Biography

From 1769 to 1778, Bing served as "Klaus" rabbi (rabbi of a small synagogue) in the town of Offenbach am Main. Between 1778 and 1796 he served as dayan (rabbinical judge) in Frankfurt, and from 1796 to 1814 he served as rabbi of the town in Heidingsfeld, near Würzburg (Bavaria). In 1813 he was able to overturn a previous 250-year-old decree banning Jews from settling in Würzburg proper, and in 1814 he assumed the rabbinate of the city, where he also served as the head of a large yeshiva (rabbinic seminary).

He was an opponent of the nascent Reform movement. Several of his pupils played a major role in nineteenth century Orthodoxy in Germany:

Jacob Ettlinger (editor of Der Treue Zionswachter, teacher of Samson Raphael Hirsch and Azriel Hildesheimer and author of Aruch la-Ner)
Nathan Marcus Adler (chief rabbi of the United Kingdom and author of Netinah la-Ger)
Isaac Bernays (rabbi in Hamburg and teacher of S.R. Hirsch and Hildesheimer)
Seligman Baer Bamberger (rabbi of Würzburg, founder of the Würzburg teachers' seminary)
Abraham Rice (rabbi in Baltimore, Maryland)
Rabbi Abraham Bing died in Würzburg in 1841, having resigned from the rabbinate two years earlier. Of his writings, only Zichron Avraham (Remembrance of Abraham) was printed (posthumously, edited by Bamberger).

His son, Issochor (Isachar) Abraham Baer Bing (1777–1878) was a writer and cloth merchant. His grandson, Salomon Bernhard Bing (1816–1878), was a cloth dyer and later a wealthy hops merchant. His great-grandsons were Ignaz Bing (1840–1918) and Adolf Bing (1842–1915), the co-counders of the large Bing Brothers enamalware and toy company in Nuremberg; Ignaz was also a writer, naturalist, and cave explorer.

May the merit of Rabbi Avraham Halevy Bing protect us all. Amen