Moses Schorr
Encyclopedia
Moses Schorr, Polish: Mojżesz Schorr (May 10, 1874 – July 8, 1941) was a Rabbi
, Polish historian, politician, Bible scholar
, assyriologist
and orientalist
. Schorr was one of the top experts on the history of the Jews in Poland
. He was the first Jewish researcher of Polish archives, historical sources, and pinkasim
. The president of the 13th district B'nai B'rith
Poland, he was a humanist and reform
rabbi who ministered the central synagogue of Poland during its last years before the Holocaust
.
Schorr was the first historian to undertake the systematic study of Jewish history in Poland, and Galicia in particular. He made discoveries after finding and translating Babylonian, Assyrian, and Hittite legislative annals. As a scholar of the jurisprudence
and civilizations of the Ancient Middle East
, Schorr was a legal philosopher and sociologist of Ancient Middle Eastern societies. Schorr was appointed to the Polish Senate by Polish president Ignacy Mościcki
(1926–1939). Schorr did not belong to any political party, although he was inclined to Zionism
. He 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 this role for himself.
in Galicia, then a kreis
town within Austro-Hungarian empire. Moses was the oldest son of Osjasz Schorr, the director of the Jewish cooperative bank in Przemyśl, and of Esther Schorr (née Friedman). He had two brothers, Adolf and Samuel, who both became lawyers in Lwów and Jarosław, respectively. Moses started his education at the Przemyśl gymnasium
where he completed his studies in 1893. At gymnasium, and from his father and private teachers, he acquired the basics of Judaic lore. Among his teachers was the grandfather of an outstanding Slavist, Moshe Altbauer, who instructed Moses in the Bible
and Talmud
.
, where he embarked upon the study of theology at the Israelitisch – Theologische Lehranstalt (Jewish Theological Institute) from 1893 to 1900. The institute, founded in October 1893 with the assistance of Albert von Rothschild, trained reform
rabbis. At that time it had 11 teachers and 26 students preparing for the rabbinate. Among Schorr's teachers were Adolf Schwarz in Talmud and religious-ritual codes, David Heinrich Müller in Biblical exegesis
and Semitic linguistics, Adolf Bücher in Jewish history and Meir Friedman in Midrash
studies. Schorr studied philosophy at University of Vienna
and Lviv University
between 1893 and 1898. During his studies in Vienna, Schorr learned Hebrew and other oriental languages, showing particular interest in Egyptian mythology and psychology.
In 1898 Schorr attained the degree of Doctor of Philosophy and Medieval Studies at Lviv University. In spring 1900 he received the diploma of rabbi in Vienna, being among the first dozen graduates of Rothschild's seminary.
, working there until 1923, while he also engaged in educational and social work. Of his time teaching in Lwów he wrote to Polish sociologist Ludwik Gumplowicz:
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. His correspondence with Dubnow has not been studied yet. Schorr's letters to Gumplowicz were published by R. Żebrowski.
for two years where he studied Semitic languages, Assyriology, and the history of the ancient Orient under the guidance of famous scholars. In 1905–1906, he studied Arabic philology in Vienna under the guidance of semitologist David Heinrich Müller, who exerted a strong influence on Schorr. Müller taught Schorr Biblical criticism and Semitology at the Seminary, and a decade later, Arabic linguistics. Müller advanced a theory on the structure and form of the Biblical Psalms, which Schorr later developed in a series of articles.
, and in March 1910, associate professor of Semitic languages and history of the Ancient Orient at Lviv University, a chair which he later held in Warsaw.
In 1904–1905 he headed the Toynbeehali, the Society for the promotion of education among Jews in Lviv. He was one of the founders and long-term members of Opieka ("Care"), a society to support Jewish Youth in the secondary schools. During his stay in Lviv, Schorr was one of the founders and the first head of the "Society of the teachers of Moses religion of the people's secondary schools of Galicia". He led the first teachers' congress in 1904 in Lviv. He was a member of the board of the Jewish Community Library in Lviv from its inception, and later was its head.
. The Congress and his stay in Switzerland made an impression on Schorr, as he writes to Gumplowicz:
Schorr took part in the conference but did not make any public speeches. Regarding the Zionist movement, he wrote:
Żebrowski presumes that Schorr's participation in the Congress was perhaps one of the reasons that a rich merchant, a banker and fervent Zionist, chose Schorr as a husband for his daughter Tamara. They were married in the synagogue of Prussia
n Königsberg
(modern Kaliningrad) on 31 October 1905.
In 1917-1918 he headed the Jewish Rescue Committee in Lviv, and from 1916 on he was a member of the central committee to help the Jewish orphans in the city. The Society of Jewish National and Secondary school, which was established at the beginning of 1919, chose him its first head, and in 1920 entitled him a merited member of the society.
in 1923. He was invited to Warsaw to succeed Samuel Poznański
as preacher at the moderate Reform Synagogue
on Tłomackie street. Designed to seat 1,100, it was the largest synagogue and community in Europe and second largest in the world, behind only New York. The Warsaw Judaic community numbered 352,659 Jews in the 1931 census. Schorr also became a member of the Warsaw rabbinical council, one of the top Jewish religious authorities in Poland. Some of his preachings were published. He 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. Schorr was appointed a member of the city and regional School Councils by the Jewish community board.
In 1924 he became the head of the State Examination Committee for Jewish teachers of religion and Judaic subjects in secondary schools, and a member of the Ministerial Commission for the evaluation of school handbooks in the field of Judaica.
. Schorr headed the Institute of Semitic languages and history of the Ancient Orient. In 1927 he initiated the creation of the Committee for setting up the Jewish Library at the Great Synagogue in Warsaw and became its head. This library was completed in 1936. Today the library building houses the Jewish Historical Institute
.
In 1933-1934 he was elected a member of the Polish Academy of Sciences
, and in 1935 a member of the Finnish Oriental Society in Helsinki. In 1937 Schorr received the title of merited doctor from the Jewish Theological Seminary in New York.
"Leopolis" in Lviv, where for a few years he led the library. The B'nai B'rith "Leopolis" was founded in 1889 and since 1932 had its own building at 3 Maja street, 10. The archival documentation of B'nai B'rith "Leopolis" has been partially preserved and are still to be studied. From 1922 "Leopolis" was incorporated into the 13th district of B'nai B'rith Poland and numbered 217 persons, the largest lodge in Poland.
From 1921 Schorr was the president of the Lviv branch of B'nai B'rith in Galicia, part of the 12th district of B'nai B'rith Austria.
In 1922 Schorr was elected the vice president of the Polish district, while the president was lawyer Dr Adolf Ader from Kraków. From 1924 he was the president of the lodge Braterstwo ("Brotherhood") in Warsaw. This lodge numbered 85 members, including 32 merchants, 14 physicians, 13 engineers, eight lawyers, eight industrialists, six bankers, one writer, three senators (Moses Koerner, Schorr, and banker Rafael Szereszowski), one deputy (lawyer Dr Apolinary Hartgas) and two professors — Schorr and his close colleague, historian and friend Meir Balaban. The lodge reached its highest membership in 1931, when it had 130 members. After Schorr's resignation from its presidency, his role was taken over by Meir Balaban and consequently the lodge was headed by lawyer Maurycy Edelman, merchant Maurycy Meyzel, Seminary director Meir Tauber and lawyer Ignacy Bamberg.
The headquarters of Warsaw Braterstwo lodge were located at Rymarska 8 street. In the years of his presidency, Schorr organised many initiatives, undertakings, and cultural events, managed the meetings of so called "speaking diaries" with the participation of renown personalities, writers and publicists. He took part in the creation of Auxilium Academicum Judaicum, an organisation formed for the erection of the Jewish Academic House in Warsaw. 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 Miesięcznik Żydowski (Jewish Monthly, 1930–1935), which was under the influence of B'nai B'rith. Through the Warsaw lodge, Schorr co-organised and supported the Relief Committee for the Jewish victims of the economic crisis, continuing his role in the religious affairs of the nomination of rabbis and Orthodox influences. While heading the Warsaw lodge, Schorr set up a special literary award for an outstanding writer of Jewish origin.
Rich members of the lodge played an important role in the charity activities of the lodege. Among them was a friend of Schorr, wood merchant Horacy Heller, who assigned for social activities 20,000 dollars. Significant sums were donated by his colleagues, banker Szereszowski (one of two Jewish colleagues in the Polish Senate), Dr. Joseph Landau, industrialist Maurycy Raabe, and others. In the years 1937–1938, a violent anti-Masonic campaign took place in Poland that led to the special decree of 1938 that dissolved any sort of free Masonic societies, including B'nai B'rith.
