Lazar Gulkowitsch

Content sourced from Wikipedia, licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0.

Lazar Gulkowitsch (20 December 1898 – July 1941) was a prominent Estonian Jewish studies scholar. He was born in Zirin, near Minsk in the Russian Empire, to a merchant family. He studied in Baranavichy and at the Mir Yeshiva, and during World War I his family fled to Nikolayev, Ukraine, where he finished high school. In 1918–1919 he worked in Virbalis, Lithuania, running a Hebrew-speaking school and taking part in the Rabbinate.

Gulkowitsch began medical studies at the University of Königsberg and also studied philosophy and theology, focusing on the Old Testament. In 1922 he earned both a Ph.D. and an M.A., the former on the Kabbalah, and in 1924 he earned an M.D. with a specialization in ophthalmology. He married Frieda Rabinowitz, and they had two daughters. After his medical dissertation, he was invited to Leipzig to teach Hebrew, Aramaic, and Talmudic sciences and to direct the Institute of Late Jewish Studies in the Divinity School. By that time he had become a German citizen. At Leipzig he continued his own studies toward his habilitation, which he achieved in 1927. He remained at Leipzig, becoming a Professor extraordinary of Late Jewish Studies in 1932—the only such position in a German university.

With the rise of the Nazi regime in 1933, Gulkowitsch was dismissed from Leipzig due to anti-Jewish laws. That same year Estonia’s University of Tartu opened a new Institute of Jewish Studies, supported by local scholars and even Albert Einstein. Gulkowitsch was invited to join as Professor and Chair of Jewish Studies, and he began teaching in Tartu in 1934. He attracted many graduate students and helped publish an international Jewish studies series. He lectured in German and traveled abroad to places like Uppsala and Cambridge to advance his work.

In 1940 the Soviet occupation of Estonia led to the abolition of his chair. When the Nazis invaded Estonia in 1941, he and, likely, his entire family were murdered.

Gulkowitsch’s method was philological: he analyzed texts carefully and critically. His main research covered a rational, critical approach to religion, including the Kabbalah and the Talmud, and he was openly critical of Chassidism. Some scholars, such as Gerschom Sholem, criticized his approach. Much of his German-language work from Estonia did not reach a wide audience, and efforts to republish his important writings in 2005 did not go forward.