XIXth century CE

American rabbi

Rabbi of the Ashkenazi community of Cairo from 1896, member of the rabbinical court.

rabbi (6 juin 1802 – 23 juin 1872)

Rabbi Aharon Perlow, grandson of Shlomo Chaim, is the author of the siddour Seder Tefilot Yisrael Or ha-Yashar ("The Straight Light: order of the prayers of Israel").

Novelist of the Second Aliyah, brother of president Yitzhak Ben-Zvi.

rabbi

European Rabbi (1869-1931)

One of the most notorious antisemitic agitators in Germany, born on December 21, 1846 in Krien, Prussian Pomerania. A teacher and then school principal in Berlin from 1881, ruined by his debts, he…

Lithuanian rabbi

French writer and journalist

Talmudic genius, chief rabbi of Posen, renowned for his penetrating glosses on the Talmud and the Shulchan Aruch. Father-in-law of the Chatam Sofer.

Israeli rabbi

Hungarian rabbi (1837–1922)

Rabbi, 19th century. Mentioned in 5629 of the Hebrew era (1869). Recorded in Malkhei Rabbanan (Yosef Ben Naim, 1931), f. 104-1.

Russian Panslavist leader, born October 7, 1823, died in Moscow February 8, 1886. Founder in Moscow of a circle of Slavophiles hostile to foreign elements in the Russian population — Germans, Poles,…

Italian banker and philanthropist, son of Samuel Alatri, born in Rome in 1833 and died in the same city on March 9, 1889. Long-time president of the Banca Romana, he resigned in 1881 when his…

Politician, community activist and Italian orator, born in Rome in 1805 and died in the same city on May 20, 1889. For more than sixty years, he leads the Jewish community of his native city and…

Rabbi born in Galgóc (Hungary), from the Bettelheim family of Pozsony (Pressburg). Correspondent on Jewish affairs for several periodicals, director of a network of Jewish schools, editor of a…

German businessman

Tunisian politician

Brother of Louis, he distinguished himself as a musician and composer, « friend of painters and writers ». He represents the artistic branch of the family, in contrast to his brothers more oriented…

Born in Corfu in a Sephardic Jewish family, he moved to Marseille at age five and then to Geneva for his law studies. A committed Zionist, he directed the Revue juive in 1925. He published Solal…

Theoretical physicist, author of the theory of relativity, Nobel laureate 1921. A German Jew exiled to the United States, he supported Zionism and was considered for the presidency of Israel (1952),…

Turkish-born rabbi, businessman, lawyer and social activist

American architect

Investment banker born in Marmoutier in Alsace. Animated by an ideal of universal peace, he launched in 1909 the 'Archives de la Planète', a vast collection of autochromes (color photographs on glass…

Hungarian painter

Moravian Hebrew scholar (1816-1908)

German merchant (1870–1942)

Novelist, playwright, critic and German actor, born in Breslau on July 9, 1862, under the pseudonym Conrad Alberti (his real name Conrad Sittenfeld). First an actor in Berlin, he then devoted himself…

Italian economist

Man of letters, painter and French poet converted to Christianity, born in Paris in 1811 and died around 1898. Brother of Alphonse Alkan — the difference in spelling between the two family names has…

French editor and scholar, born in Metz March 18, 1841, grandson of Gerson Lévy. After studying at the lycée of his native city, he entered in 1862 the École Normale Supérieure of Paris, which he…

Engineer, politician and French author, born in Donnelay, in Meurthe-et-Moselle, in 1801, died in Paris in 1877. He took part in the political events of the revolutions of 1830 and 1848, the year he…

French publisher and man of letters, born in 1817 and died in Metz on May 14, 1869, father of Parisian publisher Félix Alcan. Member of the Israelite consistory of Metz and judge at the commercial…

Born in Zamość in 1816, died in Saint Petersburg in 1893, he moved to Odessa around 1840, a center of the Haskalah. In 1860 he founded Ha-Melitz, the first Hebrew newspaper of the Russian Empire…

