Oxford Jewish Personalities - Oxford Chabad Society

OXFORD JEWISH PERSONALITIES

Here is a list of great Oxford Jewish personalities who have either lived in Oxford or visited. Please click on any of the links to read their profile and relationship to Oxford.

If you have any information about other prominent Jewish figures who are no longer living and should be added to this list, please email info@oxfordchabad.org.

Jacob Barnet (Picture: Isaac Casaubon)

Rabbi Abraham ben Meir Ibn Ezra, travelled to Oxford in 1158

Rabbi Dovid Oppenheimer (1664-1736), Chief Rabbi of Prague - his famous 7,000 Hebrew library, Oppenheimer collection, including 1,000 manuscripts, was bought by the Bodleian library in Oxford 1829 for a mere 9,000 thalers (about $6,435).

Isaac Abendana (ca. 1640 – 1710) moved to England in 1662 and became hakam of the Spanish Portuguese Synagogue in London. He taught Hebrew at Cambridge University and completed an unpublished Latin translation of the Mishnah for the university in 1671. While he was at Cambridge, Abendana sold Hebrew books to the Bodleian Library of Oxford, and in 1689 he took a teaching position in Magdalen College until 1696 (J. Quarterly Review - C. Duschinksy on David Oppenheimer).

Sir Moses Montefiore

James Joseph Sylvester

Alfred Edersheim.jpg

Alfred Edersheim

Adolf Neubauer

Rabbi Abraham Isaac Kook

Albert Einstein

Chief Rabbi Israel Brodie

Chaim Raphael (Rabinovich)

Sir Alan Abraham Mocatta

Sir Basil Henriques

Major-General Sir Henry Joseph D'Avigdor-Goldsmid

Walter Eytan (Ettinghausen)

Solomon (Sol) Adler

Avraham (Abe) Harman

Dr. Herbert Loewe

Professor Samuel Alexander

Arthur Lehman Goodhart, KBE, QC

Professor S. Herbert Frankel

Professor Sir Rudolf Peierls

Sir Keith Joseph

Lord Arnold Goodman

Leopold Zunz or Yom Tov Lipmann Tzuntz, 1794 – 1886, was a German Reform rabbi and writer, the founder of what has been termed "Jewish Studies" or "Judaic Studies", the critical investigation of Jewish literature, hymnology and ritual of the syngaogue. In this pursuit Zunz travelled in April, 1855 (1846?), to England and spent twelve days in the British Museum and twenty days in the Bodleian at Oxford, followed by three days in Paris, inspecting 280 manuscripts and 100 rare books. He first visited the Oppenheimer library when it was still in Hamburg in 1828, before it was purchased by the Bodleian library in 1829, which explains why he would have visited Oxford later on. Although affiliated with the Reform movement, Zunz appeared to show little sympathy for it for various reasons.

Leopold Dukes (Hungarian, 1810, Pozsony - 1891, Vienna) was a Hungarian critic of Jewish literature. Dukes spent about 20 years in England, and from his researches in the Bodleian library and the British Museum (which contain two of the most valuable Hebrew libraries in the world) Dukes was able to complete the work of Leopold Zunz.

Hirsch Edelmann (1805 – 1858) was a Russian Jewish author and editor. He spent about ten years in England, and was one of the first competent scholars to examine the manuscripts and rare printed books of the Oppenheim collection in the Bodleian Library, Oxford, and to give the outside world some knowledge of their contents. In this work he was assisted by Leopold Dukes; and they jointly edited and published "Ginze Oxford" (with an English translation by M. H. Bresslau, London, 1851).

Professor Moritz Steinschneider (March 30, 1816, Prostějov, Moravia Austria– 1907) was a Bohemian bibliographer and Orientalist and Professor in Berlin. In 1836 Steinschneider went to Vienna to continue his studies, and, on the advice of his friend Leopold Dukes, he devoted himself especially to Oriental and Neo-Hebrew literatures, and most particularly to bibliography, which would become his principal focus. On March 17, 1848, Steinschneider, after many difficulties, succeeded in becoming a Prussian citizen. The same year he was charged with the preparation of the catalogue of the Hebrew books in the Bodleian Library, Oxford (Catalogus Librorum Hebræorum in Bibliotheca Bodleiana, Berlin, 1852-60), a work which was to occupy him thirteen years, in the course of which he spent four summers in Oxford.

