Simon Deutsch was born in Vienna in 1822 to parents from Nikolsburg, Moravia[3] He studied at the Nikolsburg yeshiva, and later completed courses in philosophy and pedagogy in accordance with an 1842 law aimed at modernising the Moravian rabbinate.[4]
As a young man he devoted himself to Hebrew studies in Vienna. He catalogued in collaboration with A. Kraft the Hebrew manuscripts in the possession of the Vienna Imperial Library, and published a medieval grammatical work in 1845. From 1844 to 1848, Deutsch was a contributor to Der Orient, a Leipzig-based German-Jewish weekly; and from 1846 to 1848, he wrote for Sonntagsblätter [de], a Viennese literary and cultural journal, founded and edited by Ludwig August von Frankl. Alongside writer Franz Gräffer, Deutsch co-published Jüdischer Plutarch in 1848, which contained biographies of prominent Jewish poets, painters, scientists, mathematicians, doctors, philosophers and educators.[3][5] That same year, he became a member of the Deutsche Morgenländische Gesellschaft, one of the first scholarly associations to welcome Jews into its ranks.[4]
In 1848 Deutsch sided with the revolution, escaping after its collapse to France.[5] In Paris, through the assistance of Mme. Strauss, the friend of Börne, he entered upon a business career, in which he was successful. He assumed a prominent position in the Finance Department of the Paris Commune.[5] After the fall of the Commune in May 1871, Deutsch was denounced to the government as a Communist. He was arrested and imprisoned at Versailles, and only the efforts of Austrian ambassador Richard von Metternich saved his life.[4]
In 1875 Deutsch began publishing the Maḥberet of Menaḥem ben Saruq in fascicles with annotations and translations into Yiddish, based on a manuscript in the Imperial Library of Vienna, but the work was left incomplete.[6] Towards the end of his life Deutsch was a supporter of the Young Turks movement.[7] He died unexpectedly while in Constantinople on business, and was interred at the Père Lachaise Cemetery in Paris.
