Boris was a talented scientist, an original thinker, a curious and persistent researcher. Upon arriving in the USA, during our joint work at Princeton University, Boris and I published three articles on biophysics. [Alex Gordon]
Boris Vugmeister, 77, Physicist Read More »
Alex Gordon, International, Israel, Obituaries & memorials, Science, Medicine, & Education, Staff and Bylined Contributors, USA
In 1886, the first match in history for the title of World Chess Champion took place in the USA. Steinitz’s opponent was the strongest player of that time, Johannes Hermann Zukertort. Zukertort was a German and later British chess player, the son of a Prussian Lutheran pastor, a baptized Jew, and a missionary who spread Protestantism among the Jews. [Alex Gordon]
Jewish Biography: Wilhelm Steinitz, First World Chess Champion Read More »
Alex Gordon, Antisemitism, International, Jewish History, Sports & Competitions, Staff and Bylined Contributors, USA
By Alex Gordon HAIFA, Israel — Isaac Levitan, founder of the genre of the “mood landscape,” is one of the greatest artists of Russia. He was born in a shtetl of Kibarty, a part of the Russian Empire (present-day Lithuania), into a poor but educated Jewish family of a railroad clerk. His father Elyashiv, the son of a rabbi, learned French and
Jewish Biography: Isaac Levitan, Russian Landscape Artist Read More »
Alex Gordon, Antisemitism, International, Jewish History, Music, Dance, and Visual Arts, Staff and Bylined Contributors
In USA, Infeld recalled, “I arrived at Princeton in September 1936. Five months later our collaboration with Einstein began to work out well; we understood each other perfectly and had achieved even partial success, although the problem of formulating the equations of motion was far from being completely solved. …” [Alex Gordon]
Jewish Biography: Leopold Infeld, Physicist who Worked with Einstein Read More »
Alex Gordon, Antisemitism, International, Jewish History, Science, Medicine, & Education, Staff and Bylined Contributors, USA
The offspring of a Jewish family was ashamed of the wealth of his family and the Jewish way of life. At the 5th Moscow Gymnasium, where he studied with the future poet Boris Pasternak, Nobel Prize winner in literature, and the future famous writer Ilya Ehrenburg, 15-year-old Gregory told his fellow students that he was a Marxist. [Alex Gordon]
Jewish Biography: Gregory Sokolnikov, First Soviet Finance Minister Read More »
Alex Gordon, Antisemitism, Business & Finance, International, Jewish History, Staff and Bylined Contributors
On the advice of the Jewish children’s poet Samuil Marshak, he began writing science fiction books for children. The first two stories – “Solar Matter” and “Rays of X” – were printed in the magazine Koster in 1934 and 1936, respectively. The third story, “The Inventors of the Radio Telegraph,” was also published in the Koster magazine. [Alex Gordon]
Jewish Biography: Matvey Bronstein, Physicist and Children’s Author Read More »
Alex Gordon, Books, Poetry & Short Stories, International, Jewish History, Science, Medicine, & Education, Staff and Bylined Contributors
Adler was a leader, a thinker, and too creative a person to be content with a subordinate role. All his life he suffered in rebellion against his older brother, who was sickly and therefore received special attention from his mother. He wanted to be first. He consistently rejected Freudian analysis, the Oedipus complex and the sexual etiology of neuroses. [Alex Gordon]
Jewish Biography: Alfred Adler, Individual Psychologist Read More »
Alex Gordon, International, Jewish History, Staff and Bylined Contributors
Isaak Dunayevsky, the USSR’s most famous and highly paid pop composer, twice winner of the Stalin Prize, was the most talented and most influential composer of his genre in the Land of the Soviets. [Alex Gordon]
Jewish Biography: Isaak Dunayevsky, Soviet Pop Composer Read More »
Alex Gordon, Antisemitism, International, Jewish History, Music, Dance, and Visual Arts, Staff and Bylined Contributors, Theatre, Film & Broadcast
In 1927 Lecache founded the League Against Pogroms, which the following year, became the International League Against Antisemitism, and in 1979, became the International League against Racism and Antisemitism. He was the president from 1927 to 1968. [Alex Gordon]
His poems were enjoyed by all Soviet children. Marshak’s poetry for children is a world of goodness, fun, fairy tales, original images and ringing, beautiful rhymes. He was an innovator, the creator of energetic, major, fast, inventive, cheerful and witty children’s verse. [Alex Gordon]
Jewish Biography: Samuel Marshak, Soviet Children’s Writer Read More »
Alex Gordon, Antisemitism, Books, Poetry & Short Stories, Holocaust, International, Israel, Jewish History, Jewish Religion, Lifestyles, Staff and Bylined Contributors
Jacques Offenbach was born on June 20, 1819, in Cologne. He was the second son and seventh of ten children of Isaac Yehuda Eberst, later Offenbach, a bookbinder, an itinerant cantor who sang in synagogues, a violinist who played in cafes. [Alex Gordon]
Jewish Biography: Jacques Offenbach, Musical Satirist Read More »
Alex Gordon, Antisemitism, International, Jewish History, Music, Dance, and Visual Arts, Staff and Bylined Contributors
Hofstein wrote poetry from the age of nine in Hebrew, later also in Russian and Ukrainian, from 1909 in Yiddish. His first poems and essays were published in 1917 in Yiddish in a Kiev newspaper. Hofstein perceived the October Revolution of the Bolsheviks as the realization of biblical ideals of justice, as the deliverance of Jews from national oppression. [Alex Gordon]
Jewish Biography: David Hofstein, an Executed Soviet Poet Read More »
Alex Gordon, Antisemitism, Books, Poetry & Short Stories, International, Israel, Jewish History, Staff and Bylined Contributors
In 1819 the Society for the Culture and Science of the Jews was organized in Berlin, whose president from 1821-1824 was the lawyer Dr. Eduard Gans. The Society published the journal Zeitschrift für Wissenschaft des Judenthums (Journal of the Science of Judaism), in which the purpose of the union was formulated as “the dissemination among the Jews of European education and scientific knowledge of Judaism in order to prepare in this way a painless transition from the Middle Ages to modernity, especially in order to avoid mass conversions to Christianity.” [Alex Gordon]
Jewish Biography: Eduard Gans, Judaism’s Defender Then Defector Read More »
Alex Gordon, Antisemitism, International, Jewish History, Jewish Religion, Staff and Bylined Contributors
The only philosopher in Soviet Russia who spoke in defense of quantum mechanics and the theory of relativity and proved that the new theories do not contradict Marx’s philosophy, was Semyon Semkovsky, Doctor of Philosophy, Academician of the All-Ukrainian Academy of Sciences. [Alex Gordon]
Jewish Biography: Semyon Semkovsky, Ukrainian Philosopher Read More »
Alex Gordon, Antisemitism, International, Jewish History, Science, Medicine, & Education, Staff and Bylined Contributors