Moses Schorr performed the functions of vice president of the B'nai B'rith Lodge "Solidaność" (Solidarity) in Kraków. There are dozens of letters written by Schorr preserved in the B'nai B'rith collection of the State Archives in that city. During his presidency Schorr corresponded with a number of B'nai B'rith officials, including the Secretary of the Great Conventional Lodge in Chicago. Polish historian Dr Bogusława Czajecka delivered a paper "Moses Schorr as social activist in the light of B'nai B'rith documents (1922–1938)" during the scientific session on Schorr at the Polish Academy of Arts in Kraków in 1993.
Schorr's views on B'nai B'rith's goals and their practical application in terms of social activities are expressed in his work "Ideals of the Order B'nai B'rith and their Application Towards Real Life Conditions." Schorr describes B'nai B'rith as follows:
Schorr's initiative helped with the creation of the Lodge "Montefiory" in Łódź, then the second largest Jewish urban community in Poland, with 222,497 Jews. In 1928 lodges "Montefiore" and "Braterstwo" took up the discussion concerning the official name of the organisation, arguing between B'nai B'riss and B'nei B'rith formulations. Schorr's suggestion "...taking into consideration the scientific and practical views, the name of the order should be written "B’nei B’rith" was adopted unanimously.
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. Schorr was a member of the committee which managed the bureau. His goal in the activity of B'nai B'rith was to unify the principle of national solidarity among the Jews with the ideas of universalism.
Schorr concentrated mainly on scientific work, teaching, and social activities, rather than politics, but in 1935, the president of Poland Ignacy Mościcki
named him Senator in the parliament. In his parliamentary speeches, along with articles in the Jewish press, such as Nasz Przegląd
and Chwila, Schorr expressed his concern about the growth of antisemitism in Poland and the passive conduct of the authorities in this regard. He led the Jewish immigration and colonial committee, which aimed to make possible the Jewish immigration from Poland to countries other than Palestine. He participated in the Évian 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. The Évian Conference, held in Évian-les-Bains
on the French shore of Lake Geneva, was convened at the initiative of US President
Franklin D. Roosevelt, who invited European, American, and Australian delegates for an open discussion on organising the resettlement and immigration of those who experienced persecution on the basis of religion or race. Schorr was one of the key speakers in Évian and was highly involved as many Jews fled Germany for Poland. Golda Meir
represented Palestine as an observer.
, Schorr entered the Jewish Civil Committee and on 6 or 7 September he left Warsaw. He knew that the Nazis would not spare him, as he was an active Jewish social leader who often spoke against fascism in the parliament. These fears forced him and his wife, Tamara, to escape eastwards. His daughter Felicia lived in the town of Ostróg
near Rivne
with her three children (two her own and one of her sister Sonia). Moses and Tamara Schorr reached Ostróg on 27 September.
NKVD
(Soviet secret police) branch, and was kept in custody in the local prison for a week. Later he was transferred to the nearby regional administrative center of Łuck, where he spent another week in prison.
to send him to Moscow for a continuation of the investigation. Schorr was sent in convoy to the First Special Department of the Soviet NKVD. In the accompanying documentation he was noted to be "healthy".
In Moscow he was held in Lubyanka Prison
, in the same cell with the Bund activist Victor Alter
, the poet Wladislaw Broniewski, and the Polish Senator of the Stronnictwo Narodowe (Polish National Party) professor Stanisław Głąbiński. The Polish nationalist later recollected that became such close friends that they slept together on one bench. In the accounts of cell inmate Mrs. Wisia Wagner from 10 August 1943 we read:
and the United States Department of State
did not succeed. In February 1940, Cordell Hull
, as Secretary of State during the presidency of Franklin D. Roosevelt
, appealed to the Soviet powers through the mediation of international organisations to find Schorr and rescue him from the Soviet prisons. This did not produce any results. The President of the Council of Ministers of the Polish government in exile, Władysław Sikorski, applied to the Minister of Foreign Affairs of his government with the following letter:
, where he got sick and died in a camp hospital on 8 July 1941. He was buried in grave no. C-30 on the grounds of the hospital. Polish authorities learned of his death only on the eve of 1942, after diplomatic relations were established between the Polish London government and the Soviet government. The Polish government tried to liberate him a second time, planning to appoint him to the post of the main Rabbi of the Anders Army
, which was forming at that time, but it was too late.
Jewish publisher A. Sztibel wrote the following lines about Schorr :
—June 1941), Schorr's wife, daughter Felicia, and grandchildren, left Lviv for Warsaw. They endured internment in the Warsaw ghetto
, but obtained Costa Rica
n and Nicaragua
n passports (from daughter Sonia). They were next interned at Warsaw's Pawiak
Prison on 19 June 1942 as citizens of a neutral state. After several months, they were transferred to the French town of Vittel
in Alsace
, where they arrived on 20 October 1943, to be exchanged for German prisoners of war. In Vittel, they were held in a special hotel guarded by the Gestapo
along with 300 other Jews with foreign passports.
After more than a year of waiting, it became clear that the next day they would all be deported to the Drancy internment camp
, from where detainees were transported to Auschwitz. Tamara Schorr and her daughter Felicia Kon decided to commit suicide on 17 April 1944 so that Felicia's children, as orphans, could avoid transfer. Tamara Schorr died after consuming poison. Her daughter Felicia was wounded after she jumped out a window, and was taken to hospital. Their other daughter, Sonia, managed to reach New York
with her husband Arthur Miller toward the end of 1940.
A scientific meeting was devoted to Schorr. In 1993 a similar meeting took place at the Polish Academy of Sciences in Kraków. In 2001 an Educational Center named in honor of Prof. Moses Schorr was established in Warsaw, aimed at the education of the Jewish community remaining in Poland. 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.
and Holon.
The techniques and methods Schorr used in historical studies were far ahead of his young age (28) and the time in which he worked. He began his scientific work as an auditor in Vienna University in 1897 with his paper entitled Zur Geschichte des Don Josef Nasi ("Concerning the history of Don Joseph Nasi"), which was published in Monatschrift fur die Wiessenschaft des Judenstum. In this work he analyses the relations of Joseph Nasi
(1524-1579) with the Polish king Sigismund August (1520-1572) in light of the situation of Jews in Poland at that time. Joseph Nasi was a Portuguese born marrano
(secret Jew) appointed the Lord of Tiberias
and the Duke of Naxos and the Seven Islands
. He was one of the first Zionists and an influential Ottoman statesman during the reign of Selim II
(1566–1574). Schorr analysed the relations of Joseph Nasi with Poland. Though he was a 20-year-old student at the time, he corrected a fundamental error of Graetz, a leading historian, who claimed that Sigismund August acknowledged a number of commercial privileges for the Polish Jews by virtue of the services of Joseph Nasi to Polish diplomacy at the Ottoman court. On the basis of sources found by Schorr in the historical city archives of Lviv, he came to the conclusion that Joseph Nasi was not guided by altruism but wanted the privilege to trade in Lviv for himself, and obtained it.
. In 1903 Schorr was awarded the Wawelberg Prize
(provided by the famous Polish-Russian banker and philanthropist) for his work Żydzi w Przemyślu do roku 1772 ("Jews in Przemyśl
until 1772"). It was republished in 1991 in Jerusalem with an introduction by Jakub Goldberg
and an epilogue by his last surviving son, Joshua Otton Schorr. The Organisation of Jews in Poland is a serious attempt to summarise the data about the Qahal organisation of the central institutions of Jewish self-administration—the vaad
s and the brotherhoods of Jewish craftsmen. Schorr wrote to Ludwik Gumplowicz from Vienna in October 1897:
, is precious not only for its concise examination of the history of this community but also for the numerous Polish
, Latin
, and Hebrew documents from the 16th to 18th centuries concerning the history of the Przemyśl Jewish community, which are added at the end of the book: nearly half of the work. 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
: Lviv, Halicz
, Przemyśl and Sanok
. The first historical mention of Jews in Przemyśl dates from 1466, and Schorr included next a review of the privileges of Sigismund II August (1548–1572); a statute ad bonum ordinem of Stephen Báthory of Poland (king of Poland from 1576 to 1586) and other privileges; contracts; antisemitic assaults; and documents about internal Jewish organisation. The last chapter deals with the Jewish professional brotherhoods, including Jewish artisan and tailor fraternities—their emergence, organisation, and role in society. The author notes Jewish religious societies such as the Society of Psalms Readers (whose task was gathering in synagogue each day before sunrise to recite the psalms) and the Chevra kadisha
(the holy society responsible for burying the dead). Schorr explores the pinkasim
(books or journals) of the brotherhoods. He was the first to note the existence of Jewish artisan brotherhoods in that period after finding the records of the Przemyśl guild of Jewish artisans from the 17th and 18th centuries, The wide usage of pinkasim for historical studies was innovative at that time.