Dr Ludwig Mond (1839 – 1909), born to a Jewish family in Kessel, Germany, was a chemist and industrialist who took British nationality.Mond found a solution for the mass production of Soda and also discovered nickel carbonyl, a previously unknown compound. He received an honorary doctorate from the University of Oxford. In October 1866 Mond married his cousin Frida Löwenthal (1847-1923) in her native town of Cologne. They soon moved to England and had two sons, Robert and Alfred.

Professor David Samuel Margoliouth (1858 – 1940) was an orientalist and became Laudian Professor of Arabic at the University of Oxford from 1889 to 1937. Many of his works on the history of Islam became the standard treatises in English, including Mohammed and the Rise of Islam (1905), The Early Development of Mohammedanism (1914), and The Relations Between Arabs and Israelites Prior to the Rise of Islam (1924).

Lord Professor Frederick Lindemann (1856-1957) was appointed in 1919 professor of experimental philosophy at Oxford University and director of the Clarendon Laboratory, largely on the recommendation of Sir Henry Tizard who had been a colleague in Berlin. In July 1941 Lindemann was raised to the peerage as Baron Cherwell, of Oxford in the County of Oxford and in 1956 he was made Viscount Cherwell, of Oxford in the County of Oxford. During the Second World War he served as Winston Churchill's leading scientific adviser.

Herman Joseph Cohen 1860 - 1932

Dr. Chares Duschinsky, born 1877, Nameszto, Hungary, passed away 1944, London, England. Lived during the First World War in Oxford and author of Jacob Kimchi and Shalom Buzaglo and "Rabbi David Oppenheimer: Glimpses of His Life and Activity, Derived from His Manuscripts in the Bodleian Library,” Jewish Quarterly Review 20 (1929/30): 217–247.

Professor Paul Jacobsthal, an eminent archaeologist who was forced to flee Nazi Germany because of his Jewish origins found refuge in Oxford, and was a senior academic in the University of Oxford until his death in 1957. He made his name as a world leading expert in Celtic Art, publishing a ground-breaking book Early Celtic Art in 1944. He also left a stack of personal letters, which reveal his and his wife's experiences as refugees in Oxford.

Prof. Jonathan Cohen (May, 1923 - Sep, 2006), British Philosopher

Professor David Daube

Professor David M. Lewis

Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889 - 1951), Austrian - English Philosopher, Oxford, 1950

Henri-Louis Bergson (1859 - 1941), French Philosopher, lectured in Oxford and received honorary Doc. of Science, 1911

Oskar Ewald (1881 - 1940), Hungarian-Austrian Philosopher, died near Oxford

Karl Marx Visited St Ebbe's when researching "Das Kapital" (myth)

Michael Dov Weissmandl (1903–1957), born in Debrecen, Hungary, was a scholar and an expert at deciphering ancient Hebrew manuscripts. In order to carry out his research of these manuscripts, he traveled to the Bodleian Library in Oxford. It is related that he was treated with great respect by the Chief Librarian of the Bodleian after an episode when he correctly identified the author of a manuscript which had been misattributed by the library’s scholars. While at Oxford University, Weissmandl volunteered on 1 September 1939 to return to Slovakia as an agent of World Agudath Israel. Later he was the first to demand that the Allies bomb Auschwitz. When the Nazis gathered sixty rabbis from Burgenland and sent them to Czechoslovakia, Czechoslovakia refused them entry and Austria would not take them back. Rabbi Weissmandl flew to England, where he was received by the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Foreign Office. Explaining the tragic situation, he succeeded in obtaining entry visas to England for the sixty rabbis.

During the period of WWII, Weissmandl led the Working Group of Bratislava together with Gisi Fleischmann (see the next section). In 1944, Weissmandl and his family were put on a train headed for Auschwitz. Rabbi Weissmandl escaped from the sealed train by sawing open the lock of the carriage with an emery wire he had secreted in a loaf of bread. He jumped from the moving train, breaking his leg in the process, and hid in a secret bunker in suburban Bratislava.

Rudolf Kasztner and his Nazi associate Kurt Becher took Weissmandl from his Bratislava bunker to Switzerland. This was highly unusual for both Kasztner and Becher. There is some speculation that Kasztner and Becher sought to reinforce their alibis for the predictable post-war trials.

When the Nazis, aided by members of the puppet Slovak government, began its moves against the Slovakian Jews in 1942, members of the Slovak Judenrat formed an underground organization called the Working Group. It was led by Gisi Fleischmann and Rabbi Weissmandl. The group's main activity was to help Jews as much as possible, in part through payment of large bribes to German and Slovak officials. At Rabbi Weissmandl's initiative already in 1942 the Working Group initiated high level ransom negotiations with the Germans (ref. Fuchs and Kranzler books). The transportation of Slovak Jews was in fact halted for a long time after they arranged a $50,000 (in 1952 dollars) ransom deal with the Nazi SS official Dieter Wisliceny.

