Rafael Levi

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RLHannover.jpg

Rafael Levi (also: Raphael or Rafael Levi Hannover ; * 1685 in Weikersheim , † May 17, 1779 in Hannover ) was a German mathematician and astronomer . The Jewish scholar and student of Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz was at the same time a modern scientist and - unusually for the time - valued as a " noble Jew" outside the Jewish community .

life and work

Rafael Levi came from a Jewish family and attended the Talmud school in Frankfurt am Main . After he and his father, Jacob Joseph , a poor traveler, moved to Hanover at a young age around 1700, he became an orphan there , as his father died a few days after his arrival. As a result, Rafael was accepted into the Israelite school for the poor in Hanover.

Rafael Levi got a position as an accountant with the banker Simon Wolf Oppenheimer and during that time he did self-taught studies in the natural sciences : “When he once made a sharp remark about the erection of scaffolding in the presence of [... von Leibnitz], he took it followed him and taught him mathematics . ”Rafael Levi became Leibniz's secretary and lived in Leibniz's house for several years (“ Leibnizhaus ”). As Rechenmeister Levi taught soon even mathematics, astronomy and natural philosophy .

After Levi had published logarithmic tables in German in 1747/48 , he was invited to London to give a lecture to the local Admiralty and the Royal Society on the computational methods for determining the ship's location.

In 1756 Levi published his studies of astronomy and calendar studies in Hebrew and in 1757/57 his much-used calendar tables for calculating Jewish holidays .

Again in German, Levi published rate and exchange tables for merchants in 1760 .

The Jewish scholar met the later experimental physicist Georg Christoph Lichtenberg in 1772 , and in 1777 with Moses Mendelssohn .

Rafael Levi Hannover is buried in the Old Jewish Cemetery on Oberstrasse .

Fonts (incomplete)

  • Luḥot ha-'Ibbur , astronomical tables for the Jewish calendar, Hanover: Leyden, 1756
    • The Luḥot ha-'Ibbur were published with ME Fürth's Yir'at Shamayim in Maimonides “Yad”, Ḳiddush ha-Ḥodesh , Dessau, 1820-21
  • Tekunat ha-Shamayim , on astronomy and calendar production, with particular reference to the Talmud passages on these topics, with glosses by Moses Tiktin , Amsterdam, 1756
  • Of Levi's smaller writings, three remained unprinted. However, Simon Waltsch later recorded this and published a commentary on Maimonides' calendar regulations in Braunschweig (Berlin 1786).

Literature (incomplete)

  • Adolf Brüll :  Levi, Raphael . In: Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie (ADB). Volume 18, Duncker & Humblot, Leipzig 1883, p. 505.
  • Wilhelm Rothert : Hannoversche Biographie , Bd. 3: Hannover under the Kurhut, 1646-1815 , with many portraits and four coats of arms, ed. Mrs. A. Rothert and Martin Peter, Hanover: Sponholtz, 1916, p. 512
  • Entry in the Jewish Encyclopedia . Funk and Wagnalls, New York 1901-1906.
  • Selig Gronemann : Genealogical studies on the old Jewish families of Hanover , Hanover, 1913, passim
  • Salomon Wininger : Great Jewish National Biography with more than 8000 biographies of well-known men and women from all times and countries. A reference work for the Jewish people and their friends, with the participation of numerous experts [7 BdeE.], Bd: 4. Leavith-Péreire , [Czernowitz, Piata Alexandri: "Aurora"], [1930], p. 54
  • Encyclopaedia Judaica . Judaism in the past and present , Berlin [-Charlottenburg, Bismarckstr. 106]: Eschkol-Verlag [, Dept. Encyclopaedia Judaica], 1931, column 996f.
  • Life and destiny. On the inauguration of the synagogue in Hanover , ed. from the state capital Hanover, press office, in cooperation with the Jewish community Hanover eV, o. O., o. J. [Hanover: 1963], pp. 57-64
  • John F. Oppenheimer (editor-in-chief), Emanuel BinGorion (co-editor) and a .: Lexicon of Judaism , Gütersloh: Bertelsmann, 1967, Sp. 422
    • [2. Ed.]: Gütersloh; Berlin; Munich; Vienna: Bertelsmann-Lexikon-Verlag, 1971 ISBN 3-570-05964-2 , Sp. 421
  • Steven Schwarzschild; Henry Schwarzschild: Two lives in the Jewish Early Enlightenment. Raphael Levi Hannover and Moses Abraham Wolff . In: Year-book. Leo Baeck Institute . Vol. 29 (1984) pp. 229-276. (Therein: pp. 229-258: Raphael Levi.) ISSN  0075-8744
  • Julius H. Schoeps (Ed.), Editing of the Salomon Ludwig Steinheim Institute : New Lexicon of Judaism , Gütersloh; Munich: Bertelsmann-Lexikon-Verlag, 1992, ISBN 3-570-09877-X , p. 91
  • Peter Schulze : RAFAEL LEVI. In: Dirk Böttcher, Klaus Mlynek, Waldemar R. Röhrbein, Hugo Thielen: Hannoversches Biographisches Lexikon . From the beginning to the present. Schlütersche, Hannover 2002, ISBN 3-87706-706-9 , p. 219 and others; partly online via Google books
  • Peter Schulze: Rafael Levi. In: Klaus Mlynek, Waldemar R. Röhrbein (eds.) U. a .: City Lexicon Hanover . From the beginning to the present. Schlütersche, Hannover 2009, ISBN 978-3-89993-662-9 , p. 512.
  • Christoph Schulte : Leibniz and his "student" Raphael Levi . In: Leibniz and Judaism. Results of an international conference in Potsdam . Daniel J. Cook. (Ed.). Stuttgart: Steiner 2008, pp. 35-47. ISBN 978-3-515-09251-7

Web links

References and comments

  1. ↑ see GND file of the German National Library
  2. ↑ a b c d e f g h i j Peter Schulze: Rafael Levi (see literature)
  3. ↑ a b c d e f Jewish Encyclopedia (see literature, online there)
  4. ↑ a b c d e Adolf Brüll: Levi, Raphael (see literature)
  5. ↑ The Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie names the 8th year of life; according to Peter Schulze, Levi would have been around 15 years old at the time
personal data
SURNAME Levi, Rafael
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Levi, Raphael; Levi, Rafael Hanover; Levi, Raphael Hanover
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German mathematician, astronomer, natural philosopher, author and educator, student of Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz
DATE OF BIRTH 1685
PLACE OF BIRTH Weikersheim
DATE OF DEATH May 17, 1779
Place of death Hanover