Among the wide range of sources presented in the second part of the book we find the first fundamental privilege given by king Sigismund II August to the Jews of Przemyśl in 1559, allowing them to live there with the same rights and freedoms as other townsmen (no. 1); the Order of Sigismund II August to the mayor and counselors regarding the attack on the Jews in 1561 (no. 2); the contract of 1595 between the town hall and Jewish elders on the matter of Jewish participation in the fortification of the city (no. 20); the protest of town pharmacists against the Jewish elders for the production of medical items by the Jews in 1677 (no. 121); the order of the governor of Rus' lands Jabłonowski allowing a free election of a rabbi after the ardent requests of "unfaithful" Jewish elders and the whole synagogue of Przemyśl (no. 130). Several Polish sources from 1759 published in this edition (nos. 143 – 144) deal with charges against the Jews of Stupnica in a supposed ritual Easter murder, their tortures and refusal of the charges, and the consequent execution of the accused. A similar Polish document (no. 76) from the year 1646 deals with charges of ritual child murder against twelve Przemyśl Jews, one of whom was punished. Schorr preserves the archaic form of the old Polish language
in the documents which gives them a special character.
Schorr is the author of a lengthy article about the Hebrew language
in the Encyklopedja Polska (Polish Encyclopedia, vol. III, 1915). One of his last works in the field of Jewish history in Poland, is Rechtsstellung und innere Verfassung der Juden in Polen ("The Legal Situation and Internal Organisation of Jews in Poland"), published in German in Berlin and Vienna in 1917.
, and the history of the Ancient Near East
in general. Schorr's works were mainly focused on these subjects from 1904. Schorr's switch to Oriental studies was caused partly by professional circumstances: Polish historian Krzysztof Pilarczyk notes that Schorr could not be assured of a professorship in the field of Jewish history in Poland. In 1902 Schorr became interested in the newly discovered Hammurabi Code and thus in the laws of Ancient Babylon and Assyria. Schorr's interest was rooted in his religious beliefs and interest in the Bible and Oriental and Egyptian mythology. His years at the gymnasium and university prepared him to study texts in the Hebrew, Assyrian, and Babylonian languages.
His first works in Oriental studies included a paper on the excavations and discoveries at Amarna
(1900), followed by the investigation of Starożytności biblijne w swietle archiwum egipskiego ("Biblical Antiquities in the Light of the Egyptian Archive"). This was published in the magazine Przewodnik naukowy i literacki in 1901 and separately as well. In 1903 Schorr commented extensively on Babel und Bibel ("Babylon and Bible"), a book by his former German tutor Friedrich Delitzsch
(1902). Schorr's commentary, "Kultura Babilońska a starohebrajska" ("Babylonian and Hebrew Culture"), appeared in Lviv's Kwartalnik historyczny and later in a separate edition. Kwartalnik Historyczny was the major publication for Lviv historians at that time and Schorr was one of its regular contributors.
Some of 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. One such study is Die Kohler-Peiserische Hammurabi Übersetzung ("The Peiser-Kohler Translation of the Hammurabi Code).
.
He conducted research on the history of the social and commercial life of the Ancient Orient, and particularly trade in ancient Babylon. The work's title is Ruch handlowy w Satorożytnej Babilonii ("The trade movement in old Babylon"). It was published in 1911 in a commemorative book celebrating the 25th anniversary of the founding of Lviv University.
Schorr translated and systematised old Babylonian legal documents and wrote an extensive commentary entitled Altbabylonische Rechtsurkunden aus der Zeit der I -ste Babylonische Dynastie ("Old Babylonian legal documents from the First Babylonian dynasty"). The legal issues and the legal history of the laws were the main subjects of Schorr's research. He 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.
Kodeks Hammurabiego a ówczesna praktyka prawna ("The Hammurabi Code and Ancient Oriental Legal Practices") first appeared in Rozprawy (Studies) of the historical department of Kraków Academy of Sciences; in 1907 it was published separately.
Schorr's Urkunden des altbabylonische Zivil- und Prozessrechts ("The Documents of the Old Babylonian Civil and Criminal Law) is considered to be his greatest scholarly achievement in the Oriental field. It is a volume of sources with extensive comments by Schorr.
. The most important articles are Palestyna a Babylon w świetle najnowszych wykopalisk ("Palestine and Babylon in the Light of Recent Archaeological Excavations", 1923); and Samuel Hirsch Margulies
(1922), which is dedicated to Galicia native Samuel Hirsch Margulies (1858–1922), who became the leader of Italian Jewry
. This article was in commemoration of Margulies, who had died that year. In the obituary, Schorr writes:
Schorr's broadest article in Chwila was Prawo Mojżesza na tle poròwnawczem prawodawst Starożytnego Wschodu (The Laws of Moses in Comparative Perspective with the Laws of the Ancient Orient"). This work was a series of articles in several newspaper issues, where Schorr draws comparisons between Biblical and Babylonian laws in the first part of the series, following with a comparison with the Assyrian and Hettite legislatures in the second and third sections. Schorr also refers back to his previous work, The Hettites' Problem, published seven years before in Kwartalnik historyczny.
A few other newly discovered publications of Schorr should be mentioned include Kwestya żydowska w dobie Sejmu Wiekiego ("The Jewish Question at the Time of the Great Sejm"); religious teachings such as Radosna Chwila ("The Joyful Moment"), and Pesach Micarim - Pesach le Atid on the occasion of the Easter celebration.
Rabbi
In Judaism, a rabbi is a teacher of Torah. This title derives from the Hebrew word רבי , meaning "My Master" , which is the way a student would address a master of Torah...
, Polish historian, politician, Bible scholar
Biblical criticism
Biblical criticism is the scholarly "study and investigation of Biblical writings that seeks to make discerning judgments about these writings." It asks when and where a particular text originated; how, why, by whom, for whom, and in what circumstances it was produced; what influences were at work...
, assyriologist
Assyriology
Assyriology is the archaeological, historical, and linguistic study of ancient Mesopotamia and the related cultures that used cuneiform writing. The field covers the Akkadian sister-cultures of Assyria and Babylonia, together with their cultural predecessor; Sumer...
and orientalist
Oriental studies
Oriental studies is the academic field of study that embraces Near Eastern and Far Eastern societies and cultures, languages, peoples, history and archaeology; in recent years the subject has often been turned into the newer terms of Asian studies and Middle Eastern studies...
. Schorr was one of the top experts on the history of the Jews in Poland
History of the Jews in Poland
The history of the Jews in Poland dates back over a millennium. For centuries, Poland was home to the largest and most significant Jewish community in the world. Poland was the centre of Jewish culture thanks to a long period of statutory religious tolerance and social autonomy. This ended with the...
. He was the first Jewish researcher of Polish archives, historical sources, and pinkasim
Pinkasim
Pinkasim were books or journals which were used to coordinate and document organizations in Jewish towns and villages during the early modern period in Europe.-References:...
. The president of the 13th district B'nai B'rith
B'nai B'rith
B'nai B'rith International |Covenant]]" is the oldest continually operating Jewish service organization in the world. It was initially founded as the Independent Order of B'nai B'rith in New York City, on , 1843, by Henry Jones and 11 others....
Poland, he was a humanist and reform
Reform Judaism
Reform Judaism refers to various beliefs, practices and organizations associated with the Reform Jewish movement in North America, the United Kingdom and elsewhere. In general, it maintains that Judaism and Jewish traditions should be modernized and should be compatible with participation in the...
rabbi who ministered the central synagogue of Poland during its last years before the Holocaust
The Holocaust
The Holocaust , also known as the Shoah , was the genocide of approximately six million European Jews and millions of others during World War II, a programme of systematic state-sponsored murder by Nazi...
.
Schorr was the first historian to undertake the systematic study of Jewish history in Poland, and Galicia in particular. He made discoveries after finding and translating Babylonian, Assyrian, and Hittite legislative annals. As a scholar of the jurisprudence
Jurisprudence
Jurisprudence is the theory and philosophy of law. Scholars of jurisprudence, or legal theorists , hope to obtain a deeper understanding of the nature of law, of legal reasoning, legal systems and of legal institutions...
and civilizations of the Ancient Middle East
Ancient Near East
The ancient Near East was the home of early civilizations within a region roughly corresponding to the modern Middle East: Mesopotamia , ancient Egypt, ancient Iran The ancient Near East was the home of early civilizations within a region roughly corresponding to the modern Middle East: Mesopotamia...
