Chimen Abramsky
שמעון אברמסקי
Born(1916-09-12)12 September 1916
Minsk, Russian Empire
Died14 March 2010(2010-03-14) (aged 93)
SpouseMiriam Nirenstein
Children2, including Jenny Abramsky
ParentYehezkel Abramsky (father)
Academic background
Alma mater
Academic work
InstitutionsUniversity College London

Chimen Abramsky (Hebrew: שמעון אברמסקי; 12 September 1916 – 14 March 2010) was emeritus professor of Jewish studies at University College London. His first name is pronounced Shimon.[1][2]

Biography

Abramsky was born in Minsk to a Lithuanian Jewish family on 12 September 1916, the son of Rabbi Yehezkel Abramsky.[3][4] He gained a BA degree from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and an MA from the University of Oxford. He was Reader in Jewish History, then Goldsmid Professor of Hebrew and Jewish Studies at University College London. He was a Senior Fellow at St Antony's College, Oxford. A noted scholar of Jewish History, Abramsky was also well known as an expert of antiquarian Hebrew books and manuscripts, and was professionally consulted for many years by the auction house Sotheby's, which traditionally ran one Hebraica and Judaica auction every year.[1][5]

In 1936, while studying at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, he became involved in socialist campus politics and on one occasion, he recalled being beaten up by the future Israeli prime minister, Yitzhak Shamir – then a leading figure in the rightwing Irgun.[1] He was described as an atheist.[3]

Abramsky would visit London in the summer of 1939 to see his parents, he would be unable to return to the Palestinian Mandate throughout World War 2 because of this; during this time he would meet and marry Miriam née Nirenstein (1917–1997). He would meet her at her parents' store Shapiro Vallentine, a prominent publisher of Jewish scholarly books.[2] They had two children, Jack and Jenny, the latter of whom became a senior employee for the BBC.[1][6] Jack, a mathematician, is the father of Sasha Abramsky.[7] The house Chimen and Miriam shared in Highgate, Northern London,[8] was considered an important destination for thinkers and scholars.[5]

In 1966, he was invited to take up a newly created lectureship in modern Jewish history at University College London.

In a well-known incident, Abramsky once hosted the Japanese crown prince and Hebrew scholar Prince Takahito Mikasa at the University College London's Institute of Jewish Studies in 1975.[9]

Abramsky died on 14 March 2010.[2]

Works

  • Sasha Abramsky: The house of twenty thousand books. London : Halban, 2014 ISBN 9781905559640[10]

See also

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 Rapoport-Albert, Ada (18 March 2010). "Chimen Abramsky obituary". The Guardian. Archived from the original on 9 September 2013. Retrieved 19 March 2010.
  2. 1 2 3 "Professor Chimen Abramsky". The Daily Telegraph. 18 May 2010. Archived from the original on 14 January 2024. Retrieved 13 August 2020.
  3. 1 2 Abramsky, Sasha (27 August 2015). "How the Atheist Son of a Jewish Rabbi Created One of the Greatest Libraries of Socialist Literature". The Nation. Archived from the original on 15 January 2024. Retrieved 13 August 2020. Adapted from The House of Twenty Thousand Books.{{cite news}}: CS1 maint: postscript (link)
  4. ↑ "Professor Chimen Abramsky". The Daily Telegraph. 18 May 2010. ISSN 0307-1235. Retrieved 13 August 2020.
  5. 1 2 "Professor Chimen Abramsky: historian". timesonline.co.uk. 19 March 2010. Retrieved 19 March 2010.
  6. ↑ Summerskill, Ben (3 February 2002). "Observer Profile: Jenny Abramsky: The cat's whiskers". www.theguardian.com. Retrieved 13 August 2020.
  7. ↑ Miller, Robert Nagler (16 October 2015). "Writer's tribute to grandparents' world of 20,000 books". J. Retrieved 8 April 2021.
  8. ↑ Abramsky, Sasha (27 August 2015). "How the Atheist Son of a Jewish Rabbi Created One of the Greatest Libraries of Socialist Literature". The Nation. ISSN 0027-8378. Retrieved 8 April 2021.
  9. ↑ "Japan's Takahito Mikasa at 100: A Prince Among the Jews". Tablet Magazine. 2 December 2015.
  10. ↑ "My Grandfather's House of Twenty Thousand Books - An Abramsky Family Memoir - Introduced by Dr. Naftali Lowenthal". Chabad.org. Retrieved 13 August 2020.
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