Heinrich Loewe

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Heinrich Loewe (1930s)

Heinrich Eljakim Loewe (born May 11, 1869 in Wanzleben near Magdeburg , † August 2, 1951 in Haifa ) was a German journalist, publicist, folklorist, linguist, philosopher, librarian of the Jewish faith and Zionist politician.

Life

Heinrich Loewe was born on July 11, 1869, the youngest of five children in Wanzleben. His parents were Louis Löwe and Berta, geb. Plaut. Between 1883 and 1888 he attended the Protestant monastery school in the monastery of Our Dear Women in Magdeburg. He and his brother Richard Loewe received a solid humanistic education here. He was instructed in the Jewish religion by Moritz Rahmer , the Magdeburg community rabbi at the time.

Loewe studied history and oriental languages ​​at the University of Berlin from 1889 and attended lectures at the University for the Science of Judaism . In Berlin, the then metropolis of Jewish life and the center of the Jewish Renaissance movement, Jewish students in particular began to look for ways of confronting the emerging modern anti-Semitism and the crisis of assimilation and acculturation .

In particular through his active propaganda and journalistic activities in the 1890s and 1900s, he is one of the fathers of German Zionism . He founded the Russian-Jewish Scientific Association (1889), Association for the Care of the Hebrew Language, Chowewe Sefat Ewer (1891), Young Israel (1892), the Association of Jewish Students VjSt (1895) and the Berlin Zionist Association BZV ( 1898) with. At the first Zionist Congress in Basel he was a delegate to Palestine, to which he had temporarily emigrated in 1897. Between 1902 and 1908 he was editor of the Jüdische Rundschau , the central organ of the Zionist Association for Germany .

In his main occupation, Loewe was a librarian: he began as a laborer at the Berlin University Library in 1899 , where he rose to become a librarian until 1909.

In 1901 Loewe married Johanna Auerbach, who was seven years his junior. A year later, their daughter Hadassa Berta was born. Their son Gideon followed on November 14, 1907.

In 1905, on Loewe's initiative, at the VII Zionist Congress in Basel, a committee was founded to set up a Jewish national library in Jerusalem. Henceforth he remains one of the main initiators of all efforts for the later Jewish National and University Library in Jerusalem (JNUL). In addition to taking over the collection of books as head of the main collection point in Berlin since 1914, Loewe was also earmarked for the position of director of the JNUL. However, Hugo Bergmann , who had been Loewe's representative as early as 1920, retained the post of director .

In the 1910s and 1920s in particular, Loewe was committed to Jewish cultural institutions and to Jewish educational institutions in Germany. He was a member of the Jewish Volksheim Berlin founded by Siegfried Lehmann in 1916 , he founded the Jewish School Association in Berlin together with Kurt Hammerstein in 1919, became a leading lecturer at the newly opened Free Jewish Adult Education Center in 1919 and a member and board member of the bibliophile Soncino Society in 1924 .

In 1933 Loewe was forced to retire as a librarian due to the National Socialist " Law for the Restoration of the Professional Civil Service" . On July 4, 1933 he emigrated to Palestine with his family, following the call of director of the Tel Aviv City Library Sha'ar-Zion (ספריית שער־ציון) . Until 1948 he was the director of the Tel Aviv city library. In 1950 he left Tel Aviv and spent the last months of his life in the 'Beit Horim Rishonei Carmel' retirement home in Haifa. After his death, his body was transferred to Tel Aviv and buried in the Trumpeldor cemetery.

Works (selection

  • Anti-Semitism and Zionism , Jüdische Aufklärungsschrift, 1, Heinrich Sachse (pseudonym), Berlin 1884, 22 pp.
  • Zionist Congress and Zionism a Danger? : a contemporary view , Jüdische Aufklärungsschrift, 2, Heinrich Sachse (pseudonym), Berlin 1897, 54 pp.
  • About the Jews in the Caucasus from two old German newspapers, Heinrich Loewe, Charlottenburg, 1900
  • Songbook for Jewish associations. In addition to an appendix containing poems of Jewish content for reading , compiled by Heinrich Loewe, Berlin 1894
  • To the news of the Jews in the Caucasus. From two old German newspapers , Charlottenburg 1900
  • (Ed.): New Judea. Draft for the reconstruction of an independent Jewish empire by CLK Berlin: Verlag Jüdische Rundschau, 1902–03.
  • A national Jewish library . Berlin: Jewish publishing house, 1905.
  • The languages ​​of the Jews . Cologne: Jewish publishing house, 1911.
  • And a thousand years are like a day to him ... , Loewe, Heinrich, Berlin 1914, 70 pp.
  • Jewish librarianship in the land of Israel . Jerusalem: National u. University Library, 1922.