, Schorr was a legal philosopher and sociologist of Ancient Middle Eastern societies. Schorr was appointed to the Polish Senate by Polish president Ignacy Mościcki
Ignacy Moscicki
Ignacy Mościcki was a Polish chemist, politician, and President of Poland . He was the longest-serving President of Poland .-Life:...
(1926–1939). Schorr did not belong to any political party, although he was inclined to Zionism
Zionism
Zionism is a Jewish political movement that, in its broadest sense, has supported the self-determination of the Jewish people in a sovereign Jewish national homeland. Since the establishment of the State of Israel, the Zionist movement continues primarily to advocate on behalf of the Jewish state...
. He 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 this role for himself.
Birth and early years
Moses Schorr was born on May 10, 1874, in the town of PrzemyślPrzemysl
Przemyśl is a city in south-eastern Poland with 66,756 inhabitants, as of June 2009. In 1999, it became part of the Podkarpackie Voivodeship; it was previously the capital of Przemyśl Voivodeship....
in Galicia, then a kreis
Kreis in Prussia
Prussian districts were administrative units in the former German state of Prussia. The districts , also known as counties, usually took the name of the district's capital . A typical district had a rough diameter of 20 to 40 miles, though few were circular in shape...
town within Austro-Hungarian empire. Moses was the oldest son of Osjasz Schorr, the director of the Jewish cooperative bank in Przemyśl, and of Esther Schorr (née Friedman). He had two brothers, Adolf and Samuel, who both became lawyers in Lwów and Jarosław, respectively. Moses started his education at the Przemyśl gymnasium
Gymnasium (school)
A gymnasium is a type of school providing secondary education in some parts of Europe, comparable to English grammar schools or sixth form colleges and U.S. college preparatory high schools. The word γυμνάσιον was used in Ancient Greece, meaning a locality for both physical and intellectual...
where he completed his studies in 1893. At gymnasium, and from his father and private teachers, he acquired the basics of Judaic lore. Among his teachers was the grandfather of an outstanding Slavist, Moshe Altbauer, who instructed Moses in the Bible
Bible
The Bible refers to any one of the collections of the primary religious texts of Judaism and Christianity. There is no common version of the Bible, as the individual books , their contents and their order vary among denominations...
and Talmud
Talmud
The Talmud is a central text of mainstream Judaism. It takes the form of a record of rabbinic discussions pertaining to Jewish law, ethics, philosophy, customs and history....
.
Rabbinical and philosophical studies
Schorr moved to ViennaVienna
Vienna is the capital and largest city of the Republic of Austria and one of the nine states of Austria. Vienna is Austria's primary city, with a population of about 1.723 million , and is by far the largest city in Austria, as well as its cultural, economic, and political centre...
, where he embarked upon the study of theology at the Israelitisch – Theologische Lehranstalt (Jewish Theological Institute) from 1893 to 1900. The institute, founded in October 1893 with the assistance of Albert von Rothschild, trained reform
Reform Judaism
Reform Judaism refers to various beliefs, practices and organizations associated with the Reform Jewish movement in North America, the United Kingdom and elsewhere. In general, it maintains that Judaism and Jewish traditions should be modernized and should be compatible with participation in the...
rabbis. At that time it had 11 teachers and 26 students preparing for the rabbinate. Among Schorr's teachers were Adolf Schwarz in Talmud and religious-ritual codes, David Heinrich Müller in Biblical exegesis
Exegesis
Exegesis is a critical explanation or interpretation of a text, especially a religious text. Traditionally the term was used primarily for exegesis of the Bible; however, in contemporary usage it has broadened to mean a critical explanation of any text, and the term "Biblical exegesis" is used...
and Semitic linguistics, Adolf Bücher in Jewish history and Meir Friedman in Midrash
Midrash
The Hebrew term Midrash is a homiletic method of biblical exegesis. The term also refers to the whole compilation of homiletic teachings on the Bible....
studies. Schorr studied philosophy at University of Vienna
University of Vienna
The University of Vienna is a public university located in Vienna, Austria. It was founded by Duke Rudolph IV in 1365 and is the oldest university in the German-speaking world...
and Lviv University
Lviv University
The Lviv University or officially the Ivan Franko National University of Lviv is the oldest continuously operating university in Ukraine...
between 1893 and 1898. During his studies in Vienna, Schorr learned Hebrew and other oriental languages, showing particular interest in Egyptian mythology and psychology.
In 1898 Schorr attained the degree of Doctor of Philosophy and Medieval Studies at Lviv University. In spring 1900 he received the diploma of rabbi in Vienna, being among the first dozen graduates of Rothschild's seminary.
Lecturing in Lviv
Soon after graduation he became a lecturer at the Jewish Teachers Seminary and the Teachers Gymnasium in LvivLviv
Lviv is a city in western Ukraine. The city is regarded as one of the main cultural centres of today's Ukraine and historically has also been a major Polish and Jewish cultural center, as Poles and Jews were the two main ethnicities of the city until the outbreak of World War II and the following...
, working there until 1923, while he also engaged in educational and social work. Of his time teaching in Lwów he wrote to Polish sociologist Ludwik Gumplowicz:
... For a long time I have not written to you of my old intentions to continue studying aiming at a dozent position. Besides, that "spirit" of semitology ... has not left me for a moment, haunting me as a shadow at every step. I have not lost contact with orientalistics, not for a bit. I have used every free minute to get acquainted with the ever growing literature, but unfortunately these free moments are quite rare. Professional work takes a lot of my time and causes a painful conflict between a forced, often mechanical work which I lack internal vocation for, and the results of my [oriental] studies ... On one hand, I do not want to be a charlatan in the profession, I even know that I have a certain mission as the religion teacher in Galicia and could even attain the "laurels" of the reformer in this subject. But I lack this specific ambition or enthusiasm. On the other hand, I am becoming convinced that I would have to study at least a year at the university (Berlin or Leipzig) so that I could independently work with Assyriology here. I have to admit for a moment that I have become a personality here, and everywhere they try to involve me in a friendly, humanitarian and scientific life ... and every day the circle of my "social virtues" widens itself — popular meetings, ceremonial speeches, committees, collectives etc., etc., — all this distracts me from my work, as I see myself suddenly thrown into the whirl of life when I would like to remain still unknown among my co-confessors. As an unripened apple I am plucked from the tree and I still miss my tree — knowledge. As for the altruistic impulses, I think that I still have enough time to realize them ... Lviv, January, 1901
Schorr corresponded with a number of intellectuals of that time, including Ludwig Gumplowicz
Ludwig Gumplowicz
Ludwig Gumplowicz, born March 9, 1838 in Kraków, then a republic, now part of Poland, died August 20, 1909 in Graz, Austria, was one of the founders of European sociology. He was also a jurist and political scientist who taught constitutional and administrative law at the University of...
, to whom he wrote at least 46 letters, and Simon Dubnow
Simon Dubnow
Simon Dubnow was a Jewish historian, writer and activist...
in Odessa. His correspondence with Dubnow has not been studied yet. Schorr's letters to Gumplowicz were published by R. Żebrowski.
Studies in Semitic languages
Schorr received a scholarship from the Austrian Ministry of Education. He went to BerlinBerlin
Berlin is the capital city of Germany and is one of the 16 states of Germany. With a population of 3.45 million people, Berlin is Germany's largest city. It is the second most populous city proper and the seventh most populous urban area in the European Union...
for two years where he studied Semitic languages, Assyriology, and the history of the ancient Orient under the guidance of famous scholars. In 1905–1906, he studied Arabic philology in Vienna under the guidance of semitologist David Heinrich Müller, who exerted a strong influence on Schorr. Müller taught Schorr Biblical criticism and Semitology at the Seminary, and a decade later, Arabic linguistics. Müller advanced a theory on the structure and form of the Biblical Psalms, which Schorr later developed in a series of articles.
Professor at Lviv University
In 1904 Schorr was appointed a lecturer as privatdozentPrivatdozent
Privatdozent or Private lecturer is a title conferred in some European university systems, especially in German-speaking countries, for someone who pursues an academic career and holds all formal qualifications to become a tenured university professor...
, and in March 1910, associate professor of Semitic languages and history of the Ancient Orient at Lviv University, a chair which he later held in Warsaw.
