Isidore Kastan

Portrait of Isidor Kastan, painting by Moritz Coschell

Isidor Kastan (born November 24, 1840 in Kempen ( Posen ), † October 14, 1931 in Berlin ) was a German journalist , writer and doctor .

Life

Isidor Kastan came from a Jewish family. He studied medicine in Berlin from the winter semester 1862/63 and completed his studies in 1867 with a dissertation De degeneratione cordis adiposa . After studying medicine , he was first listed in the Berlin address books in 1870 as a general practitioner , surgeon and obstetrician . Between 1884 and 1886 it is noted in the address books that he worked as a spa doctor in Ems that summer . “When he was still practicing his original medical profession and appeared in Ems as a spa doctor and throat specialist in the summer, he began in the 'Berliner Tageblatt' as a politician with an indomitable democratic conviction, as a scientific journalist, as a critical observer of theater, music and the arts The art of using the word like a blade. ”From 1873 onwards, he mainly worked in the internal affairs department of the Berliner Tageblatt . As early as 1872 he had joined the Berliner Presse association , which he supported for decades as a professional organization and representative of the interests of Berlin journalists. Later on, Kastan also played a major role in founding the Reich Association of the German Press . He was also a member of the Free Stage Association and, as an ambitious bibliophile, honorary member of the Berlin Bibliophile Evening .

The theatrical scandal at the premiere of Gerhart Hauptmann's Before Sunrise in 1889 is well known. During the performance, Kastan rose and swung delivery forceps over his head to protest against what he believed to be the immoral character of the play. Jokingly, obstetrical forceps continued to be called "chestnut rivets" for a long time in Berlin. He was also a member of the library commission of the Jewish community in Berlin.

In 1869 Kastan wrote a brochure against the anti-Jewish views of Robert von Mohl , which the latter had represented in the third volume of his work “Staatsrecht, Völkerrecht und Politik” (Tübingen, 1869).

Kastan was buried on October 16, 1931 in the Jewish cemetery in Berlin-Weißensee . "The most idiosyncratic of all journalists had forbidden funeral speeches with the note: 'It was not worth mentioning.'"

Kastan was a bachelor . He donated his book collection to the welfare funds of the “Berliner Presse” association.

Works

• De degeneratione cordis adiposa . Dissertation inauguralis medica. Publice defendet auctor Isidorus Kastan. Schade, Berlin 1867.
• Mr. Robert von Mohl and the emancipation of the Jews. A reply. JM Späth (Commission), Berlin 1869. Digitized Archive.org
• Rudolf Virchow . In: Westermanns Illustrirte Deutsche Monatshefte . Volume 51, Braunschweig 1882, pp. 463-474. Digitized by Arvive.org
• The first meeting of German natural scientists and doctors in Berlin in 1828. A commemorative publication. Eboin Staude, Berlin 1886.
• Home and school health care. A reading book for parents and educators. Heine, Berlin 1887. Digitized ZB MED
• A quarter of a century of medicine and public health . In: Editor of the Berliner Tageblatt: Twenty-five years of German contemporary history. 1872-1897. Anniversary font . Rudolf Mosse-Verlag, Berlin 1897, pp. 61–68.
• The education of journalists. (Martin Mohr and Kastan). Two lectures given at the assembly of delegates of the Reich Association of the German Press in Düsseldorf, June 1 to 3, 1913 . Edited by the Reich Association of the German Press. Dr. Paul Hamburger, Berlin 1913.
• Berlin as it was. Rudolf Mosse, Berlin 1919. (2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th, 6th, 7th ed. 1919; 8th, 9th, 10th, 11th ed. 1925)
• Funny panopticon. Funny stories from bygone times. Hoffmann and Campe, Berlin 1924. (= The fun books. Volume 1)
• Kempen as it was. A cultural sketch . Aid Association of the Kempeners, Berlin 1924.
• Wroclaw memories . In: Yearbook for Jewish History and Literature . 26, pp. 53-68 (1925).
• Berlin memories. From the middle of the nineteenth century . In: Yearbook for Jewish History and Literature , Volume 27, 1926, pp. 112–113. [1]

