HOLDHEIM, SAMUEL (1806-1860), Jewish rabbi, a leader of reform in the German Synagogue, was born in Posen in 1806 and died in Berlin in 1860. In 1836 he was appointed rabbi at Frankfort-on-the-Oder, in 1840 he was transferred to the rabbinate of Mecklenburg-Schwerin. He then became prominent as an advocate on the one hand of religious freedom (much trammelled at the time by Prussian state laws) and on the other of reform within the Jewish community. Various rabbinical conferences were held, at Brunswick (1844), Frankfort-on-the-Main (1845) and Breslau (1846). At all of these Holdheim was a strong supporter of the policy of modifying ritual (especially with regard to Sabbath observance, marriage laws and liturgical customs). In 1846 he was chosen Rabbi of the new Berlin congregation and there exercised considerable influence on the course of Jewish reform. See I. H. Ritter in the _Jewish Quarterly Review_, i. 202. The same authority has written the life of Holdheim in vol. iii. of his _Geschichte der judischen Reformation_ (Berlin, 1865). Graetz in his _History_ passes an unfavourable judgment on Holdheim, and there were admittedly grounds for opposition to Holdheim's attitude. A moderate criticism is contained in Dr D. Philipson's _History of the Reform Movement_ in Judaism (London, 1906). HOLGUIN, a town of the high plateau country in the interior of Oriente province, Cuba, about 65 m. N.W. of Santiago de Cuba. Pop. (1907) 7592. The town is near the Maranon and Jigue rivers, on a plain from which hills rise on all sides except the E., on which side it is open to the winds of the plateau. Holguin was long the principal acclimatization station for Spanish troops. The oldest public buildings are two churches built in 1800 and 1809 respectively. Holguin has trade in cabinet woods, tobacco, Indian corn and cattle products, which it exports through its port Gibara, about 25 m. N.N.E., with which it is connected by railway. Holguin was settled about 1720 and became a _ciudad_ (city) in 1751. In the Ten Years' War of 1868-78 and in the revolution of 1895-98 Holguin was an insurgent centre.