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Chimen Abramsky

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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.[1][2] His first name is pronounced Shimon.[3]

Biography

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Abramsky was born in Minsk to a Lithuanian Jewish family on 12 September 1916, the son of Rabbi Yehezkel Abramsky.[4][5] 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 on 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][6]

His father arrived in London in December 1931 after being expelled from the Soviet Union. The next year Chimen arrived with his mother and younger brother.[2][6][7] Three years later, in 1935, he travelled to Palestine to study history at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem but became involved in socialist campus politics. On one occasion he was beaten up by future Israeli prime minister Yitzhak Shamir – then a leading figure in the rightwing Irgun.[1] Abramsky was described as an atheist.[4]

Visiting London in the summer of 1939 to see his parents Abramsky was unable to return to Palestine because of World War 2. Instead he started working at Shapiro, Vallentine & Co., London's oldest Jewish bookshop and publisher of Jewish scholarly books, where he met Miriam Nirenstein, the proprietor's daughter. They married in 1940 and had two children, Jack and Jenny. Jack, a mathematician, is the father of Sasha Abramsky.[8] Jenny became of the BBC's longest-serving senior executives.[9][1][10] Abramsky was the uncle by marriage of the socialist historian Raphael Samuel. The house Chimen and Miriam shared in Highgate, Northern London,[11] was considered an important destination for thinkers and scholars.[6]

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 prince and Hebrew scholar Prince Takahito Mikasa at the University College London's Institute of Jewish Studies in 1975.[12]

Abramsky died on 14 March 2010.[2]

Further reading

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

See also

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References

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  1. ^ a b c d Rapoport-Albert, Ada (18 March 2010). "Chimen Abramsky obituary". The Guardian. Archived from the original on 9 September 2013. Retrieved 19 March 2010.
  2. ^ a b c "Professor Chimen Abramsky". The Daily Telegraph. 18 May 2010. Archived from the original on 10 October 2022. Retrieved 13 August 2020.
  3. ^ Dreier, Peter (20 June 2014). "The Leftwing Bibliophile: The Extraordinary Chimen Abramsky". Jewish Currents. Retrieved 13 February 2024.
  4. ^ a b 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)
  5. ^ Chimen Abramsky Archive. "Series 1: Personal Documents and Family Correspondence | item NNL_ARCHIVE_AL990048958690205171". National Library of Israel. Retrieved 13 February 2024.
  6. ^ a b c "Professor Chimen Abramsky: historian". The Times. 19 March 2010. Archived from the original on 11 December 2022. Retrieved 19 March 2010.
  7. ^ Abramsky, Sasha (2014). The house of twenty thousand books. London: Halban. p. 22. ISBN 978-1-905559-64-0 – via Internet Archive.
  8. ^ Nagler Miller, Robert (16 October 2015). "Writer's tribute to grandparents' world of 20,000 books". J. The Jewish News of Northern California. Archived from the original on 29 August 2017. Retrieved 8 April 2021.
  9. ^ Brook, Stephen (10 April 2008). "Abramsky to leave BBC". The Guardian. Archived from the original on 27 February 2015. Retrieved 14 February 2024.
  10. ^ Summerskill, Ben (3 February 2002). "Observer Profile: Jenny Abramsky: The cat's whiskers". www.theguardian.com. Retrieved 13 August 2020.
  11. ^ 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.
  12. ^ Butler, Menachem (2 December 2015). "Japan's Takahito Mikasa at 100: A Prince Among the Jews". Tablet. Archived from the original on 16 August 2022.
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