Yehoshua Amir

Yehoshua Amir ( Hebrew עמיר יהושע, until 1951 Hermann Neumark ; born on December 1, 1911 in Duisburg ; died December 1, 2002 in Jerusalem ) was an Israeli rabbi , historian , translator and university professor.

Family and youth in Germany

Yehoshua Amir was born as Hermann Neumark on December 1, 1911. His father Manass Neumark was a liberal rabbi of the Duisburg Jewish community. Neumark grew up with two sisters and a brother, his mother died in 1924. The siblings survived the Shoah in emigration, Manass Neumark died on October 21, 1942 in the Theresienstadt ghetto.

After graduating from high school in 1930 at the Landfermann Gymnasium in Duisburg, where his father taught Hebrew as a part-time job, Neumark temporarily attended the school for Jewish youth in Berlin.

In 1930 Hermann Neumark briefly studied classical philology at the University of Bonn . From 1931 to 1933 he continued his studies at the Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität with Elias Bickermann and Eduard Norden . In Berlin he was refused permission to do a doctorate. From 1933 to 1937 Neumark was enrolled at the University of Würzburg and attended Friedrich Pfister's events . In Würzburg he also received his doctorate in 1937 with a dissertation on Philo of Alexandria , and Isaak Heinemann advised him on the selection of the topic . A few weeks after Neumark's doctorate, an ordinance came into force that would have excluded him from the exam.

From 1931 to 1939 Neumark attended the University for the Science of Judaism in Berlin while studying . He took part in Bible seminars with Martin Buber and received lessons from the historian Ismar Elbogen , the theologian Leo Baeck and the philosopher Julius Guttmann . At the same time he gave private Hebrew lessons. In 1939 he completed his training as a rabbi.

Hermann Neumark was a member of the Union of Jewish Scouts from 1928 to 1934 , first in Duisburg, later in Berlin. From 1931 to 1933 he was a member of the Social Democratic Party of Germany and from 1934 to 1938 a member of the Hechaluz .

Emigration to Palestine

In October 1939 Hermann Neumark's first attempt to obtain an immigration certificate for Palestine failed because the British consulate in Berlin had been closed after the beginning of World War II . With the support of the Palestine Office, Neumark was able to travel to Italy and receive a category B3 immigration certificate ( students and pupils whose livelihoods are secured ) from the British consulate in Rome .

To secure his livelihood, Neumark's family made payments on the basis of the Ha'avara Agreement , with which German exporters were paid invoices for goods in Reichsmarks and whose value of goods in Palestine was to be paid out in Palestinian pounds.

In Palestine, Neumark's livelihood was secured during the first few months by a loan from the "Hitachduth Olej Germania" (HOG), which to this day is an association of Israelis of Central European origin ( Hebrew אִרְגּוּן יוֹצְאֵי מֶרְכַּז אֵירוֹפָּה Irgūn Jōtz'ej Merkaz Ejrōpah , German 'Organization of those from Central Europe' ) exists. The security was the expected funds from the Haavarah, which did not arrive due to stricter foreign exchange regulations of the British mandate administration. The HOG also made it possible for Neumark to attend a course for elementary school teachers who had arrived in Palestine without a valid teaching permit. From 1939 to 1947 he gave private lessons in Hebrew and ancient Greek.

In 1941 Hermann Neumark volunteered for the British Army and in 1942 for the Haganah, but was released after a few weeks for medical reasons. In 1947 he was a member of the Jewish civil defense. From 1947 to 1949 he served as a soldier in the Israel Defense Forces and remained a reservist until 1956.

From 1949 to 1963 and from 1965 to 1966 Amir was a Hebrew teacher at an ulpan in Jerusalem. From 1963 to 1965 he taught ancient Greek at the University of Haifa .

In 1951 Hermann Neumark took on the name Yehoshua Amir. In the same year he married Maralith Lissauer, born in 1918, who had survived the Shoah with her two sons in hiding in the Netherlands. The Amir couple had two other children, including Yehoyada Amir , who was born in Jerusalem in 1954 and is a rabbi and university teacher in Israel.

