Israel Abrahams (1858–1925) by Isaac Cohen Liberal Jewish Synagogue
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Abrahams, Israel (1858–1925), Jewish scholar and historian, was born on 26 November 1858 at 10 Finsbury Square, London, the second son in the family of four sons and two daughters of Barnett Abrahams (1831–1863) and his wife, Jane, née Brandon (1834–1895). His father was principal of ...
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T. Corey Brennan
Badian, Ernst (1925–2011), historian of ancient Greece and Rome, was born on 8 August 1925 in Vienna, the only child of Josef (Joseph) Badian (1893–1965), bank clerk, and his wife, Salka (Sally), née Horinger (1894–1965). Jewish by descent, he experienced the organized anti-Jewish mob violence of ...
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Beer, Esmond Samuel de (1895–1990), historian and benefactor, was born on 15 September 1895 in Dunedin, South Island, New Zealand, the second son and fourth and youngest child of Isidore Samuel de Beer (1860–1934), merchant, and his wife, Emily (1864–1930), daughter of Bendix Hallenstein...
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Max Beloff, Baron Beloff (1913–1999) by Sydney O'Meara, 1976 Getty Images – Sydney O'Meara
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D. Cameron Watt
Beloff, Max, Baron Beloff (1913–1999), historian, was born on 2 July 1913 at 21 York House, Fieldway Crescent, Islington, London, the elder son in a family of five children of Simon Beloff, general merchant, and his wife, Marie, née Katzin. Nora Beloff and ...
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Sir Isaiah Berlin (1909–1997) by Lucinda Douglas-Menzies, 1988 © Lucinda Douglas-Menzies; collection National Portrait Gallery, London
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Berlin, Sir Isaiah (1909–1997), philosopher and historian of ideas, was born on 6 June 1909 in Riga, Latvia, then part of the Russian empire, the son of Mendel Borisovitch Berlin (1884–1953), a prosperous timber merchant whose main business was supplying wooden sleepers for the Russian railways, and his wife, ...
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Deutscher, Isaac (1907–1967), biographer and historian, was born in Chrzanow, near Cracow, Galicia, in Austro-Hungarian Poland on 3 April 1907, the eldest among the three children of Jacob Kopel Deutscher, who owned his own printing business, and his second wife, Gustawa, née Jolles...
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Ehrlich, Cyril (1925–2004), economic and social historian and writer on music, was born on 13 September 1925 at 5 Copley Street, Mile End, London, the elder child of Henry Ehrlich, tailor, and his wife, Dinah, née Jacobs, also a tailor. Both parents were descended from eastern European Jews. Although they were skilled tailors the uncertain economic climate of the late 1920s and early 1930s meant that they often had to seek work outside their trade. Consequently the family finances were precarious and (since his parents moved frequently in search of work) ...
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Patrick Collinson
Elton, Sir Geoffrey Rudolph [formerly Gottfried Rudolph Otto Ehrenberg] (1921–1994), historian, was born at Tübingen, Germany, on 21 August 1921. His father was Victor Leopold Ehrenberg (1891–1976), a distinguished classicist and ancient historian who was the son of a banker, Otto Ehrenberg...
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Sir Geoffrey Rudolph Elton (1921–1994) by unknown photographer © News International Newspapers Ltd
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Finley, Sir Moses I. (1912–1986), historian and sociologist, was born in New York on 20 May 1912, the eldest in the family of three sons and one daughter of Nathan Finkelstein, mechanical engineer, of New York, and his wife, Anna Katzenellenbogen. In October 1946 he followed his brothers and changed his name to ...
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John Ardagh
Gimpel, Jean Victor (1918–1996), cultural historian and historian of medieval technology, was born in Paris on 10 October 1918. Of Jewish descent, he was the third son of René Gimpel (d. 1944), a leading art dealer and friend of Renoir and Proust...
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Guedalla, Philip (1889–1944), historian and essayist, was born on 12 March 1889 in Elgin Avenue, Maida Vale, London, the only son of David Guedalla, an almond broker in Mincing Lane, who came from a Spanish-Jewish family, and his wife, Louise Soman. Guedalla's talents developed early, and at ...
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Philip Guedalla (1889–1944) by Sir William Rothenstein © Estate of Sir William Rothenstein / National Portrait Gallery, London
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Anne J. Kershen
Jacobs, Joseph (1854–1916), historian and folklorist, was born on 29 August 1854 in Sydney, New South Wales, the son of John Jacobs and his wife, Sarah. After attending Sydney grammar school and the University of Sydney, he journeyed to Britain and, in 1873, after a short spell at ...
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Tony Robert Judt (1948–2010) by John R. Rifkin, 2004 © John R. Rifkin
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Judt, Tony Robert (1948–2010), historian and political commentator, was born on 2 January 1948 at 153 Lower Clapton Road, Hackney, London, the elder child of Isaac Joseph Judt, whose various occupations included hairdresser and sundriesman, and his wife, Stella Sophie, née Dudakoff. He had one sister, ...
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Maud Pauline Karpeles (1885–1976) by unknown photographer courtesy EFDSS
