Moritz Spitzer

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Moritz Spitzer (English: Moshe Shpitzer, born July 8, 1900 in Boskovice , Moravia ; † November 16, 1982 in Kfar Saba ) was an Israeli Indologist , publisher and Zionist activist.

Life

At the age of 16, as a high school student, Spitzer had the idea of grouping the Zionist high school associations in a cartel in Austria . In September 1916, he sought advice from Martin Buber , whom he asked for help in drawing up a work program for this association. To organize a Jewish Soldiers, then one of his activities while serving in the Imperial Army in the First World War . After the war, he got involved in the Baumgarten children's home run by Siegfried Bernfeld near Vienna .

After receiving his doctorate in Kiel in 1926, he worked as an assistant at the Prussian Academy of Sciences from 1927 to 1928 . A major professional challenge in 1927 was the commission to edit a philosophical Sanskrit manuscript from the Turfan oasis from the 2nd or 3rd century AD - the oldest of its kind found to date. It was given the name “Spitzer manuscript “- during the relocation during the Second World War , many of the 1000 fragments were lost and are only preserved in the form of Spitzer's transcription .

Spitzer did not devote undivided attention to this project, in 1928 he founded the Young Zionist papers and from 1929 to 1932 was director of the “School of Youth” in Berlin . He worked as a Hebrew teacher in Salman Schocken's house , who soon made full use of his services: Schocken made him available to Martin Buber as the “scientific secretary”. With his new place of work in Heppenheim , he supported Buber in two ways from 1932 to 1934: He checked the proofs for typesetting errors, but also informed Buber what he thought was worthy of correction in terms of content. He also procured material for his ongoing project of a Bible translation , at this point in time the Psalms were up to date . In addition, some of the letters were answered by Buber's readership. At the Odenwald School he worked as a teacher for Jewish cultural history.

When asked about this time, Spitzer found an event worth mentioning, which he witnessed on May 1, 1933: A pageant was for the first time under the sign of the new Nazi rulers, and a young government assessor, contrary to his own conviction, allowed himself to be carried away by the fascist salute . He then went to Buber and asked for a handshake against the promise never to do the same again. It was Ludwig Metzger , later the Lord Mayor of Darmstadt , a member of the Bundestag and an active supporter of Israel. Spitzer's apartment, located in a neighboring town, had to endure five to six house searches, mainly the National Socialists hoped to find incriminating material about Buber. Buber's own house was searched only once, with corresponding coverage in the foreign press.

From 1934 to 1938 Moritz Spitzer ran Schocken Verlag together with Lambert Schneider . Outstanding results were a complete Kafka edition and the “ Schocken Verlag Library ” - of a total of 249 books by Jewish authors. After the Reichspogromnacht , all that remained was to flee; in February 1939, he emigrated to Palestine . There, in the early 1940s, he founded his own publishing house, “Tarshish Books Jerusalem”, which also published My Blue Piano - Else Lasker-Schüler's last publication. He also headed the publishing houses of the Jewish Agency and the Bialik Institute. The fact that he became a member of the advisory committee for coins and banknotes was also due to his experience in the art of printing: as director of a type foundry , developing new fonts for Hebrew was one of his areas of responsibility. For the Hadassah printing school he founded, he was able to bring Henri Friedlaender from the Netherlands as director . He received public attention again when Eli Franco happened to meet Spitzer's son in Jerusalem in 1997 , saw the estate and was able to carry out a partial reconstruction of the Spitzer manuscript with the support of the DFG .

Works

  • Term research on Nyāyabhāṣya , Harrassowitz Verlag, Leipzig 1927 (also: Kiel, Univ., Phil. Diss., 1926)

literature

  • Grete Schaeder (Ed.): Martin Buber. Correspondence from seven decades. Vol. II: 1918-1938 , Heidelberg 1973, p. 689
  • Ada Wardi (Ed.): New Types. Three Pioneers of Hebrew Graphic Design (exhibition catalog), Jerusalem: Israel Museum 2016, ISBN 978-965-278-457-5 .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ G. Schaeder (Ed.): Martin Buber. Correspondence. Volume II. Heidelberg 1973, p. 23
  2. ↑ a b c Werner Röder / Herbert A. Strauss (Hrsg.): Biographisches Handbuch der Deutschensprachigen Emigration nach 1933. Volume I , KG Sauer Verlag, Munich 1980, ISBN 3-598-10087-6 , p. 717
  3. ↑ Eli Franco: Treasures from the Silk Road. The study of a Sanskrit university , Journal Universität Leipzig, issue 2/2005, pp. 14-15 ( PDF ( Memento from June 11, 2007 in the Internet Archive ))
  4. ↑ G. Schaeder (Ed.): Martin Buber. Correspondence. Volume I. Heidelberg 1973, p. 115
  5. ↑ Tuvia Rübner u. Dafna Mach (ed.): Briefwechsel Martin Buber - Ludwig Strauß 1913−1953 , Frankfurt 1990, p. 150
  6. ↑ Zwi Erich Kurzweil: Die Odenwaldschule (1910−1934) , Paedagogica Historica, 13th year, ed. 1 1973, p. 23
  7. ^ Haim Gordon: The other Martin Buber. Recollections of his contemporaries , Ohio 1988, pp. 148-149
  8. ↑ Maurice Friedman: Meeting on the thin line. Martin Buber - a life , Münster 1999, p. 287
  9. ↑ [o. V.]: Raid Professor's Home, German Police Visit Martin Buber, Writer on Jewish Mysticism , The New York Times , March 16, 1933
  10. ↑ ELSG-brief, issue 65, 3rd quarter 2006, p. 2 [1]
  11. ↑ Volker Dahm : The Jewish Book in the Third Reich , Verlag CH Beck, 2nd edition, Munich 1993, p. 432
  12. ↑ Gerald Cinamon: Moritz Spitzer , German graphic designers during the Hitler period - germandesigners.net (accessed April 1, 2019)
personal data
SURNAME Spitzer, Moritz
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Shpitzer, Moshe
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Israeli Indologist, publisher and Zionist activist
DATE OF BIRTH July 8, 1900
PLACE OF BIRTH Boskovice , Moravia
DATE OF DEATH November 16, 1982
Place of death Kfar Saba