schools in Hamburg and Mainz, and taught in high school while a student. He graduated as doctor of philosophy from the University of Berlin, writing a doctor's thesis on the Jewish Roman historical Flavius Josephus. He studied Oriental languages. He was a very muscular, strong man.

Rosa Glans Plaut did not lead a happy life. She was married in her teens, was more often pregnant than not, and saw four of her fourteen children die. At the age of 43 she had a stroke and was an invalid from then until her death at age 49.

Rudolf Plaut was blind in his declining years and because of this he was pensioned off in 1904. Rudolf ruled his household with an iron hand. As they grew up, the children began to rebel. George and Hedwig went to the opera, which was forbidden, and took part in the teenage Wagner worship which was current then. George studied chemistry to please his father, but made his career in opera. He married a Gentile girl. Alice eloped with a "penniless Gentile fiddler" who came to play chamber music in their home. Martha succeeded in breaking out of the woman's role: her school principal pleaded with her father to send her to the University, but she did not continue her career in medicine. Some of the children retained their Judaism, but others, like Alfred, forsook religion altogether.

Source - 1

The Unbroken Chain - Neil Rosenstein (1990) Volume 1, chapter 11, page 105, G 12.2.

• Details of his descendants were researched in great detail, primarily by Mrs Thomas F.A. Plaut of Chevy Chase.

Source - 2

http://www.judengasse.de/ehtml/P144.htm

Rudolf Plaut was Rabbi to the Jewish community and a member of the Jewish Reform Movement. Plaut was born in 1843 in Mackenzell in the electorate of Hesse. His father combined the roles of cattle dealer, religious instructor, cantor, and kosher butcher (shochet) in the town of Hünfeld. Rudolf Plaut was the descendant of a longestablished Hessen Jewish family. He received his rabbinical training in Hamburg and Mainz, and studied philosophy and oriental languages at Leipzig University. He worked as a rabbi in Schwersenz (to the east of Posnan) and in Karlsbad (Bohemia). He was called to Frankfurt in 1883 to become the second liberal rabbi and to assist Nehemias Brüll. This was done at the recommendation on the wife of Baron Mayer Carl von Rothschild: she had been impressed by his sermons when visiting Karlsbad. He was regarded as a gifted orator, and was greatly appreciated within the community for his spiritual care. He became blind in 1903 and was compelled to retire. He died in 1914 in Frankfurt and was buried in the cemetery in RatBeil Straße.