Abrams, Harriett (c. 1758–1821), singer and composer, was, according to her niece's husband, Thomas Adolphus Trollope, the daughter of a man who came to England 'in the suite of some Hanoverian minister, in what capacity I never heard' (Trollope, 151...
Article
Ackner, Desmond James Conrad, Baron Ackner (1920–2006), judge, was born at 90 Highbury New Park, Islington, London, on 18 September 1920, the son of an immigrant Viennese dentist, Conrad Ackner, who had a fashionable practice in Wimpole Street, and his wife, (Rosine) Rhoda, née Tuck...
Article
Alexander, Michael Solomon (1799–1845), first bishop of the United Church of England and Ireland and of the Protestant Church of Germany in Jerusalem, was born on 1 May 1799 in the town of Schönlanke in the grand duchy of Posen in Prussian Poland...
Article
Alfonsi, Petrus (fl. 1106–1126), scholar and translator of scientific works, was born in northern Spain, to Jewish parents. He was baptized a Christian on 29 June 1106 in Huesca, Aragon, with the names of the apostle on whose feast day the baptism took place and of his godfather, ...
Article
Anes, Dunstan [formerly Gonsalvo Anes; alias Gonzalo Jorge] (c. 1520–1594), merchant, was born in Portugal as Gonsalvo, the second son of a merchant, Jorge Anes (d. in or before 1540), and his wife, Elizabeth Rodrigues (b. 1481, d. after 1568)...
Image
Michael Maurice Balint (1896–1970) by Dr Edward H. Stein private collection
Article
Balint, Michael Maurice [formerly Mihaly Bergsmann] (1896–1970), psychoanalyst, was born on 3 December 1896 in Baross Street, Jozsefvaros, a residential section of Budapest, Hungary. He was the first of the two children of Ignac Bergsmann, a general medical practitioner. Both his parents were descendants of German Jewish families who had been fully assimilated Hungarians for only two or three generations. He later changed his name to ...
Article
David Lasocki
Bassano, Alvise (d. 1554), musician and instrument maker, was presumably born in Bassano, near Venice, in the late fifteenth century, the second son of Maestro Jeronimo (d. 1539?), known as Piva (‘bagpipe’). By 1515 he was playing in Venice, and he served in ...
Image
Peter Thomas Bauer, Baron Bauer (1915–2002) by Nick Sinclair, 1992 © Nick Sinclair; photograph National Portrait Gallery, London
Article
Bauer, Peter Thomas, Baron Bauer (1915–2002), economist, was born on 6 November 1915 in Budapest, the son of Aladár Dezsö Bauer (1883–1944), bookmaker, and his wife, Anna, née Grossmann. He attended the Scholae Piae (a Gymnasium of the Piarist order) and enrolled for a law degree at the ...
Image
Sir Julius Benedict (1804–1885) by Lock & Whitfield, pubd 1881 © National Portrait Gallery, London
Article
Benedict, Sir Julius (1804–1885), conductor and composer, was born at Stuttgart, Germany, on 27 November 1804 (in some nineteenth-century reference works the date was given incorrectly as 24 December 1804), the son of Moses Benedict, a rich German Jewish banker. At the Stuttgart Gymnasium...
Image
Peter James Henry Benenson (1921–2005) by Carolyn Djanogly, 1999 © Carolyn Djanogly; collection National Portrait Gallery, London
Article
Benenson, Peter James Henry (1921–2005), barrister and human rights campaigner, was born on 31 July 1921 at 6 Albert Court, Knightsbridge, London, the only child of Lieutenant-Colonel Harold Josiah Solomon (1885–1930), army officer, and his wife, Flora (1895–1984), daughter of the Jewish Russian banker ...
Article
Benmohel, Nathan Lazarus (1803–1869), Hebrew and German scholar, was born in Hamburg, Germany, son of Rabbi Elieza Lazi (1741–1841), presiding judge, or dayan, of Posen, and the united congregations of Altona, Hamburg, and Wandsbeck. His mother was the daughter of Rabbi Todros Munk...
Article
John L. Flood
Bernays, Adolphus (1794–1864), German scholar, was born Aaron Jacob Bernays on 18 May 1794 in Mainz, Germany, the fifth of eight children of a well-to-do Jewish innkeeper, Jacob Bernays (1747–1817), and his wife, Martha, née Welsch (b. 1761). The wider Bernays family included many notable figures, among them his brother ...
Image
Sarah Henriette Rosine Bernhardt (1844–1923) by Histed private collection
Article
Bernhardt, Sarah Henriette Rosine (1844–1923), actress, was born, probably on 22 or 23 October 1844, in Paris, the first of the three daughters of Julie Bernhardt (d. 1876), a Jewish courtesan from Amsterdam. The identity of her father remains unknown, although he is sometimes given as ...
