Sigmund Seeligmann
Sigmund Seeligmann (born May 21, 1873 in Karlsruhe , † October 31, 1940 in Amsterdam ) was a German-Dutch scholar of Judaism , historian and bibliographer. He built one of the most important Western European private libraries in the field of Hebraica and Judaica and wrote several treatises on the history of the Dutch Jews.
life and work
Sigmund Seeligmann was the second youngest of four children of the Karlsruhe banker Aron Seeligmann and his Berlin- born wife Johanna, née Hirschberg. In 1884 the family emigrated to Amsterdam, and in December 1897 Sigmund Seeligmann was naturalized in the Netherlands. He studied at a rabbinical seminary.
Sigmund Seeligmann was a Torah scholar and committed representative of neo-orthodox Judaism in the sense of Samson Raphael Hirsch , whose motto was: Torah in derech erez , (Hebrew, roughly translated: "Life according to the Torah in connection with secular education"). Seeligmann founded the Genootschap voor de Joodsche Wetenschap in Nederland (ndl. "Cooperative for Jewish Science in the Netherlands"), was its first president and corresponding member of the American Jewish Historical Society . He was well known as the author of the Jewish bibliography and advised scholars in the United States and around the world.
Sigmund Seeligmann was married to Juliette, nee Veershym; the family lived in Amsterdam, Nicolaas Witsenstraat 7, and maintained traditional Jewish customs. A Dutch contemporary reports that at Sukkot there was always a leaf hut on the balcony of the Seeligmanns. Her only son, Isac Leo (* 1907), succeeded her father in scientific studies when he died in 1940. The library, comprising around 18,000 volumes, was confiscated by the German occupiers in 1941 and taken to the RSHA (Office VII) in Berlin. Some of these holdings, classified as "enemy literature", ended up in the Theresienstadt ghetto in the " Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia " during the war . Isac Leo Seeligmann was deported there in 1944, worked in the camp library there and survived. After the war, a part of his father's collection of books about reached Prague to Jerusalem , where Dr. IL Seeligmann became professor at the Hebrew University .
Fonts (selection)
- Sigmund Seeligmann: Bibliography en historie: bijdrage tot de geschiedenis the first Sephardim in Amsterdam , Amsterdam: M. Hertzberger, 1927
- Sigmund Seeligmann: The Jews in Holland. In: Im deutscher Reich , year 1901, issue 6–7, pp. 317–25 ( online version )
- Catalog of the extensive collection of Hebrew a. Jewish books, manuscripts, portraits etc .: bequeathed by NH van Biema / described by Sigmund Seeligmann. Amsterdam: Joachimsthal, 1904
Literature (selection)
- Elisabeth M. Yavnai: Jewish Cultural Property and its Postwar Recovery. In: Confiscation of Jewish Property in Europe, 1933-1945 . USHMM Symposium Proceedings. Washington DC, 2003, p. 127-43 ( online version ; PDF; 1.3 MB)
- Aron Freimann : Sigmund Seeligmann. In: Necrology, American Jewish Historical Society, Publications , Vol. 37 (1947) p. 451 ( online version )
- Levie Hirschel: Sigmund Seeligmann as bibliograaf en historicus. In: Ha'Ischa / De Vrouw , vol. XII (1940), no . 11, 8 pp.
- Guido Kisch : Sigmund Seeligmann (1873-1941) , in: ders. Selected writings. 2. Research on the legal, economic and social history of the Jews: with a directory of Guido Kisch's writings on the legal and social history of the Jews . Sigmaringen: Thorbecke, 1979 ISBN 3-7995-6017-3 , pp. 443f.
Web links
- Literature by Sigmund Seeligmann in the common union catalog
- Contemporary report (Dutch)
- Bookplate S. Seeligmann
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Seeligmann, Sigmund |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | German-Dutch scholar of Judaism |
| DATE OF BIRTH | May 21, 1873 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Karlsruhe |
| DATE OF DEATH | October 31, 1940 |
| Place of death | Amsterdam |