Isaac Nachman Steinberg

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Isaac Steinberg, 1918

Isaac Steinberg ( Russian Исаак Нахман Штейнберг ; born July 13 . Jul / 25. July  1888 greg. In Daugavpils , Russian Empire , died 2. January 1957 in New York ) was a Russian lawyer, politician and journalist. From 1917 to 1918 he was the Minister of Justice of Russia .

Live and act

Isaac Nachman Steinberg was born as the son of the Jewish merchant Serach Steinberg and his wife Chiana, b. Eliaschewa, born, a younger brother was the Jewish functionary Aaron Sacharowitsch Steinberg . He grew up mainly in Moscow, but attended a high school in Pärnu, Estonia . In 1906 he began to study law at Moscow State University , and in the same year he joined the Social Revolutionary Party . He was exiled abroad, continued his studies at Heidelberg University and received his doctorate there in 1910. He then returned to Russia and worked as a lawyer. In 1914 he married Nechama Solomonowna Jesselson, with whom he had a son and two daughters.

In December 1917, Steinberg became Minister of Justice in Lenin's government when the Bolsheviks temporarily cooperated with the left wing of the Social Revolutionaries. In March 1918, he resigned from office in protest of the Brest-Litovsk peace treaty . He turned against Bolshevism and was expelled in 1923, after which he went to Germany. He later stayed in London, where he co-founded the Freeland League , which was committed to the settlement of persecuted European Jews in the northern Australian region of Kimberley ( Kimberley Plan ). In 1933 he brought his family to London when the Nazis came to power in Germany.

Years later Steinberg emigrated to Australia himself. He arrived in Perth on May 23, 1939 . He continued to campaign for the Freeland League's settlement plans. His publications and speeches on the subject met with divided reactions from Australian politicians and the media. On July 15, 1944, Prime Minister John Curtin finally informed him that the Australian government would not deviate from its established settlement strategies. Steinberg, who had lived in Canada since June 1943, did not give up, however. In the following years he made petitions to the Australian government and published the book Australia, the unpromised land in 1948 . In search of a home . Even after the establishment of Israel , he advocated a binational settlement policy, which he preferred to an exclusive Jewish state. However, his plans were never implemented.

Steinberg died in New York on January 2, 1957, three years after the death of his wife. He left behind a son, the art historian Leo Steinberg , and a daughter.

literature

  • Hendrik Wallat : October Revolution or Bolshevism: Studies on the Life and Work of Isaak N. Steinberg , Münster 2013, ISBN 978-3-942885-46-1 .
  • Steinberg, Isaac Nachmann , in: Joseph Walk (ed.): Short biographies on the history of the Jews 1918–1945 . Munich: Saur, 1988, ISBN 3-598-10477-4 , p. 351
  • Steinberg, Isaac Nachman , in: Werner Röder, Herbert A. Strauss (Hrsg.): Biographical manual of German-speaking emigration after 1933. Volume 1: Politics, economy, public life . Munich: Saur, 1980, p. 726
  • Steinberg, Isaak Nachman , in: Salomon Wininger : Great Jewish National Biography . Volume 5. Chernivtsi, 1931, pp. 613f.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ A b c Beverley Hooper: Steinberg, Isaac Nachman (1888–1957) , in: Australian Dictionary of Biography
personal data
SURNAME Steinberg, Isaac Nachman
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Штейнберг, Исаак Захарович (Russian spelling)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Russian lawyer, politician and publicist
DATE OF BIRTH July 25, 1888
PLACE OF BIRTH Dünaburg
DATE OF DEATH 2nd January 1957
Place of death new York