Yaakov Zur
Yaʿakov Zur ( Hebrew יַעֲקֹב צוּר Jaʿaqōv Zūr ; * April 21, 1924 in Rostock ; † October 29, 2013 in Kibbutz En haNeziw, Emeq ha-Ma'ajanot , Israel) was an Israeli historian and university professor. He was a co-founder and board member of the Rostock Foundation Meeting Center for Jewish History and Culture Max-Samuel-Haus .
Life
Yaʿakov Zur was born as Alfred Jacques Zuckermann as the first son of the Jewish businessman Heinz Zuckermann and his wife Perle, née Singermann, in Rostock. He had two brothers, Max and Louis, and a sister, Ruth. His father immigrated to Rostock from Poland in 1922 . Alfred Zuckermann attended the August School and then briefly the Friedrich-Franz-Knabenschule in his hometown. In 1936, the parents decided to send their sons to the Jewish Samson-Raphael-Hirsch school in Frankfurt am Main , as anti-Semitic attacks were feared at the schools in Rostock. After the father was arrested during the November pogroms in 1938 , 14-year-old Alfred returned to support his mother and sister. He sold the business and organized the father's escape to England. Since it was said that women and children were not at risk, mother and sister seemed safe in Germany - they were not given a visa by the English government. With his brothers, Yaakov Zur - that's what he called himself since then - managed to emigrate to Palestine in 1939 .
Yaakov Zur turned to agriculture, he attended an agricultural school and worked in fruit and vegetable growing. In the religious kibbutz he co-founded in 1946 , he looked after immigrants who were new to the country. He later became secretary of the kibbutz. In 1948 Yaakov Zur married Esther Rosenblum, who had emigrated from Belgium.
With their two sons David and Yedidia, the Zurs followed an assignment from the Zionist youth movement to South America. Yaakov Zur worked here as an educator for several years. On his return he studied education and history at the Hebrew University from 1961 to 1964. After working as an educator, teacher and school director, he received his doctorate in 1982 from Tel Aviv University on the subject of “German-Jewish Orthodoxy and its relationship to internal organizational efforts and Zionism” and then taught at Bar Ilan University and as a visiting professor at various schools and universities in Europe and the USA, including in seminars of Protestant churches in Germany.
On this occasion, Yaakov Zur visited his native Rostock for the first time in 1987. Here he wanted to find out more about the fate of his mother and sister. Both were victims of the deportation of Rostock's Jewish population to the Auschwitz concentration camp in 1942 .
Yaakov Zur then regularly visited his hometown, which he has never called hometown since then . Nevertheless, since his first visit he has acted as a mediator between the German and Israeli people, specifically with the establishment of the Foundation Meeting Center for Jewish History and Culture Max-Samuel-Haus in 1991 . Widowed since 2002, Zur died in 2013 in Ein haNezi "v (עֵין הַנְּצִי"ב).
Honors
On September 1, 1993, Yaakov Zur was honored as the first honorary citizen of Rostock after the political change in 1989 because of his meritorious work for the reconciliation between Germany and Israel. 1998 awarded him the Faculty of Arts of the University of Rostock , the honorary doctorate .
literature
- Christine Gundlach (ed.): The world is a narrow bridge. Yaakov Zur: an Israeli in Rostock. Thomas-Helms-Verlag, Schwerin 2003
Web links
- Literature by and about Yaakov Zur in the catalog of the German National Library
- Literature about Yaakov Zur in the state bibliography MV
Individual evidence
- ↑ Yaakov Zur has died ( Memento from November 1, 2013 in the Internet Archive )
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Zur, Yaakov |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Zuckermann, Alfred Jacques (maiden name) |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | Israeli historian and university professor |
| DATE OF BIRTH | April 21, 1924 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Rostock |
| DATE OF DEATH | October 29, 2013 |
| Place of death | A Hanetziv |