to a Jewish national identity; most notably, he was criticized when he refused to intervene on the behalf of the Jews of Damascus accused of ritual murder (a blood libel) in 1840. However, Jewish historian Steven Bayme has concluded that Geiger had actually vigorously protested on humanitarian grounds. Geiger and Orthodox, Conservative, and Reform Judaism Geiger's rejection of Orthodox Judaism To Geiger, Judaism was unique because of its monotheism and ethics. He began to identify less with the "rigidity of Talmudic legalism, developed over centuries of ghettoization inflicted by Christian Intolerance ... in medieval Christendom", that defined and confined the existence of Orthodox Judaism in the 19th century in Germany. He believed that, "the Torah, as well as the Talmud, should be studied critically and from the point of view of the historian, that of evolution and development". As Geiger grew into his adolescence and young adulthood, he began to establish a more liberal approach to, and understanding of, Judaism than his traditional Orthodox Jewish background dictated. He thus rejected Orthodox Jewish tradition in favor of a liberal outlook. Conservative Judaism's rejection of Geiger In 1837, Geiger arranged a meeting of reform-minded rabbis in Wiesbaden for the purpose of discussing measures of concern to Judaism, and continued to be a leader of liberal German rabbinical thought through 1846. When he was nominated as a finalist for the position of Chief Rabbi in Breslau in 1838, a heated controversy sparked between conservative and liberal factions within the Jewish community. Orthodox factions accused Geiger of being a Karaite or Sadducee, and therefore prevented him from being appointed Chief Rabbi. In 1840, however, the Orthodox Rabbi of Breslau died, leading to the secession of the Orthodox faction and the appointment of Geiger as Chief Rabbi. Throughout his time in Breslau as Chief Rabbi and after, the Positive-Historical School of Rabbi Zecharias Frankel continued to reject Geiger's philosophies. In 1841, he and Frankel clashed at the second Hamburg Temple dispute. When the Jewish Theological Seminary was founded there in 1854, thanks in part to Geiger's efforts, he was not appointed to its faculty, though he had long been at the fore-front of attempts to establish a faculty of Jewish theology. More conservatives regarded Geiger's theological stance as too liberal. Therefore, in 1863, Geiger left Breslau to become a Rabbi of Liberal communities in Frankfurt and, later, Berlin. "Ultimately, in 1871, he was appointed to