Pick, Israel

PICK, ISRAEL: Founder of the Amenian Congregation; b. about 1830. Baptized as a Christian at Breslau in 1854, he professed that by so doing he did not renounce his Judaism, but became a Jew in the truest sense. All the law and ordinances of the Old Testament were included with the Christian sacraments as the ordinances of the new congregation founded by him, which he styled Amenian because in Christ (Elohim-amen; Isa. lxv. 16) all the promises of God are yea and amen (II Cor. i. 20). He gathered about 800 adherents, mainly at München-Gladbach. In 1859 he went to the Holy Land in search of a place of settlement for his followers and was never heard of again. His principal literary work was Der Gott der Synagoge and der Gott der Judenchristen (Breslau, 1854).

(O. Zöckler†.)

Bibliography: Consult Pick's Briefe an meine Stammesgenossen, Hamburg, 1854; Hollenberg in Deutsche Zeitschrift für christliche Wissenschaft und christliches Leben, 1857, nos. 6–8; J. E. Jörg, Geschichte die Protestantismus in seiner neuesten Entwickelung, ii. 294–300, Freiburg, 1857.