REMEMBERING OUR COLLEAGUES LEON JONATHAN FELDMAN FRANKEL (1921 – 2008) (1935 – 2008) Howard R. Feldman Steven J. Zipperstein Dr. Leon A. Feldman, renowned Jonathan Frankel, arguably the most scholar, prolific author, and master highly regarded historian of modern teacher, passed away on July 23, Jewry of his generation, died at the 2008, at the age of 87 after a brief age of 72 of cancer in Jerusalem on battle with cancer. He served as May 7, 2008. A man of unusual Professor of Jewish History at the generosity of spirit and the author Touro College Graduate School of of many works, his academic Jewish Studies since September reputation is based primarily on two Jerusalem Prize for Literature and 2004. Dr. Feldman was born in masterpieces of historical Jewish Thought in 1975. In 1988, Berlin and found refuge in England scholarship: Prophecy and Politics he received the Rabbi Judah Leib and Canada during World War II, (1981), and The Damascus Affair Maimon Prize for Rabbinic eventually settling in New York. In (1997). He wrote on an epic scale, Literature and Jewish History. Dr. 1947, he was ordained as a rabbi by dense, yet lucid examinations of Feldman was the recipient of the Rabbi Isaac Elchanan international politics and their numerous prestigious academic Theological Seminary. He earned a intersection with Jews, profoundly fellowships, and served as consultant DHL from Yeshiva University and a original work that never broadcast to a wide variety of Jewish PhD from Columbia University. He its innovations that were left to communal and educational also received a doctorate from the readers to discover in prose that was organizations. He was a Fellow of University of Amsterdam, and subtle, unobtrusively learned. the American Academy for Jewish bachelor’s and master’s degrees Research since 1982. from Oxford University as well as a Born in London on July 15, 1935, doctorate from Yeshiva University. educated at Jesus College, He is survived by his wife Elizabeth Cambridge, Frankel completed his Small Feldman, his brother Dr. Feldman founded the PhD in 1961 and moved to Israel in Emmanuel Feldman, his sons Department of Hebraic Studies at 1964 to teach at the Hebrew Howard R. Feldman and Peter B. Rutgers University and taught there University. He remained at the Telem, his granddaughters Debra from 1962–1992, serving as Hebrew University until the time of Belowich and Adee and Michal Distinguished Professor of Hebraic his retirement, while also teaching Telem, his grandsons Brian Feldman Studies. He also held visiting faculty (and holding, intermittently, a and Elan Telem, and his great appointments at universities in Chair) at University College, grandchildren Alexa and Talia Canada, England, Germany, Israel, London, and from time to time Belowich. Spain, and Switzerland, and was the occupying visiting positions at founding rector of the College of Columbia, Stanford, and elsewhere. Howard R. Feldman is Professor in Jewish Studies in Heidelberg, He came from a family of Jewish the Biology Department at The Anna Germany. businessmen, public figures, Ruth and Mark Hasten School of professionals, artists, and scholars Touro College and son of Leon A. Dr. Feldman’s many scholarly with rabbis in the not-too-distant Feldman. volumes and articles focus primarily past, and he was raised in a upon medieval rabbinic literature traditional Jewish home with strong and, in particular, on responsa as a Zionist commitments. His devotion source for the study of Jewish to Israel ran deep. It was wedded to history. His critical edition of the an unyielding belief in liberalism, a sermons of Rabbi Nissim ben crucial feature of Frankel’s highly Reuben Gerondi was awarded the active political life as well as his 40 scholarship, and he was a fixture of The density of his prose, its texture Israel’s peace movement. He wrote and detail perhaps obscured for often for intellectual magazines some the elegance of his writing. there and abroad about Israeli Frankel wrote beautifully: his books affairs, and for years sat regularly at were very long, but his sentences the Peace Now table outside one of were often quite short, very much Jerusalem’s larger department stores to the point; he knew well how to arguing patiently with passersby. encapsulate huge, often complex issues, to summarize lucidly without He possessed an immense amount of losing anything crucial. knowledge about a great deal and left his mark on many different areas in His academic ambitions were great modern Jewish history and also and he sought, in his own way, to Russian studies. His brilliant, book- produce historical works no less length introductory essay in his first sweeping than those of Talmon or book, “Vladimir Akimov on the Arendt. (He once admitted to me Dilemmas of Russian Marxism, that quite nearly every year he 1895–1903” remains one of the finest reread Arendt’s Origins of gamut of Israel’s fractious cultural analytical essays on the origins of Totalitarianism for its intellectual and political scene. He tolerated Russian Marxism. His introductory vitality, not its veracity.) He left his with good humor intrusions, and essay to Assimilation and Community: mark across the expanse of the cared profoundly, to the detriment The Jews in Nineteenth Century modern Jewish experience: No of his own time and peace of mind, Europe (1992) is still the best historian better explained how about those around him. Until his summation of the state of inconceivable it was to understand last days he could be seen on a contemporary Jewish historiography Russian socialism without fully walker on the Hebrew University on modern Europe. He wrote the appreciating its overriding campus hand-delivering letters of most persuasive summation in any preoccupation with Jews. Few wrote recommendation for students and language of the achievements of with deeper insight about the colleagues. Simon Dubnow. And his introductory intersections of personality and article in the 1988 volume of the history. Interested, above all, in the He was a man of understatement influential Hebrew University- intellectual background to politics, and deep cultivation but without sponsored annual he co-edited, Studies Frankel never lost sight of the pretense, a man with few regrets in Contemporary Jewry, on the vagaries of biography, and the and a sense of fairness, humanity, condition of European Jewish life human portraits in his books are and empathy that few could match. during the World War I is to-date the astute, and finely crafted. He He leaves behind his wife, the most compelling statement on the preferred to examine history Russian political scientist Edith topic. through the prism of crisis: In The Rogovin Frankel, two daughters Damascus Affair he presented a Leora Frankel and Rachel Heller, In Prophecy and Politics he rewrote profoundly unsettling portrait of and five grandchildren. A selection the history of Jews and socialism antisemitism on an international of his essays will appear next year with its epicenter in the Russian scale, a study of mendacity and with Cambridge University Press, empire but with its indelible expediency based on research in publisher of nearly all his books, influence felt elsewhere, in Britain, numerous archives over the course entitled Crisis, Revolution, and the United States, and pre-state of many years. It is an indispensable Jewish Politics in Russia. Jewish Palestine. It is a book of 690 study in international history. pages in small print. A close reader Steven J. Zipperstein, Daniel E. of grand theorists like Hannah Frankel was a lanky man, agile, a Koshland Professor in Jewish Culture Arendt and Jacob Talmon (who was mountain climber, his voice softly and History at Stanford University, a good friend of Frankel’s) and the rumbled, and he had a wry sense of is currently Schuyler Fellow at student in Cambridge of E. H. humor, strong opinions, and an Harvard’s Radcliffe Institute for Carr, his own scholarship turned its overwhelming, pervasive gentleness. Advanced Study. His most recent back on all rhetorical excess and was His laugh was boyish, never book, Rosenfeld’s Lives: Fame, built with immense care and sardonic, and full of pleasure. A Oblivion, and the Furies of Writing, patience, and due recognition of the historian of brilliance and influence, will be published this spring by Yale achievements of others on a he was not merely respected by University Press. commodious foundation of primary peers and students but loved as few source material. are. Those who trusted him ran the 41