Sir Lewis Bernstein Namier (27 June 1888 – 19 August 1960), born in Wola Okrzejska, emigrated to the UK in 1906, worked for the Forein Office responsible for Poland and taught at Balliol, 1920-21. He later became political secretary for the Jewish Agency in Palestine and friend of Chaim Weizman.

Herbert Louis Samuel, 1st Viscount Samuel GCB OM GBE PC (6 November 1870 – 2 February 1963), 1st High Commissioner of Palestine, studied at Balliol College, Oxford.

József Patai (1855 - 1928), born in Gyongyos Pata, with family name Klein before changed in 1904, was a Hungarian Jew who did research in the Bodleian library for eight weeks in 1909 on unpublished manuscripts of Hebrew poets to be translated into Hungarian. His son Raphael Patai was schoolfriend of Imre Angyalfi, grandfather of Rabbi Eli Brackman, rabbi in Oxford since 2001.

Ernest Gellner (1925 - 1995), Philosopher, Balliol

Raymond Klibansky (1905 - 2005), Philosopher, Oriel

Robert Nozick (1938 - 2002), American Philosopher, visiting Fellow and lectured at Oxford

Richard Rudolf Walzer (1900 - 1975), Philosopher, Fellow St Catherines

Richard Arthur Wollheim (1923 - 2003), British Philosopher, Balliol

Dr. Mike Woodin (6 Nov, 1965 - 8 July, 2004), Balliol College and Principal Speaker of the Green Party of England and Wales

Professor Geoffrey Lewis CMG FBA (June 19, 1920- Feb 12, 2008), professor of Turkish language, Oxford University

Dr. Joseph Sherman (passed away 2009), Yiddish scholar, Oriental Institute, Oxford University

Rabbi Aryeh Leib Frumkin (1845–1916) was the founder and pioneer of Petah Tikva, the first yishuv created in the pre-state of Israel. He also was an author of halachic texts and operator of a wine shop, L. Frumkin & Co. in the East End of London where he moved to in 1893 after an Arab attack on Petah Tikva. His daughter married Moses Hirsch Segal, tutor of the bible and semitic studies in Oxford, where he frequently visited and befriended József Patai, when he did research at the Bodleian in 1909. Rabbi Frumkin was the great-grandfather of Rabbi Sir Jonathan Sacks, the current Chief Rabbi of the United Kingdom.

Professor Moses Hirsch Segal (1876 - 1968), tutor of biblical and semitic studies at Oxford, described by his Oxford friend Jozsef Patai, as 'scholar of the Bible and the Mishna', and 'the ritual slaughterer of the small Jewish congregation of Oxford'. He lived at 57a-b St Clements and was the Minister of the Oxford congregation until 1927, when he became Prof. of Semitic languages at the Hebrew University.

Professor Judah Benzion Segal, Judah Benzion Segal MC, FBA, often known as Ben (21 June 1912 - 23 October 2003, Edgware, Middlesex) studied at Magdalen College School, Oxford and later also did his DPhil in Oxford in 1939, when he became Mansel Research Exhibitioner, at St. John's College, Oxford, between 1936-39. He then became Professor of Semitic Languages at the School of Oriental and African Studies. His father was Professor Moses Segal and his brother was the doctor and Labour Party politician Samuel Segal. He had two daughters; one is Prof. Naomi Segal.

Dr Samuel (Sam) Segal, Lord Segal of Wytham. He lived in Wytham Abbey and also north Oxford. Starting out as a medical practitioner, he was elected as a Labour MP in the 1945 Attlee parliament, during which he assisted in the creation of the National Health Service. He became Lord Segal in 1962 and subsequently became a Deputy Speaker in the House of Lords. As a reasonably prominent Jewish British life peer who had also lived in Egypt, he was instrumental (largely behind the scenes) in helping build the relationship between Menachem Begin and Anwar Sadat prior to the Israel - Egypt treaty. He was also an honorary fellow of Jesus College, Oxford. He died in 1985.

Lieut. Victor Albert Villiers Zacharias Jessel, studied at Magdalen College School and was killed in WWI in 1917.

Pte. Harry Mitchell Davidson (1883-1917), Oxford and Bucks. Light Infantry, aged 34, only son of Mr. And Mrs. D. Davidson, 57 St. Clement’s, died of wounds received in action at Salonika on May 9, 1917, leaving a wife and two children. He was an old Wesleyan Schoolboy, and was in business as a draper at 5, Cowley Road. (Mr. Jessel and Mrs. Davidson were siblings, thus the two above soldiers were cousins).