In 1904–1905 he headed the Toynbeehali, the Society for the promotion of education among Jews in Lviv. He was one of the founders and long-term members of Opieka ("Care"), a society to support Jewish Youth in the secondary schools. During his stay in Lviv, Schorr was one of the founders and the first head of the "Society of the teachers of Moses religion of the people's secondary schools of Galicia". He led the first teachers' congress in 1904 in Lviv. He was a member of the board of the Jewish Community Library in Lviv from its inception, and later was its head.
Relation to Zionism
Schorr took part in the 7th Zionist Congress of 1910 in BaselBasel
Basel or Basle In the national languages of Switzerland the city is also known as Bâle , Basilea and Basilea is Switzerland's third most populous city with about 166,000 inhabitants. Located where the Swiss, French and German borders meet, Basel also has suburbs in France and Germany...
. The Congress and his stay in Switzerland made an impression on Schorr, as he writes to Gumplowicz:
There is no need to stress how strong an impression I got from the wonderful views of Swiss nature. I will stay here in Basel for 14 days for the whole duration of the 7th Zionist Congress, which is going to start on Thursday. Already today there are several hundred guests, most from Russia, among them the outstanding Jewish figures, and many ladies, as well. Already today, the Congress seems to me to be the most powerful manifestation of Jewish solidarity around the world. During the entire course of Jewish history, there was no such movement that would so deeply enter the consciousness of all the Jews with such an enthusiasm. But already nowadays various groups with different tendencies are being formed, away from the main fundamental idea.
Schorr took part in the conference but did not make any public speeches. Regarding the Zionist movement, he wrote:
As for the Zionist movement ... I am noting in advance, that in my opinion the historical proofs can not be decisive for the present. After all, Professor Winkler proved that the Jews had never been to Egypt but does this mean that the Jewish religion, that is based on the fact of the Exodus of the Jews from Egypt and its consequences, should disappear from history?
Żebrowski presumes that Schorr's participation in the Congress was perhaps one of the reasons that a rich merchant, a banker and fervent Zionist, chose Schorr as a husband for his daughter Tamara. They were married in the synagogue of Prussia
Prussia
Prussia was a German kingdom and historic state originating out of the Duchy of Prussia and the Margraviate of Brandenburg. For centuries, the House of Hohenzollern ruled Prussia, successfully expanding its size by way of an unusually well-organized and effective army. Prussia shaped the history...
n Königsberg
Königsberg
Königsberg was the capital of East Prussia from the Late Middle Ages until 1945 as well as the northernmost and easternmost German city with 286,666 inhabitants . Due to the multicultural society in and around the city, there are several local names for it...
(modern Kaliningrad) on 31 October 1905.
Professor in Semitic languages
In April 1916 Schorr received the degree of merited professor of Lviv University in the field of Semitic languages and Ancient Oriental history, combining this post with other duties at the same university until 1923. In 1912 he participated in the international congress of orientalists in Athens, where he was one of the secretaries of the semitology section and presented a lecture entitled "Sumerian and Semitic Beginnings of the Ancient Babylonian Law", which was published in the Paris edition of Revue Semitique. In 1918 he became a member of the Oriental committee at the Kraków Academy, and in 1920 a member of the Polish Scientific Society in Lviv, and in 1923 one of the founders of the Polish Oriental Society in Lviv.In 1917-1918 he headed the Jewish Rescue Committee in Lviv, and from 1916 on he was a member of the central committee to help the Jewish orphans in the city. The Society of Jewish National and Secondary school, which was established at the beginning of 1919, chose him its first head, and in 1920 entitled him a merited member of the society.
Transfer to Warsaw
Schorr moved to WarsawWarsaw
Warsaw is the capital and largest city of Poland. It is located on the Vistula River, roughly from the Baltic Sea and from the Carpathian Mountains. Its population in 2010 was estimated at 1,716,855 residents with a greater metropolitan area of 2,631,902 residents, making Warsaw the 10th most...
in 1923. He was invited to Warsaw to succeed Samuel Poznański
Samuel Abraham Poznanski
Samuel Abraham Poznański or Shemuel Avraham Poznanski was a Polish Reform rabbi and scholar, known for his studies of Karaism and the Hebrew calendar...
as preacher at the moderate Reform Synagogue
Great Synagogue, Warsaw
The Great Synagogue of Warsaw was the largest synagogue of pre-war Warsaw and one of the largest in the world at the time.-History:The Great Synagogue was built by the Warsaw's Jewish community between 1875 and 1878 at Tłomackie street, in the south-eastern tip of the district in which the Jews...
on Tłomackie street. Designed to seat 1,100, it was the largest synagogue and community in Europe and second largest in the world, behind only New York. The Warsaw Judaic community numbered 352,659 Jews in the 1931 census. Schorr also became a member of the Warsaw rabbinical council, one of the top Jewish religious authorities in Poland. Some of his preachings were published. He 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. Schorr was appointed a member of the city and regional School Councils by the Jewish community board.
In 1924 he became the head of the State Examination Committee for Jewish teachers of religion and Judaic subjects in secondary schools, and a member of the Ministerial Commission for the evaluation of school handbooks in the field of Judaica.
Warsaw University
In 1926 Schorr became a professor at the University of WarsawUniversity of Warsaw
The University of Warsaw is the largest university in Poland and one of the most prestigious, ranked as best Polish university in 2010 and 2011...
. Schorr headed the Institute of Semitic languages and history of the Ancient Orient. In 1927 he initiated the creation of the Committee for setting up the Jewish Library at the Great Synagogue in Warsaw and became its head. This library was completed in 1936. Today the library building houses the Jewish Historical Institute
Jewish Historical Institute
The Jewish Historical Institute is a research institute in Warsaw, Poland, primarily dealing with the history of Jews in Poland.The Jewish Historical Institute was created in 1947 as a continuation of the Central Jewish Historical Commission, founded in 1944. The Jewish Historical Institute...
.
Institute of Judaic Sciences in Warsaw
In February 1928 Schorr, together with M. Balaban, Tohn and Braud, founded the Institute of Judaic Sciences for the research of Judaic sciences and Judaism, in particular Biblical subjects, philosophy, religion, Talmud, sociology, Semitic languages and Hebrew literature. It was located on the site of the present-day Jewish Historical Institute, beside the Great Synagogue. It functioned on a state budget, with donations from foreign Jewish institutions. The Institute retained a library which numbered over 35,000 books, documents and magazines. Professor Schorr became the first rector of the newly created institution, and served in that capacity during 1928-1930 and 1933-34.In 1933-1934 he was elected a member of the Polish Academy of Sciences
Polish Academy of Sciences
The Polish Academy of Sciences, headquartered in Warsaw, is one of two Polish institutions having the nature of an academy of sciences.-History:...
, and in 1935 a member of the Finnish Oriental Society in Helsinki. In 1937 Schorr received the title of merited doctor from the Jewish Theological Seminary in New York.
Schorr and B'nai B'rith
From 1901 on, Schorr was a member of the humanitarian society B'nai B'rithB'nai B'rith
B'nai B'rith International |Covenant]]" is the oldest continually operating Jewish service organization in the world. It was initially founded as the Independent Order of B'nai B'rith in New York City, on , 1843, by Henry Jones and 11 others....
"Leopolis" in Lviv, where for a few years he led the library. The B'nai B'rith "Leopolis" was founded in 1889 and since 1932 had its own building at 3 Maja street, 10. The archival documentation of B'nai B'rith "Leopolis" has been partially preserved and are still to be studied. From 1922 "Leopolis" was incorporated into the 13th district of B'nai B'rith Poland and numbered 217 persons, the largest lodge in Poland.
From 1921 Schorr was the president of the Lviv branch of B'nai B'rith in Galicia, part of the 12th district of B'nai B'rith Austria.
In 1922 Schorr was elected the vice president of the Polish district, while the president was lawyer Dr Adolf Ader from Kraków. From 1924 he was the president of the lodge Braterstwo ("Brotherhood") in Warsaw. This lodge numbered 85 members, including 32 merchants, 14 physicians, 13 engineers, eight lawyers, eight industrialists, six bankers, one writer, three senators (Moses Koerner, Schorr, and banker Rafael Szereszowski), one deputy (lawyer Dr Apolinary Hartgas) and two professors — Schorr and his close colleague, historian and friend Meir Balaban. The lodge reached its highest membership in 1931, when it had 130 members. After Schorr's resignation from its presidency, his role was taken over by Meir Balaban and consequently the lodge was headed by lawyer Maurycy Edelman, merchant Maurycy Meyzel, Seminary director Meir Tauber and lawyer Ignacy Bamberg.