Author and convert to the Greek Orthodox Church, born in 1820 in Nazarinetz, in the governorate of Podolia. Forcibly enlisted at ten years old by Nicolas I's press, who hoped thus to convert Jewish…

Italian archaeologist (1879–1944)

Dutch physician, professor of criminal anthropology at the University of Amsterdam and surgeon of the city's police and fire services, born in Amsterdam on April 1, 1858. He counts, with Professors…

Dutch physician and feminist

Jewish journalist and writer

Born in Baltimore, ordained at Hebrew Union College (1930), rabbi of Congregation Beth El in Norfolk and later, from 1934, of Temple Ahavath Sholom in Brooklyn. Prolific author: notes on the tractate…

Born in Novogroudok, emigrated to the United States, Alexander Harkavy was one of the great lexicographers of Yiddish. His major work is the Yiddish-English-Hebrew Dictionary (1925, enlarged in…

Emperor of Russia, born in Saint Petersburg on March 10, 1845, died in Livadia on November 1, 1894. He ascended to the throne on March 14, 1881, in the aftermath of the assassination of his father…

Dutch accountant and translator (1899–1943)

(1848-1917)

United States rabbi and orientalist (1842–1894)

Rabbi and Av Beth Din, disciple of Israel Salanter, author of Divrei Emes, close to Hibbat Zion.

German banker and patron (1839-1911)

Hungarian Jewish cartographer born in Újpest on November 5, 1899, who became an agent of Soviet military intelligence (the « Dora » network) during World War II.

German rabbi (1816-1869)

Austrian composer

politician (1886–1938)

Polish rabbi

Hungarian writer and professor of philosophy and aesthetics, born in Budapest on April 13, 1850. Admitted in 1878 as a docent at the faculty of philosophy at the University of Budapest, he became…

French organ builder and inventor, born in Paris on December 4, 1824, died in 1888. Trained in the factory founded by his father, Jacob Alexandre, at Ivry, near Paris, he received in 1844 a stake in…

Political and community activist, born in London on May 14, 1852, died on January 31, 1901. For nine years (1884-92), he held the position of honorary secretary of the Jewish Board of Guardians in…

Australian politician, born in London on 30 November 1820, died in Sydney on 27 January 1874. Arrived in Sydney in 1834, he represented the Goulburn electorate in the New South Wales Legislative…

Metaphysicist and psychologist, born in Sydney, New South Wales, on July 6, 1859. Trained at Wesley College in Melbourne and at the University of Melbourne, he obtains in 1877 a Balliol scholarship…

Born in Schirhoffen in 1811, initially destined for the rabbinate and sent to study Talmud in Frankfurt, he joined Paris in 1837 with a letter from Heinrich Heine and entered literary and…

Alexandre Bernheim, from an Alsatian Jewish family established in Besançon (merchant of colors and artists' supplies), opened his gallery in 1863. His twin sons Josse and Gaston Bernheim-Jeune made…

Emperor of Russia, born in Saint Petersburg on April 29, 1818, assassinated in the same city on March 13, 1881. He succeeded his father Nicholas I on March 2, 1855, before the end of the Crimean War,…

Russian theatre director (1885–1950)

composer and pianist

Austrian psychiatrist and psychotherapist

German Jewish lawyer, president of the Zionist Federation of Germany (Zionist Association of Berlin), defender of Carl von Ossietzky, interned after the Reichstag fire then exiled to Paris and…

Eldest son of Siegfried Beit, merchant from a Hamburg family of Jewish origin (the parents were baptized as Lutherans). Diamond magnate in Kimberley, associate of Cecil Rhodes in the formation of De…

ophtalmologue allemand (1871–1940)

British banker and art collector (1842–1918)

German physician and writer

French general of Alsatian origin and Jewish faith

biblical scholar

Son of banker Joseph von Henikstein, from an ennobled Viennese Jewish family. Military engineer officer, he became a general (Feldmarschallleutnant) and chief of staff to Benedek during the…

