75 Facts About Moses Schorr

Moses Schorr, Polish: Mojzesz Schorr was a rabbi, Polish historian, politician, Bible scholar, assyriologist and orientalist.

Moses Schorr was the first Jewish researcher of Polish archives, historical sources, and pinkasim.

Moses Schorr was the first historian to undertake the systematic study of Jewish history in Poland, and Galicia in particular.

Moses Schorr made discoveries after finding and translating Babylonian, Assyrian, and Hittite legislative annals.

Moses Schorr was appointed to the Polish Senate by Polish president Ignacy Moscicki.

Moses Schorr did not belong to any political party, although he was inclined to Zionism.

Moses Schorr was active in the social, public, and religious life of Polish Jews, and was often chosen by them to head public organisations and represent Polish Jewry to Polish and international powers, though he never sought the role for himself.

Moses Schorr was born on May 10,1874, in the town of Przemysl in the province of Galicia, then a kreis town within Austro-Hungarian empire.

Moses Schorr started his education at the Przemysl gymnasium where he completed his studies in 1893.

Moses Schorr studied philosophy at University of Vienna and Lwow University between 1893 and 1898.

In 1898 Moses Schorr attained the degree of Doctor of Philosophy and Medieval Studies at Lwow University.

Moses Schorr corresponded with a number of intellectuals of that time, including Ludwig Gumplowicz, to whom he wrote at least 46 letters, and Simon Dubnow in Odessa.

Moses Schorr received a scholarship from the Austrian Ministry of Education.

Moses Schorr went to Berlin for two years where he studied Semitic languages, Assyriology, and the history of the ancient Orient under the guidance of famous scholars.

Muller advanced a theory on the structure and form of the Biblical Psalms, which Moses Schorr later developed in a series of articles.

In 1904 Moses Schorr was appointed a lecturer as privatdozent, and in March 1910, associate professor of Semitic languages and history of the Ancient Orient at Lwow University, a chair which he later held in Warsaw.

Moses Schorr was one of the founders and long-term members of Opieka, a society to support Jewish Youth in the secondary schools.

Moses Schorr led the first teachers' congress in 1904 in Lwow.

Moses Schorr was a member of the board of the Jewish Community Library in Lwow from its inception, and later was its head.

Moses Schorr took part in the 7th Zionist Congress of 1910 in Basel.

Moses Schorr took part in the conference but did not make any public speeches.

Moses Schorr became a member of the Warsaw rabbinical council, one of the top Jewish religious authorities in Poland.

Moses Schorr was elected to the position of inter-regional rabbi whose main duties and functions were to represent the Jewish community in front of the state and administrative authorities.

Moses Schorr was appointed a member of the city and regional School Councils by the Jewish community board.

In 1926 Moses Schorr became a professor at the University of Warsaw.

Moses Schorr headed the Institute of Semitic languages and history of the Ancient Orient.

In 1937 Moses Schorr received the title of merited doctor from the Jewish Theological Seminary in New York.

From 1901 on, Moses Schorr was a member of the humanitarian society B'nai B'rith "Leopolis" in Lwow, where for a few years he led the library.

From 1921 Moses Schorr was the president of the Lwow branch of B'nai B'rith in Galicia, part of the 12th district of B'nai B'rith Austria.

In 1922 Moses Schorr was elected the vice president of the Polish district, while the president was lawyer Dr Adolf Ader from Krakow.

Moses Schorr took part in the creation of Auxilium Academicum Judaicum, an organisation formed for the erection of the Jewish Academic House in Warsaw.

Moses Schorr's brotherhood played a role in the founding of the Reform Institute of Judaic Sciences and the publishing society Menora that published the magazine Miesiecznik Zydowski, which was under the influence of B'nai B'rith.

Moses Schorr performed the functions of vice president of the B'nai B'rith Lodge "Solidanosc" in Krakow.

Moses Schorr authored an appeal of the information bureau of the lodge "Braterstwo" about the situation of the Jews in Germany and other countries after 1933.

Moses Schorr was a member of the committee which managed the bureau.

Moses Schorr concentrated mainly on scientific work, teaching, and social activities, rather than politics, but in 1935, the president of Poland Ignacy Moscicki named him Senator in the parliament.

Moses Schorr led the Jewish immigration and colonial committee, which aimed to make possible the Jewish immigration from Poland to countries other than Palestine.

Moses Schorr participated in the Evian Conference in France on the problem faced by 500,000 Jewish refugees from Germany and Austria with the advent of the Nazi regime and the Anschluss of Austria in 1938.

Moses Schorr was one of the key speakers in Evian and was highly involved as many Jews fled Germany for Poland.