The headquarters of Warsaw Braterstwo lodge were located at Rymarska 8 street. In the years of his presidency, Schorr organised many initiatives, undertakings, and cultural events, managed the meetings of so called "speaking diaries" with the participation of renown personalities, writers and publicists. He took part in the creation of Auxilium Academicum Judaicum, an organisation formed for the erection of the Jewish Academic House in Warsaw. 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 Miesięcznik Żydowski (Jewish Monthly, 1930–1935), which was under the influence of B'nai B'rith. Through the Warsaw lodge, Schorr co-organised and supported the Relief Committee for the Jewish victims of the economic crisis, continuing his role in the religious affairs of the nomination of rabbis and Orthodox influences. While heading the Warsaw lodge, Schorr set up a special literary award for an outstanding writer of Jewish origin.
Rich members of the lodge played an important role in the charity activities of the lodege. Among them was a friend of Schorr, wood merchant Horacy Heller, who assigned for social activities 20,000 dollars. Significant sums were donated by his colleagues, banker Szereszowski (one of two Jewish colleagues in the Polish Senate), Dr. Joseph Landau, industrialist Maurycy Raabe, and others. In the years 1937–1938, a violent anti-Masonic campaign took place in Poland that led to the special decree of 1938 that dissolved any sort of free Masonic societies, including B'nai B'rith.
Moses Schorr performed the functions of vice president of the B'nai B'rith Lodge "Solidaność" (Solidarity) in Kraków. There are dozens of letters written by Schorr preserved in the B'nai B'rith collection of the State Archives in that city. During his presidency Schorr corresponded with a number of B'nai B'rith officials, including the Secretary of the Great Conventional Lodge in Chicago. Polish historian Dr Bogusława Czajecka delivered a paper "Moses Schorr as social activist in the light of B'nai B'rith documents (1922–1938)" during the scientific session on Schorr at the Polish Academy of Arts in Kraków in 1993.
Schorr's views on B'nai B'rith's goals and their practical application in terms of social activities are expressed in his work "Ideals of the Order B'nai B'rith and their Application Towards Real Life Conditions." Schorr describes B'nai B'rith as follows:
... The union of B'nai B'rith, as an international organization (...) is characterized by two fundamental principles: the idea of solidarity of all the Jews in the entire world (...), the idea of universalism of humanity, the brotherhood of all the peoples and nations (...). These two ideas I consider for the highest goal of our spiritual and intellectual program ...
Schorr's initiative helped with the creation of the Lodge "Montefiory" in Łódź, then the second largest Jewish urban community in Poland, with 222,497 Jews. In 1928 lodges "Montefiore" and "Braterstwo" took up the discussion concerning the official name of the organisation, arguing between B'nai B'riss and B'nei B'rith formulations. Schorr's suggestion "...taking into consideration the scientific and practical views, the name of the order should be written "B’nei B’rith" was adopted unanimously.
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. Schorr was a member of the committee which managed the bureau. His goal in the activity of B'nai B'rith was to unify the principle of national solidarity among the Jews with the ideas of universalism.
Schorr and political life
Though Schorr did not take an active part in political life, he participated as a scientific expert in a questionary campaign about the problems of the Jewish community in Poland arranged in February 1919 by the Governmental Commission. The protocols of the campaign were published in a separate book, W sprawie polsko-żydowskiej. Ankieta ("Concerning the Polish-Jewish question. Questionnary").Schorr concentrated mainly on scientific work, teaching, and social activities, rather than politics, but in 1935, the president of Poland Ignacy Mościcki
Ignacy Moscicki
Ignacy Mościcki was a Polish chemist, politician, and President of Poland . He was the longest-serving President of Poland .-Life:...
named him Senator in the parliament. In his parliamentary speeches, along with articles in the Jewish press, such as Nasz Przegląd
Nasz Przegląd
Nasz Przegląd was a Polish-Jewish newspaper with Zionist leanings. It was founded in 1923. Nasz Przegląd was the most well-known Polish-Jewish newspaper in interwar Poland. It was noted for its quality of writing and staunch Polish-Jewish stance. It was issued daily from Warsaw...
and Chwila, Schorr expressed his concern about the growth of antisemitism in Poland and the passive conduct of the authorities in this regard. He led the Jewish immigration and colonial committee, which aimed to make possible the Jewish immigration from Poland to countries other than Palestine. He participated in the Évian Conference
Evian Conference
The Évian Conference was convened at the initiative of US President Franklin D. Roosevelt in July 1938 to discuss the issue of increasing numbers of Jewish refugees fleeing Nazi persecution. For eight days, from July 6 to July 13, representatives from 31 countries met at Évian-les-Bains, France...
in France on the problem faced by 500,000 Jewish refugees from Germany and Austria with the advent of the Nazi regime
Nazi Germany
Nazi Germany , also known as the Third Reich , but officially called German Reich from 1933 to 1943 and Greater German Reich from 26 June 1943 onward, is the name commonly used to refer to the state of Germany from 1933 to 1945, when it was a totalitarian dictatorship ruled by...
and the Anschluss
Anschluss
The Anschluss , also known as the ', was the occupation and annexation of Austria into Nazi Germany in 1938....
of Austria in 1938. The Évian Conference, held in Évian-les-Bains
Évian-les-Bains
Évian-les-Bains or Évian is a commune in the northern part of the Haute-Savoie department in the Rhône-Alpes region in south-eastern France...
on the French shore of Lake Geneva, was convened at the initiative of US President
President of the United States
The President of the United States of America is the head of state and head of government of the United States. The president leads the executive branch of the federal government and is the commander-in-chief of the United States Armed Forces....
Franklin D. Roosevelt, who invited European, American, and Australian delegates for an open discussion on organising the resettlement and immigration of those who experienced persecution on the basis of religion or race. Schorr was one of the key speakers in Évian and was highly involved as many Jews fled Germany for Poland. Golda Meir
Golda Meir
Golda Meir ; May 3, 1898 – December 8, 1978) was a teacher, kibbutznik and politician who became the fourth Prime Minister of the State of Israel....
represented Palestine as an observer.
Last years
After the beginning of World War IIWorld War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
, Schorr entered the Jewish Civil Committee and on 6 or 7 September he left Warsaw. He knew that the Nazis would not spare him, as he was an active Jewish social leader who often spoke against fascism in the parliament. These fears forced him and his wife, Tamara, to escape eastwards. His daughter Felicia lived in the town of Ostróg
Ostrog
Ostrog may refer to:* Ostrog, Slovenia, a settlement in Šentjernej municipality in Slovenia* Ostrog monastery, a Serbian Orthodox Christian monastery in Montenegro* Ostroh, a historic town in Ukraine* Ostrog, a Russian term for a small fortress...
near Rivne
Rivne
Rivne or Rovno is a historic city in western Ukraine. It is the administrative center of the Rivne Oblast , as well as the administrative center of the surrounding Rivne Raion within the oblast...
with her three children (two her own and one of her sister Sonia). Moses and Tamara Schorr reached Ostróg on 27 September.
Arrest by NKVD
The appearance of Schorr was quickly noted by Soviet securities in the town. Two days after his arrival, Schorr was arrested by OstrógOstrog
Ostrog may refer to:* Ostrog, Slovenia, a settlement in Šentjernej municipality in Slovenia* Ostrog monastery, a Serbian Orthodox Christian monastery in Montenegro* Ostroh, a historic town in Ukraine* Ostrog, a Russian term for a small fortress...
NKVD
NKVD
The People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs was the public and secret police organization of the Soviet Union that directly executed the rule of power of the Soviets, including political repression, during the era of Joseph Stalin....
(Soviet secret police) branch, and was kept in custody in the local prison for a week. Later he was transferred to the nearby regional administrative center of Łuck, where he spent another week in prison.
Confinement and questioning
On 24 of September he transferred to Lviv, where he had lived until 1923. In confinement, 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. The scholar was asked when, by whom and why was he appointed for the Senator's position, when did he become a rabbi, and to which party did he belong. Schorr answered that President Mościcki appointed him to the Polish Senate in the capacity of Rabbi of Warsaw and that he did not belong to any political party. The prosecutor noted down only his words concerning his rabbinical functions and an account of the marriage of Schorr's daughter Sophia (residing in Paris) with an official of the Polish Ministry of Justice. Schorr's wife and daughter Felicia moved to Lviv, where Felicia worked as a waitress.Imprisonment at Lubyanka
On February 3, the newly appointed Russian prosecutor of the Lviv branch of the NKVD, Lopunov, received an order from the Deputy of the Peoples Committee of the Ministry for State Security V.N. MerkulovVsevolod Nikolayevich Merkulov
Vsevolod Nikolayevich Merkulov , was the head of NKGB from February to July 1941, and again from April 1943 to March 1946. He was a member of the so-called "Georgian mafia" of Lavrenti Beria, head of the NKVD.In 1913, Merkulov graduated from the Tiflis Gymnasium with the gold medal and became a...
to send him to Moscow for a continuation of the investigation. Schorr was sent in convoy to the First Special Department of the Soviet NKVD. In the accompanying documentation he was noted to be "healthy".