Born in a Jewish family in Sommerfeld, he studied medicine in Berlin (1881) and became professor at the University of Berlin, chief physician at Krankenhaus Moabit and then at Virchow-Krankenhaus.…

American-German classical philologist (1862–1942)

Born in Carpentras in a Comtat Jewish family, he was a professor of chemistry (thesis 1859; Principles of Chemistry Founded on Modern Theories, 1865, 5th ed. 1890). Senator and then radical deputy,…

German physician and painter (1863-1922), pioneer of laryngoscopy

German Jewish entrepreneur and art collector refugee from Nazis (1883-1941)

French rabbi

German mathematician

German architect

Younger son of chemist Ludwig Mond. Liberal Member of Parliament from 1906, minister (Public Works then Health) under Lloyd George. In 1926 he orchestrated the merger of four enterprises to create…

film music composer, conductor and pianist

English dramatist of Rhenish Jewish origin, he produced the first English translations of Maurice Maeterlinck's work, introducing him to the English-speaking public. Successful author of the…

Born in 1873 into a family of Dutch Jewish jewelers, son of the diamond merchant Charles Van Cleef who emigrated from Amsterdam. After an apprenticeship in the Netherlands, he settled in Paris and…

French architect

Portuguese mineralogist (1856–1941)

Author of the works « Derek Eṣ ha-Ḥayyim » (The Way of the Tree of Life), « 'En Yamin » (The Right Eye) and « Sha'ar Yehudah » (The Gate of Judah), all three published in Salonika in 1822.

Austrian writer (1869–1944)

German activist

Austrian writer and photojournalist

Active in Turkey in the early 19th century, he is the author of « Amar Yosef », a collection of notes on Maimonides, of Talmudic novellæ arranged in alphabetical order and a body of homilies,…

Rabbi of Semlin, in Croatia, died in October 1878. Activist for the restoration of Jews in Palestine, he is among the precursors of the modern Zionism of Theodor Herzl. His "Goral la-Adonaï" (Vienna,…

Judeo-Spanish translator and author of Hebrew manuals, active in Turkey in the 19th century. With his father David, he translates from Hebrew into Judeo-Spanish the « Shevet Yehoudah » of Salomon ibn…

French printer, bibliographer and author, born in Paris in 1809, died in Neuilly-sur-Seine in 1889. First a typographer, he collaborates on various typographic and bibliographic journals before…

French pianist and composer, born in Paris on November 30, 1813, died in the same city on March 29, 1888. Admitted to the Paris Conservatory from his sixth year, he wins its first solfège prize at…

French pianist and composer, born in Paris in 1826, brother of Charles Valentin Alkan. Entered the Conservatory at a very young age like him, where he studied under Adolphe Adam and Pierre Zimmerman,…

Italian rabbi of the early nineteenth century, whose responsa, the Toḳfo shel Yosef (The Force of Joseph), appear in two parts in Livorno, in 1823 and 1855. Mortara incorrectly gives his name in the…

One of the patrons cited by Abraham Ankawa in the preface of his responsa, the « Kerem Ḥemed » (Livorno, 1869-71). Kaufmann holds him to be the grandson of Jacob ben Joseph Almaliḥ, whose period is…

Bibliophile and poet, born in Padua on March 25, 1801, died in Trieste on March 7, 1860, eldest son of the wealthy merchant Baruch Ḥayyim Almanzi. An passionate collector of Hebrew books and…

banker and art collector

French painter

Hebrew teacher and grammarian, he taught Hebrew for eighteen years at Zerkowo, in Prussian Poland, near the Russian frontier. His son Joseph, born in Zerkowo in 1805, Germanizes the family name and…

Rabbi of Verbo, in Hungary, active in the first half of the nineteenth century. He writes the « Ḥiddoushé Yabets », novellae on the talmudic treatise Ḥoullin, published in Presbourg in 1837,…

Polish photographer and writer (1885-1941)

Second Novominsker Rebbe (1874–1932)