literature

  • Inka Bertz: Political Zionism and the Jewish Renaissance before 1914, in: Jewish History in Berlin. Exhibition by the Topography of Terror Foundation , on behalf of the "New Synagogue - Centrum Judaicum " foundation , Berlin-Mitte May 8, 1995 - January 31, 1996. Edition Hentrich , Berlin 1995, pp. 150–152
  • Herrmann AL Degener : Who is it? Our contemporaries. 1906
  • Yehuda Eloni: Zionism in Germany: from its beginnings to 1914. Series of publications by the Institute for German History, Tel Aviv University, 10. Bleicher, Gerlingen 1987
  • Sammy Gronemann: Heinrich der Loewe, in: Milestones: From the way of the cartel of Jewish connections (KJV) in the Zionist movement; a collective publication on behalf of the Presidium of the KJV Presidium of the KJV, Tel Aviv 1972, pp. 20–32
  • Markus Kirchhoff: Houses of the Book: Images of Jewish Libraries. Reclam, Leipzig 2002, pp. 65-71. (= Chapter 3: In the Land of Israel, Section: "Jewish Libraries in the Land of Israel (Heinrich Loewe)").
  • Erik Petry: Between national commitment and pragmatism: Heinrich Löwe and Willy Bambus. In: Janusfiguren , 2006 pp. 189–212.
  • Ders .: Acculturation versus Zionism? The "galut" term in Heinrich Loewe. In: Judaica 57, 1, 2001 pp. 41-57
  • Barbara Schäfer, Saskia Krampe: Berlin Zionist circles. A study of the history of the association. Minima judaica, 3rd Metropol, Berlin 2003
  • Joachim Schlör : Heinrich Loewe and the Jeckische bibliophilia. In: Jüdischer Almanach , 2005 pp. 53–59.
  • Ders .: Tel Aviv: from dream to city. Journey through culture and history . Insel-Taschenbuch, 2514th series: Kulturgeschichte. Insel, Frankfurt 1999 [1996], pp. 263-268
  • Dov Schidorsky: Articles: Libraries in Late Ottoman Palestine between the Orient and the Occident. Libraries & Culture. 33.3 (1998): p. 260
  • Ders: Germany in the Holy Land: It's Involvement and Impact on Library Development in Palestine and Israel. In: Libri 49, 1, 1999 pp. 26-42
  • Ders .: Heinrich Loewe's conception of the role of public libraries in Palestine , in: "Yad La-Kore" 18, no. 1-2, January 1979, pp. 90-101. (Hebrew)
  • Ernst Akiba Simon: Heynrikh Love (Elyakim ben Yehuda). Reshimah Biografit me'et. (hebr.)
  • Jehuda Louis Weinberg: From the early days of Zionism: Heinrich Löwe . 1946
  • Andreas Kilcher , Otfried Fraisse (ed.): Metzler's Lexicon of Jewish Philosophers. 2003, pp. 312-315
  • Dov Schidorsky:  Lion, Heinrich. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 15, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1987, ISBN 3-428-00196-6 , p. 75 f. ( Digitized version ).
  • Biographical handbook of German-speaking emigration after 1933, vol. 1, 1980, p. 565
  • Herlitz, G., Kirschner, B .: Jüdisches Lexikon. An encyclopedic manual of Jewish knowledge in four volumes. 1927-1930. (Reprint Frankfurt, Königstein im Taunus , 1982 and 1987.) p. 86
  • Encyclopedia Judaica , Vol. 10, p. 609
  • Kürschner's German Scholars Calendar . Vol. 4, 1931, p. 376

Individual evidence

  1. John F. Oppenheimer (Red.) And a .: Lexicon of Judaism. 2nd Edition. Bertelsmann Lexikon Verlag, Gütersloh u. a. 1971, ISBN 3-570-05964-2 , Sp. 444.
  2. ^ Agreement on the establishment of the David Wolffsohn House between the Wolffsohn Foundation and the executive of the Zionist Organization of February 19, 1922. In: Loewe, Heinrich. Jewish librarianship in the land of Israel. 1922.

Web links

Commons : Heinrich Loewe  - Collection of images, videos and audio files