In Moscow he was held in Lubyanka Prison
Lubyanka (KGB)
The Lubyanka is the popular name for the headquarters of the KGB and affiliated prison on Lubyanka Square in Moscow. It is a large building with a facade of yellow brick, designed by Alexander V...
, in the same cell with the Bund activist Victor Alter
Victor Alter
Victor Alter was a Jewish socialist activist and publicist of the Bund, and a member of the executive committee of the Second International.-Life:...
, the poet Wladislaw Broniewski, and the Polish Senator of the Stronnictwo Narodowe (Polish National Party) professor Stanisław Głąbiński. The Polish nationalist later recollected that became such close friends that they slept together on one bench. In the accounts of cell inmate Mrs. Wisia Wagner from 10 August 1943 we read:
Cell no. 21 was little. It housed 30 persons. Among them the main rabbi of Warsaw, renowned scientist, professor of Warsaw University Dr Moses Schorr, the activist of Bund Victor Alter, Senator professor Stanisław Gląbiński – the leader of Polish National Democrats and other personalities, who formed the intellectual elite of Poland. I spent a few days together with Professor Schorr. Despite his elderly age, he was constantly taken for torturing questioning and beaten. He was awakened in the middle of the night, led away for many hours and only in the morning returned. As he told us in the cell, he was accused of belonging to the protagonists of the bourgeois government. I spent 10 days with Prof Schorr and was astonished by his spiritual posture, despite the sufferings, he did not allow himself to get broken and after questioning was coming back calm and full of dignity. By chance he happened to share his cell with the leader of EndecjaEndecjaNational Democracy was a Polish right-wing nationalist political movement active from the latter 19th century to the end of the Second Polish Republic in 1939. A founder and principal ideologue was Roman Dmowski...
[Polish Nationalist Party pursuing the policy of tough assimilation of the minorities]. The representative of Jewish people and former antisemite went into so friendly a relationship that they slept on the same cell bed. After 10 days Prof Schorr was driven off from our prison and I have not seen him ever since.
Liberation attempts
The attempts to liberate Schorr, which were undertaken by the Polish government-in-exile with the mediation of the VaticanHoly See
The Holy See is the episcopal jurisdiction of the Catholic Church in Rome, in which its Bishop is commonly known as the Pope. It is the preeminent episcopal see of the Catholic Church, forming the central government of the Church. As such, diplomatically, and in other spheres the Holy See acts and...
and the United States Department of State
United States Department of State
The United States Department of State , is the United States federal executive department responsible for international relations of the United States, equivalent to the foreign ministries of other countries...
did not succeed. In February 1940, Cordell Hull
Cordell Hull
Cordell Hull was an American politician from the U.S. state of Tennessee. He is best known as the longest-serving Secretary of State, holding the position for 11 years in the administration of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt during much of World War II...
, as Secretary of State during the presidency of Franklin D. Roosevelt
Franklin D. Roosevelt
Franklin Delano Roosevelt , also known by his initials, FDR, was the 32nd President of the United States and a central figure in world events during the mid-20th century, leading the United States during a time of worldwide economic crisis and world war...
, appealed to the Soviet powers through the mediation of international organisations to find Schorr and rescue him from the Soviet prisons. This did not produce any results. The President of the Council of Ministers of the Polish government in exile, Władysław Sikorski, applied to the Minister of Foreign Affairs of his government with the following letter:
I ask you Sir Minister about the entreatment of our Ambassador in the Vatican with the intervention, aimed to free Professor Schorr, arrested by the Bolshevik powers in Lviv. I consider the diplomatic means through Vatican to be the most advisable solution of this matter. After release, I ask you to direct Professor Schorr to France. Head of the Council of Ministers – Gen. Div. Sikorski.
Concentration camp and death
On 17 April 1941 Schorr was assigned to five years of mandatory prison labour. He was taken to the NKVD's fifth concentration camp in Posty, UzbekistanUzbekistan
Uzbekistan , officially the Republic of Uzbekistan is a doubly landlocked country in Central Asia and one of the six independent Turkic states. It shares borders with Kazakhstan to the west and to the north, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan to the east, and Afghanistan and Turkmenistan to the south....
, where he got sick and died in a camp hospital on 8 July 1941. He was buried in grave no. C-30 on the grounds of the hospital. Polish authorities learned of his death only on the eve of 1942, after diplomatic relations were established between the Polish London government and the Soviet government. The Polish government tried to liberate him a second time, planning to appoint him to the post of the main Rabbi of the Anders Army
Anders Army
The Anders Army was the informal yet common name of the Polish Armed Forces in the East in the period 1941-1942, in recognition of its commander Władysław Anders...
, which was forming at that time, but it was too late.
Jewish publisher A. Sztibel wrote the following lines about Schorr :
At every ship arriving in America from Europe, nearly every Polish Jew claims to be the leader of the Jews of Poland. These are the people, whose names I never heard, despite the fact that I was born and brought up in Poland. In the meanwhile professor Schorr, a real authority of Polish Jewry, is kept in Bolshevik prisons and no one makes the slightest effort to rescue him ... (A. Sztibel, letter to Cyrus Adler)
Schorr's family
After the German attack of the Soviet Union (Operation BarbarossaOperation Barbarossa
Operation Barbarossa was the code name for Germany's invasion of the Soviet Union during World War II that began on 22 June 1941. Over 4.5 million troops of the Axis powers invaded the USSR along a front., the largest invasion in the history of warfare...
—June 1941), Schorr's wife, daughter Felicia, and grandchildren, left Lviv for Warsaw. They endured internment in the Warsaw ghetto
Warsaw Ghetto
The Warsaw Ghetto was the largest of all Jewish Ghettos in Nazi-occupied Europe during World War II. It was established in the Polish capital between October and November 15, 1940, in the territory of General Government of the German-occupied Poland, with over 400,000 Jews from the vicinity...
, but obtained Costa Rica
Costa Rica
Costa Rica , officially the Republic of Costa Rica is a multilingual, multiethnic and multicultural country in Central America, bordered by Nicaragua to the north, Panama to the southeast, the Pacific Ocean to the west and the Caribbean Sea to the east....
n and Nicaragua
Nicaragua
Nicaragua is the largest country in the Central American American isthmus, bordered by Honduras to the north and Costa Rica to the south. The country is situated between 11 and 14 degrees north of the Equator in the Northern Hemisphere, which places it entirely within the tropics. The Pacific Ocean...
n passports (from daughter Sonia). They were next interned at Warsaw's Pawiak
Pawiak
Pawiak was a prison built in 1835 in Warsaw, Poland.During the January 1863 Uprising, it served as a transfer camp for Poles sentenced by Imperial Russia to deportation to Siberia....
Prison on 19 June 1942 as citizens of a neutral state. After several months, they were transferred to the French town of Vittel
Vittel
Vittel is a commune in the Vosges department in Lorraine in northeastern France.Mineral water is bottled and sold here by Nestlé Waters France, under the Vittel brand.-History:...
in Alsace
Alsace
Alsace is the fifth-smallest of the 27 regions of France in land area , and the smallest in metropolitan France. It is also the seventh-most densely populated region in France and third most densely populated region in metropolitan France, with ca. 220 inhabitants per km²...
, where they arrived on 20 October 1943, to be exchanged for German prisoners of war. In Vittel, they were held in a special hotel guarded by the Gestapo
Gestapo
The Gestapo was the official secret police of Nazi Germany. Beginning on 20 April 1934, it was under the administration of the SS leader Heinrich Himmler in his position as Chief of German Police...
along with 300 other Jews with foreign passports.
After more than a year of waiting, it became clear that the next day they would all be deported to the Drancy internment camp
Drancy internment camp
The Drancy internment camp of Paris, France, was used to hold Jews who were later deported to the extermination camps. 65,000 Jews were deported from Drancy, of whom 63,000 were murdered including 6,000 children...
, from where detainees were transported to Auschwitz. Tamara Schorr and her daughter Felicia Kon decided to commit suicide on 17 April 1944 so that Felicia's children, as orphans, could avoid transfer. Tamara Schorr died after consuming poison. Her daughter Felicia was wounded after she jumped out a window, and was taken to hospital. Their other daughter, Sonia, managed to reach New York
New York
New York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...
with her husband Arthur Miller toward the end of 1940.