Ḥakam Bashi (Chief Rabbi) of Jerusalem, born in Safed on June 1, 1817, brought to Jerusalem in 1823. Appointed assistant judge to Ḥakam Bashi Abraham Ashkenazi in 1855, then Chief Dayan in 1869, he…

Talmudist from a Spanish family established in Salonique in the early 19th century. He wrote « Ohole Yehoudah » (The Tents of Judah), published in Salonique in 1820, a collection of homilies on the…

Spanish historian and archaeologist, specialist in the Jews of Spain and Portugal, born in 1818, died in Seville in 1878. Inspector general of public education in Spain, he published in Madrid in…

Translator and historical writer of the 19th century, active in Salonica. He translated from Hebrew into Judeo-Spanish the geographical work of Samson Bloch, the "Shebilé 'Olam" (Salonica, 1853–57,…

Rabbi of Salonica in the early nineteenth century. His sermons on the Pentateuch appear under the title Sefer Berit Abraham (The Covenant of Abraham), published in Salonica in 1802.

Ecclesiastical dignitary of Rome whose life touches the history of the Jews of the city in 1848. He distinguished himself by his eloquent sermons on tolerance towards the Jews, preached at Santa…

French mathematician of Jewish descent (son of Sigismond Mannheim and Marianne Speyer), officer and professor at the École polytechnique, known for having devised the "Mannheim" slide rule and for…

Born in Trieste on December 26, 1872, died in Turin on July 12, 1949, son of Davide Adolfo Herlitzka and Marietta Lustig. Professor of Physiology at the University of Turin (from 1913), director of…

Corresponding secretary of the Council of Jewish Women, born in Chicago on March 3, 1862. Engaged in numerous philanthropic movements, Jewish and general, she is notably vice-president of the…

Rabbi of Sefrou, nineteenth century. Born in 5542 (1782), died in 5612 (1852) of the Hebrew era. Son of Shlomo. Listed in Malkhei Rabbanan (Yosef Ben Naim, 1931), f. 102-4.

Chief Rabbi of Petah Tikva (1892-1966)

rabbi, leader of the anti-Zionist Orthodox Jewish group "Neturei Karta"

Hungarian rabbi

Rabbi-judge and codifier of the Elbaz family of Sefrou.

last chief-rabbi of Yemen's Jewish community (1871-1952)

American lawyer, born in Philadelphia in 1866, trained in the departments of letters and law at the University of Pennsylvania. Active in numerous Jewish institutions in Philadelphia — president of…

Commentator active in Palestine in the first half of the nineteenth century. He publishes « Ḳorban Pessaḥ » (The Offering of Passover), a commentary on the Haggada of Passover, published in Livorno…

Born Hannah Rabinsohn on December 28, 1893, in Codăești. De facto leader of the Romanian Communist Party in the postwar period, Minister of Foreign Affairs from December 1947 to July 1952—considered…

Writer, pamphleteer and Italian revolutionary leader, born in Ferrara in 1807, died in Genoa in 1874. In recognition of his patriotic zeal and literary talent, the National Society, founded in 1848,…

French man of letters, he is the author, with Jules François Christophe and an introduction by Paul Bourget, of the "Index to the Human Comedy of H. de Balzac" (1887), encyclopedia of Balzac's…

Historian of Italian literature and philologist, born in Pisa on February 20, 1835. Noticed young for his literary talent and liberal commitment, he joined Turin in 1855, officially to study law, in…

Hungarian writer

Hungarian writer, poet and critic

Hungarian photographer

French writer

Born in Nancy in a Lorraine Jewish family, former member of the Council of State and Dreyfusard. Pioneer of free verse in France and theorist of poetics. In 1908 he published « Poèmes juifs », the…

Born in Marseille to a Sephardic Jewish merchant family whose paternal branch had been established in Livorno for over a century. From 1912 onward, he was one of four "pillars" of the Nouvelle Revue…

German ethnographer and geographer, born in 1835 in Brunswick, director of the journal « Globus » since 1890. He publishes in 1881 « Zur Volkskunde der Juden », with a map of the distribution of Jews…

