David Feuerwerker
David Feuerwerker · Historical & Religious Figures
Rabbin résistant de Brive sous le nom de Jacques Portal, puis historien de l'émancipation des juifs de France
2 octobre 1912 — 20 juin 1980
Genève (Suisse) — mort à Montréal, enterré à Jérusalem
David Feuerwerker is recognized among Jewish contributors to Historical & Religious Figures — Rabbin résistant de Brive sous le nom de Jacques Portal, puis historien de l'émancipation des juifs de France
Origins and early life
David Feuerwerker was born at Geneva on 2 October 1912 into an Orthodox Jewish family of Austro-Hungarian origin: his father Jacob came from Sighetu Marmației, now in Romania, and his mother Regina's family from Lackenbach in Austria.
Work and career
Under the Occupation he was rabbi to the communities of the Corrèze, the Creuse and the Lot, and made of that ministry an instrument of rescue: he founded a synagogue and a study circle at Brive-la-Gaillarde and used both as bases, supplying false papers to resistance fighters under the alias Jacques Portal and moving Jews to safety with the help of HIAS and other organisations. A rabbi in a small provincial town was well placed for such work, and badly placed if it went wrong.
After the war he took a doctorate in history at the Sorbonne and joined the École pratique des hautes études from 1962 to 1965; he obtained the introduction of Hebrew as a modern language option in the French baccalauréat, which is why generations of French schoolchildren have been able to sit an examination in it. His scholarship was devoted to the emancipation of the Jews in France, and his book on the subject received the Prix Broquette-Gonin of the Académie française in 1976. He died at Montreal on 20 June 1980 and is buried in Jerusalem.
Verify and go deeper with these external references.
Source: https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Feuerwerker
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Rabbin résistant de Brive sous le nom de Jacques Portal, puis historien de l'émancipation des juifs de France
Source: https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Feuerwerker