Moses Schorr knew that the Nazis would not spare him, as he was an active Jewish social leader who often spoke against fascism in the parliament.

The appearance of Moses Schorr was quickly noted by Soviet securities in the town.

Two days after his arrival, Moses Schorr was arrested by Ostrog NKVD branch, and was kept in custody in the local prison for a week.

In confinement, Moses Schorr was forced to fill in a questionnaire, was photographed, and had his personal belongings taken: his golden watch, pen, scissors, organiser, a file of photos.

Moses Schorr answered that President Moscicki appointed him to the Polish Senate in the capacity of Rabbi of Warsaw and that he did not belong to any political party.

Moses Schorr was sent in convoy to the First Special Department of the Soviet NKVD.

Moses Schorr was awakened in the middle of the night, led away for many hours and only in the morning returned.

The attempts to liberate Moses Schorr, which were undertaken by the Polish government-in-exile with the mediation of the Vatican and the United States Department of State did not succeed.

On 17 April 1941, Moses Schorr was assigned to five years of mandatory prison labour.

Moses Schorr was taken to the NKVD's fifth concentration camp in Posty, Uzbekistan, where he fell ill and died in a camp hospital on 8 July 1941.

Moses Schorr was married in 1905 to Tamara Ben Jacob, the daughter of Yitzhak Ben Jacob, a publisher, Zionist, banker and bibliographer from Wilno.

Moses Schorr's name is listed on the memorial next to the Polish Parliament erected in memory of the Senators of the II Polish Republic who perished at the hands of the NKVD and the Nazis.

Moses Schorr was established in Warsaw, aimed at the education of the Jewish community remaining in Poland.

Moses Schorr Center was founded as one of the projects of Ronald Lauder Foundation to cultivate Jewish literacy, culture, and history among Jews all over Poland.

The techniques and methods Moses Schorr used in historical studies were far ahead of his young age and the time in which he worked.

Moses Schorr began his scientific work as an auditor in Vienna University in 1897 with his paper entitled Zur Geschichte des Don Josef Nasi, which was published in Monatschrift fur die Wiessenschaft des Judenstum.

Moses Schorr was one of the first Zionists and an influential Ottoman statesman during the reign of Selim II.

In 1903 Moses Schorr was awarded the Wawelberg Prize for his work Zydzi w Przemyslu do roku 1772.

Moses Schorr wrote to Ludwik Gumplowicz from Vienna in October 1897:.

Moses Schorr starts his historical account from the early 15th century, when the first Jews began to appear sporadically in significant numbers in the major cities of Czerwona Rus' Red Ruthenia: Lwow, Halicz, Przemysl and Sanok.

Moses Schorr explores the pinkasim of the brotherhoods.

Moses Schorr was the first to note the existence of Jewish artisan brotherhoods in that period after finding the records of the Przemysl guild of Jewish artisans from the 17th and 18th centuries.

Moses Schorr published The Cracow code of Jewish laws and privileges in Poland, and wrote an article about its significance and the contradictory questions regarding the main privileges.

Moses Schorr's works were mainly focused on these subjects from 1904.

In 1902 Moses Schorr became interested in the newly discovered Hammurabi Code and thus in the laws of Ancient Babylon and Assyria.

Moses Schorr's interest was rooted in his religious beliefs and interest in the Bible and Oriental and Egyptian mythology.

In 1903 Moses Schorr commented extensively on Babel und Bibel, a book by his former German tutor Friedrich Delitzsch.

Kwartalnik Historyczny was the major publication for Lwow historians at that time and Moses Schorr was one of its regular contributors.

Some of Moses Schorr's works were written and published in German, his second native language; German was then an official Habsburg language in Eastern Galicia, along with Polish and Ukrainian.

Moses Schorr conducted research on the history of the social and commercial life of the Ancient Orient, and particularly trade in ancient Babylon.

Moses Schorr translated and systematised old Babylonian legal documents and wrote an extensive commentary entitled Altbabylonische Rechtsurkunden aus der Zeit der I -ste Babylonische Dynastie.

Moses Schorr did significant research in comparative studies of the legal systems of Babylon and the surrounding cultures of that time, in particular the Hebrew legal system.

Moses Schorr actively cooperated with the Lwow Zionist newspaper Chwila, published in the inter-war period.

Moses Schorr became the spiritual leader in all the spheres of the civic life, on account of his deep Judaic knowledge, organisational abilities and personal favourite pursuits in the subjects of spirit and heart.

Moses Schorr initiated the centralized unification of all Jewish communities which created a new Collegio rabbinico italiano.

Moses Schorr refers back to his previous work, The Hettites' Problem, published seven years before in Kwartalnik historyczny.