Banker and philanthropist of Damascus, died in 1874, great benefactor of his coreligionists in Syria. After the repression of the Druze revolt of 1860, he distributed three thousand Turkish pounds to…

Talmudist and Turkish author, surnamed Tshélébi, active in the early nineteenth century. He publishes Pitouḥé Ḥotam (Engraving of a Seal), Salonica, 1839, treating questions left unresolved in the…

Director of the London Jews' Free School, born April 29, 1819, died in London in 1898. Appointed master of Talmud Torah in 1840, then head of the entire school, he made it one of the best-maintained…

Italian banker and philanthropist born in Modena into a Sephardic Jewish family, diplomat of the Republic of San Marino in Paris. During the Second World War, he organized in the Italian occupation…

Born in Collegara (Modena) on June 21, 1878, youngest of an ancient and wealthy Modenese Jewish family (name derived from the town of Formigine, attested since 1629). He founded his publishing house…

Italian naval officer born in Venice, one of the rare Jewish officers in the Italian navy. Member of the Zionist Commission from 1918, he was close to Chaïm Weizmann and represented Italy at the…

Father of Piero Sraffa, professor of commercial law and dean of Bocconi University in Milan. Member of the same long-established Italian Jewish family settled in Pisa and then Turin.

Figure of the Risorgimento from the Jewish community of Modena, companion of Ciro Menotti and Giuseppe Mazzini within the Giovine Italia; his letters were published under the title "Lettere di un…

Writer and poet born into a Florentine Jewish family, founder in 1896 of the literary journal 'Il Marzocco', a major figure in Florentine cultural life at the turn of the twentieth century.

Hungarian woman of letters, born in Veszprém in 1848, died in 1874, daughter of a teacher of Hód-Mezö-Vásárhely. Versed from a young age in Hungarian, French, and German literatures, she published…

Hungarian writer, born November 30, 1857. After studies at the University of Budapest, he teaches at the city's lycée while establishing himself as a historian and literary critic. Among his works:…

Russian civil engineer, born in Daghestan in 1853, trained in the household of his father, Rabbi Sharbat ben Nissim, president of the Daghestan community. A graduate of Moscow University, he holds…

Talmudist, author and North African liturgical poet, born in Fès, Morocco, around the beginning of the 19th century, descendant of the Alnaqua family, died after 1860. Specialist in ritual slaughter…

Translator active in Algeria in the 19th century. He translates from Spanish into Arabic a treatise on the laws that a Jewish woman must observe, under the title « Dat Yehoudit » (Law of the Jewess),…

German-Jewish educator (1879-1960) who founded a progressive school in Ulm and, fleeing Nazi Germany in 1933, relocated it to England as Bunce Court School, which sheltered and educated hundreds of…

Cancer researcher; created a lineage of mice resistant to tumors.

Modernist Yiddish poetess, associated with Di Yunge and the introspectivists.

New Zealand garden and landscape designer

German Orthodox rabbi

German author, active in southern Germany in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. He wrote « Ueber den Commerz zwischen Seele und Körper » (translated from Hebrew), Frankfurt am Main, 1788; «…

Austrian banker and philanthropist

Yiddish playwright, lyricist and theatre director, author of more than fifty plays.

conductor, composer (1889-1945)

Grand Rabbi of Aleppo, died on March 13, 1858. His collection of responsa, the « Ohel Yesharim » (Tent of the Righteous), organized according to the four Ṭourim of Jacob ben Asher, is published in…

Born in Frankfurt am Main in 1805, he founded with his brother Léopold in June 1842 the banking house A. J. Stern & Cie, 33 rue Laffitte in Paris, one of the ten great banking houses in Europe,…

Russian sculptor, born in Wilna in 1842. Gifted very young for wood carving, he went at twenty-one to Saint Petersburg, where he entered the Imperial Academy of Fine Arts while working as a turner to…

American journalist

Dutch Jewish industrialist and art collector (1874–1951)

Russian pianist, composer and orchestra conductor.