literature

• Library of Dr. J. Kastan, Berlin. Auction for the benefit of the welfare funds of the “Berliner Presse” association. March 15, 1932 . Berlin 1932. Digitized version of Heidelberg University Library
• Kastan, Isidore . In: Jewish Lexicon. An encyclopedic manual of Jewish knowledge in four volumes . Volume 3. Jewish publishing house, Berlin 1928, Salte 614. Digitized Freimann collection
• Kastan, Isidore . In: Salomon Wininger : Great Jewish National Biography. With more than 8000 biographies of well-known Jewish men and women from all times and countries. A reference work for the Jewish people and their friends . 7th volume. I. Addendum Ge - Conclusion. II. Addendum A - Z. Appendix. ARTA (F. Ernst-Welner), Cernăuli 1936, p. 158. Digitized Freimann collection
• Heinz Knobloch : Old and New Berlin Gravestones . Jaron, Berlin 2000, pp. 203 ff. ISBN 3-89773-022-7 .
• Benjamin Asher Marcus: "So, if the hospital is to flourish, I would like an unabashed confessional expression of its destiny". The orthopedist Heimann Wolff Berend and the publicist Isidor Kastan in the dispute over the role of the Jewish Hospital in Berlin in 1867 . In: Jewish Medicine - Jewish in Medicine - Medicine of the Jews? . Mabuse-Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 2011, pp. 219-233. ISBN 978-3-940529-85-5 .

Web links

• Photograph by Isidor Kastan, ca.1930
• Jewish address book for Greater Berlin 1931.
• Kastan, Isidore . In: Short biographies on the history of the Jews: 1918–1945 . Walter de Gruyter, Berlin 1988, p. 185.
• Decoration of honor of the Märkisches Museum for the doctor Dr. med. Isidore Kastan. Stadtmuseum Berlin , online collection, accessed on May 6, 2017 (awarded in 1904 by the Märkisches Museum ): “Dr. Kastan received a diploma of recognition as early as 1881 and the silver medal of honor in 1890 for annual donations of writings on the history of Berlin, emergency money, business cards and the donation of portraits of famous personalities. Since 1894 he was a member of the museum's caretaker service. " 

Individual evidence

1. ↑ See: Official directory of the staff and students of the Königl. Friedrich Wilhelms University of Berlin. Winter half year 1862/63 . Berlin: Schade, 1862, p. 18.
2. ↑ General housing advertiser along with address and business manual for Berlin, its surroundings and Charlottenburg. To the year 1870, p. 348.
3. ↑ Berlin address book for the year 1884, p. 455.
4. ↑ Berlin address book for the year 1886, p. 491.
5. ↑ In Joseph Kürschner's German Literature Calendar for the year 1888 there is a note on page 191 that Kastan lives in Ems in summer.
6. ^ MO: Dr. I. Kastan †. The senior journalist from Berlin . In: Vossische Zeitung . Berlin. No. 485, October 14, 1931, evening edition.
7. ↑ The association was founded in 1862 by Guido Weiss . ( Berlin as it was , p. 193.)
8. ^ Roland Berbig: Association of Berlin Press . In: Handbook of literary-cultural associations, groups and leagues 1825-1933 . Edited by Wulf Wülfing, Karin Bruns u. Rolf Parr. Stuttgart, Weimar: Metzler, 1998, p. 464.
9. ^ Entry on Isidor Kastan , in the list of writers on Klaus Nerger's website
10. ↑ Peter Sprengel: Literature in the Empire. Studies on modernity . Schmidt, Berlin 1993, p. 105.
11. ^ MO: Dr. I. Kastan †. The senior journalist from Berlin . In: Vossische Zeitung . Berlin. No. 485, October 14, 1931, evening edition.
12. ↑ See the subsection “F. The hasty, thoughtless and unfinished in daily politics “ Digitalisat MDZ Reader , p. 659 ff.
13. ^ [Anon .:] J. Kastan's funeral . In: Vossische Zeitung . Berlin. October 16, 1931, evening edition.
14. ↑ Library of Dr. J. Kastan .