University professor in Israel and Germany

Yehoshua Amir's research and publications deal primarily with classical Greek Judaism, in particular the life and work of Philo of Alexandria . In the 1960s and 1970s he began regular publications on Philon and became one of the most important Philon researchers.

From 1966 Amir was professor of Jewish-Hellenistic and modern Jewish philosophy and of classical history at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem . From 1970 he worked as a professor part-time and was also part-time rabbi of the Emet we-Emunah synagogue. From 1973 to 1975 he lectured at Ben Gurion University in the Negev .

Yehoshua Amir was a visiting professor at the University of Duisburg from 1975 to 1976 and in the 1980s, and gave lectures on Judaism . In November 1978, a series of public lectures and participation in commemorative events in Germany to commemorate the November pogroms of 1938 followed . From 1979 to 1980 Amir was a professor at the University for Jewish Studies in Heidelberg . He then worked here as a visiting professor.

Amir was a member of the Jerusalem Advisory Board of the Leo Baeck Institute in 1988 .

He died in Jerusalem in December 2002 on his 91st birthday.

Publications (selection)

• Hermann Neumark: The use of Greek and Jewish motifs in Philon's thoughts about God's position towards his friends . Dissertation, University of Würzburg 1937.
• Yehoshua Amir: Philo and the Bible . In: Studia Philonica 1973, Volume 2, ISSN  0093-5808 .
• Yehoshua Amir: The Hellenistic figure of Judaism at Philo of Alexandria . Neukirchener Verlag, Neukirchen-Vluyn 1983, ISBN 3-7887-0717-8 .

Translations into the Hebrew language (selection)

• Yoc (h) anan Lewy: Philo Judaeus, Philosophical Writings , Oxford 1956 (translation Tel Aviv 1964).
• Martin Buber: Kingship of God , 1932 (translation Jerusalem 1965).
• Franz Rosenzweig: Star of Redemption , 1921 (translation Jerusalem 1970).
• Ismar Elbogen : The Jewish worship service in its historical development , Leipzig 1913 (translation Tel Aviv 1972).

Translations from the Hebrew language (selection)

• Abraham Schalit: Herod the Great. The man and his work . 2nd edition, De Gruyter, Berlin 2015, ISBN 978-3-11-017036-8 .

literature

• Robert Jütte: The emigration of the German-speaking "Science of Judaism". The Emigration of Jewish Historians to Palestine 1933–1945 . Franz Steiner, Stuttgart 1991, ISBN 3-515-05798-6 .
• Adam Kamesar: In memoriam. Yehoshua Amir (1911-2002) . In: The Studia Philonica Annual. Studies in Hellenistic Judaism 2002, Volume 14, pp. 184-185, ISSN  1052-4533 .
• Werner Roeder and Herbert A. Strauss : Biographisches Handbuch der Deutschensprachigen Emigration nach 1933. International Biographical Dictionary of Central European Emigrés 1933–1945, Volume I, pp. 25–26. Saur, Munich 1985, reprint 2011, ISBN 978-3-598-10088-8 .

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b c d e f g h i j k} Werner Roeder and Herbert A. Strauss: Biographisches Handbuch der Deutschensprachigen Emigration nach 1933 , p. 25.
2. ↑ Peter Westhölter: Old memories are refreshed . In: Blätter des Landfermann-Bund eV Duisburg and the Königsberger Friderizianer April 1985, pp. 5-6.
3. ↑ ^{a b c} Adam Kamesar: In memoriam. Yehoshua Amir (1911-2002) .
4. ↑ Robert Jütte: The emigration of the German-language "Wissenschaft des Judentums" , pp. 34–35.
5. ↑ Robert Jütte: The emigration of the German-language "Wissenschaft des Judentums" , p. 33.
6. ↑ The association's name in Latin letters can be found in the title of its journal : Yakinton / MB: Bulletin of the Association of Israelis of Central European Origin ).
7. ↑ Robert Jütte: The emigration of the German-speaking "Wissenschaft des Judentums" , p. 37.
8. ^ Ludger Heid: East European Jewish Workers in the Ruhr, 1915–1922 . In: pp. 141–168, here p. 142.
9. ↑ Robert Jütte: The emigration of the German-speaking "Wissenschaft des Judentums" , p. 108.