Austrian actor

German physician, born in Jastrow, Western Prussia, on August 21, 1847. Educated at the Deutsch-Krone gymnasium and at the University of Berlin, where he obtained his doctorate in medicine in 1870,…

Judeo-German writer and printer from Philadelphia, born in Ponievieji, province of Kovno, in Russia, on August 28, 1855. In 1868, he went to Vilkomir to study under the direction of Moses Loeb…

(1893–1944) physician, psychoanalist, Holocaust victim

Hungarian writer, born in Trencsén on May 13, 1858. Graduate of the University of Budapest, he was sent by the Secretary of State for Public Education to perfect his studies in Paris, then returned…

Italian politician and author, born in Florence on July 27, 1840. Forced to interrupt his studies at the death of his father, he works as a printing compositor before enlisting in 1859 as a volunteer…

Economist, author, and member of the Prussian Diet, born in Berlin on October 10, 1854. Doctor of the University of Berlin, he early embraced the cause of Prussian ultraconservatives, becoming the…

Opera singer (tenor), born in Mitau, Russia, on 23 March 1865. Trained at the Riga gymnasium then at the Imperial Conservatory of Moscow under the direction of Tchaikovsky, he graduated in 1890. He…

Merchant and philanthropist, died in Portsea in 1874. From a Sephardi family, he devoted the fortune amassed during his career to founding a theological college to train young Jews for religious…

Founder and leading figure of the General Jewish Labour Bund in Lithuania, Poland and Russia, based in Vilna; co-authored the influential pamphlet "On Agitation" (1893).

Professor of clinical dentistry at the University of Budapest, born in Budapest on February 8, 1851. Graduated in 1876 from his native city, he then practiced for several years at the German Hospital…

Hungarian rabbi (1870–1941)

French rabbi, Chief Rabbi of Strasbourg for nearly sixty years

Bavarian deputy and lawyer, born in Bayreuth on February 23, 1812, died in the same city on January 31, 1864. Intended by his parents for commerce, he received a solid Jewish education and…

American rabbi

Born in Vienna in a modest Jewish family (Hungarian father, mother from a Jewish family of Prague), he is one of the great modernists of the twentieth century, at the origin of the emancipation of…

German writer (1887–1968)

Czech educator and translator

Hungarian rabbi

Polish rabbi, local government official, social activist

Dutch rabbi

Bookseller and philosopher, born 1st February 1886 in Ploiești (Romania). Doctor of philosophy — his thesis on Spinoza, defended in Berlin —, he settled in Paris in 1925 and ran a rare book shop…

German rabbi

German physician, born in Stettin, Pomerania, on March 12, 1864. Graduated in medicine in 1888 after studying in Berlin, Munich and Heidelberg, he established himself as a practitioner in Berlin in…

French publicist, born in Paris on November 11, 1842, died in the same city on November 13, 1885. Former pupil of the École Normale, where he obtained a scholarship in 1865, he abandoned teaching for…

German historian, born February 5, 1861 in Rastenburg, died June 29, 1893. After studies in Berlin and then Königsberg, he obtained his doctorate in 1883 and became instructor at the Realgymnasium in…

German physicist and socialist. Privatdozent at the University of Berlin, he took part in the socialist movement and was suspended from his position by Minister of Education Bosse in April 1899.…

Composer and theater director, born in New York on April 8, 1856. Trained at the Vienna Conservatory and then at the Paris Conservatory, where he deepened his study of French composers, he first…

German chemist, born on May 25, 1841 in Telgte, Westphalia, graduated from the University of Göttingen in 1864. Shortly thereafter he became assistant in the physics department of the University of…

German teacher and writer, born December 4, 1862 in Halver, in Prussian Westphalia. Trained at the Soest gymnasium and at the universities of Berlin and Bonn, and at the Münster Academy, where he…

German-Israeli rabbi and librarian

Philosopher, philologist

Publisher of The New York Times from 1935 to 1961 (1891–1968)