Lord Thomas Balogh (1905–1985) - emigrated from Budapest to England in 1930's and became Fellow at Balliol College (influenced current Head of Balliol, Dr. Andrew Graham, to apply to Balliol). As Economist, he was appointed Economic Adviser to the Cabinet in 1964 and became a Minister of State for Energy from 1974 to 1977.

Madron Seligman (10 November 1918 – 9 July 2002), read PPE at Balliol College, Oxford, became president of the Union and was oldest friend of the former prime minister Sir Edward Heath whom he met at Balliol College, Oxford, in 1937. He represented Britain in skiing at the 1952 Winter Olympics in Oslo.

John Richard Schlesinger, CBE (16 February 1926 – 25 July 2003), born in London, was an English film and stage director and actor, studied at Balliol College.

Prof. Daniel Joseph Boorstin (October 1, 1914 – February 28, 2004), studied at Balliol College, Oxford as a Rhodes Scholar, and appointed twelfth Librarian of the United States Congress.

Professor Bezalel Narkiss (1926–2008) was an Israeli art historian and founder and first director of the Hebrew University. He published Hebrew Illuminated Manuscripts (Jerusalem 1984) in which he mentions the Oxford Bodleian Library's Michael Mahzor (Germany 1258) with seven animals on the Kol Nidrei folio. He would have likely have visited Oxford's Bodleian library in his research on Hebrew illuminated manuscripts.

Dr. Derek Samuel Brackman (1927-2004), scientist and father of Oxford Rabbi Eli Brackman, frequently visited Oxford and called it his second home between 2001-2004.

Michael Vivian Posner (August 25, 1931 - February 14, 2006), father immigrated from Russia to escape pogroms, grew up in London and attended Balliol College, Oxford.

Philip Mayer Kaiser (July 12, 1913 – May 24, 2007), born in NY, was a United States diplomat and studied as a Rhodes Scholar in 1936 at Balliol College.

Raaphi Joseph Arie Persitz (26 July 1934 – 4 February 2009), born in Palestine, was an English–Israeli–Swiss chess master. He studied at Balliol College, Oxford, and represented Oxford University in the annual match against Cambridge University on three occasions (1954, 1955 and 1956) and also played for England and Israel.

Professor Gerald Allan "Jerry" Cohen (14 April 1941 – 5 August 2009) was a Marxist political philosopher, formerly Visiting Quain Professor of Jurisprudence, University College London and Chichele Professor of Social and Political Theory, All Souls College, Oxford. Born into a communist Jewish family in Montreal, Cohen was educated at McGill University, Canada (BA, philosophy and political science) and the University of Oxford (BPhil, philosophy) where he studied under Isaiah Berlin and Gilbert Ryle.

Mr Roger Van Noorden (passed away 12th April, 2010) was a Fellow of Hertford College where he taught economics from 1963 to 2006. He was involved with the Oxford Institute for Energy Studies for many years and served on the Board of Governors from 1987 until 2006.

Jonny Fraser drowned trying to save a friend in India in summer of 2005 at 21-year-old, while studying in his second year politics, philosophy and economics degree at St Peter's College, Oxford University.

Antonia Bruch (Nov, 2009) was an undergraduate student studying theology at Regent's Park College, Oxford University.

Professor Edward Ullendorf FBA (1920-2011), Professor Emeritus at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) in London, where he was Professor of Ethiopian Studies and then of Semitic Languages. He spoke at the Oxford Chabad Society on his experience serving in Palestine under the British Mandate.

Professor Baruch Samuel "Barry" Blumberg (July 28, 1925 – April 5, 2011), Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1976, received his Dphil at Balliol in 1957 and became later Master of Balliol College form 1989 to 1994. He attended weekly Tamud classes, as often as possible.#

Sir Zelman Cowen (Oct, 1919 - Dec, 2011), former Governor-General of Australia, studied after the War in 1945 at New College as a Rhodes Scholar and later became Provost of Oriel College.

Christopher Hitchens (1949-2011), famed author and journalist, studied at Balliol College. According to Hitchens, when his brother Peter took his fiancée to meet their maternal grandmother, who was then in her 90s, she said of his fiancée, "She's Jewish, isn't she?" and then announced: "Well, I've got something to tell you. So are you."

Copyright Chabad of Oxford - Rabbi Eli Brackman