Children
Schorr was married in 1905 to Tamara Ben Jacob, the daughter of Yitzhak Ben Jacob (1858–1926), a publisher, Zionist, banker and bibliographer from Wilno. They had six children:- Sonia, wife of Arthur Miller, the prosecutor of the Warsaw High Court and the head of the Criminal law Department at the Ministry of Justice of Poland; she died in 1961.
- Deborah (died in Lviv in 1917)
- Felicia Kon-Lipets; (died in New YorkNew YorkNew York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...
in 1984) - Ludwig (1918–1963), an architect who settled in Tel AvivTel AvivTel Aviv , officially Tel Aviv-Yafo , is the second most populous city in Israel, with a population of 404,400 on a land area of . The city is located on the Israeli Mediterranean coastline in west-central Israel. It is the largest and most populous city in the metropolitan area of Gush Dan, with...
- Esther, in marriage Ben-Kohav (died in Jerusalem in 1991)
- Joshua (Otton), an engineer in Jerusalem who died in 2005
Awards and remembrances
Schorr was awarded Poland's Golden Cross of Merit. His 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.A scientific meeting was devoted to Schorr. In 1993 a similar meeting took place at the Polish Academy of Sciences in Kraków. In 2001 an Educational Center named in honor of Prof. Moses Schorr was established in Warsaw, aimed at the education of the Jewish community remaining in Poland. 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.
Streets in Israel named after Schorr
There are streets named after Schorr in Jerusalem, Tel AvivTel Aviv
Tel Aviv , officially Tel Aviv-Yafo , is the second most populous city in Israel, with a population of 404,400 on a land area of . The city is located on the Israeli Mediterranean coastline in west-central Israel. It is the largest and most populous city in the metropolitan area of Gush Dan, with...
and Holon.
Scientific legacy
The first stream of Schorr's scientific activity deals with the history of Polish Jews. Schorr's historiographic approach and view upon the methodology applied to the study of the history of Polish Jewry is summarized in his own writing:The major defect of the methods of research of Jewish history in Poland is that the general issues were studied before the details had been exposed. There was attempt to present the history of the Jews in entire Poland, before this history had been reviewed in specific cities. The historical entireness was treated, before the elemental processes had been exposed.
Therefore, also today's general works on the history of Polish Jewry, and they are few after all, are characterised by the dilettante forms, lacking integrity, accurateness and clarity in subject presentation. Their material used is meager and not sufficient to encompass the entirety of the history of Polish Jewry, neither in the political-economic sphere nor in the cultural developments. An appropriate solid basis for such a general task can only be constructed by virtue of the archival material, which is so abundantly accumulated in different archives and partially the libraries. The fundamental, scientific presentation of the entire history will only be possible when the factual historical, economic and cultural developments in the major cities will be multilaterally studied on the basis of archival sources. Publication and analysis of the archival documents should be the first task preceding the general studies." — M. Schorr. Lviv, October 1902
The techniques and methods Schorr used in historical studies were far ahead of his young age (28) and the time in which he worked. He began his scientific work as an auditor in Vienna University in 1897 with his paper entitled Zur Geschichte des Don Josef Nasi ("Concerning the history of Don Joseph Nasi"), which was published in Monatschrift fur die Wiessenschaft des Judenstum. In this work he analyses the relations of Joseph Nasi
Joseph Nasi
Don Joseph Nasi was a Jewish diplomat and administrator, member of the House of Mendes, and influential figure in the Ottoman Empire during the rules of both Sultan Suleiman I and his son Selim II...
(1524-1579) with the Polish king Sigismund August (1520-1572) in light of the situation of Jews in Poland at that time. Joseph Nasi was a Portuguese born marrano
Marrano
Marranos were Jews living in the Iberian peninsula who converted to Christianity rather than be expelled but continued to observe rabbinic Judaism in secret...
(secret Jew) appointed the Lord of Tiberias
Vassals of the Kingdom of Jerusalem
The Crusader state of the Kingdom of Jerusalem, created in 1099, was divided into a number of smaller seigneuries.-Introduction:According to the 13th century jurist John of Ibelin the four highest barons in the kingdom proper were:* the Count of Jaffa and Ascalon...
and the Duke of Naxos and the Seven Islands
Duchy of the Archipelago
The Duchy of the Archipelago or also Duchy of Naxos or Duchy of the Aegean was a maritime state created by Venetian interests in the Cyclades archipelago in the Aegean Sea, in the aftermath of the Fourth Crusade, centered on the islands of Naxos and Paros.-Background and establishment of the...
. He was one of the first Zionists and an influential Ottoman statesman during the reign of Selim II
Selim II
Selim II Sarkhosh Hashoink , also known as "Selim the Sot " or "Selim the Drunkard"; and as "Sarı Selim" or "Selim the Blond", was the Sultan of the Ottoman Empire from 1566 until his death in 1574.-Early years:He was born in Constantinople a son of Suleiman the...
(1566–1574). Schorr analysed the relations of Joseph Nasi with Poland. Though he was a 20-year-old student at the time, he corrected a fundamental error of Graetz, a leading historian, who claimed that Sigismund August acknowledged a number of commercial privileges for the Polish Jews by virtue of the services of Joseph Nasi to Polish diplomacy at the Ottoman court. On the basis of sources found by Schorr in the historical city archives of Lviv, he came to the conclusion that Joseph Nasi was not guided by altruism but wanted the privilege to trade in Lviv for himself, and obtained it.
Doctoral dissertation
Schorr's doctoral dissertation, entitled Organizacja Żydów w Polsce ("The Organisation of Jews in Poland"), was first published in Lviv's historical quarterly, Kwartalnik historyczny in 1899, and was later translated into Russian and published in VoskhodVoskhod (magazine)
Voskhod was a Russian-Jewish periodical in the Russian Empire. It was published in St. Petersburg from 1881 to 1906....
. In 1903 Schorr was awarded the Wawelberg Prize
Wawelberg
The Wawelbergs were an Imperial Russian banking house with roots in Congress Poland.-Name:The House of Wawelberg, The Wawelberg Bank...
(provided by the famous Polish-Russian banker and philanthropist) for his work Żydzi w Przemyślu do roku 1772 ("Jews in Przemyśl
Przemysl
Przemyśl is a city in south-eastern Poland with 66,756 inhabitants, as of June 2009. In 1999, it became part of the Podkarpackie Voivodeship; it was previously the capital of Przemyśl Voivodeship....
until 1772"). It was republished in 1991 in Jerusalem with an introduction by Jakub Goldberg
Jakub Goldberg
Jakub Goldberg was a Polish scriptwriter, assistant director and actor....
and an epilogue by his last surviving son, Joshua Otton Schorr. The Organisation of Jews in Poland is a serious attempt to summarise the data about the Qahal organisation of the central institutions of Jewish self-administration—the vaad
Vaad
Vaad is a Hebrew term for a council of rabbis. It is a diasporic phenomenon, having no precedent in Talmudic times. A Vaad has different responsibilities from a beth din .-Historical:Older examples include the Council of Four Lands....
s and the brotherhoods of Jewish craftsmen. Schorr wrote to Ludwik Gumplowicz from Vienna in October 1897:
... the organization of Jews in Poland is thus one of the most important and the most interesting parts of Jewish culture in Poland; I will only note the huge importance "the council of four lands" had directing the life of Polish Jews for 200 years. In general, my intention is to devote myself to the study of Jewish history in Poland. For the next task of mine I consider the publication of the most important archival documents concerning the Jews—the way Bershadsky began that already. During my search of the City Historical Archives in Lwów, I became convinced that there are real treasures for the history of Polish Jews. I am staying all the time in Vienna, except holidays. I still have 1½ years until finishing my theological studies. I doubt very much that I will be following the profession of a preacher [rabbi] in practice. I am more fond of scientific work. I repeat that your interest in my historical works is a good stimulus for me; that motivates me even more to my intended research ....
Monograph "Jews in Przemyśl"
Another work, the monograph about the Jews in PrzemyślPrzemysl
Przemyśl is a city in south-eastern Poland with 66,756 inhabitants, as of June 2009. In 1999, it became part of the Podkarpackie Voivodeship; it was previously the capital of Przemyśl Voivodeship....
, is precious not only for its concise examination of the history of this community but also for the numerous Polish
Poland
Poland , officially the Republic of Poland , is a country in Central Europe bordered by Germany to the west; the Czech Republic and Slovakia to the south; Ukraine, Belarus and Lithuania to the east; and the Baltic Sea and Kaliningrad Oblast, a Russian exclave, to the north...
, Latin
Latin
Latin is an Italic language originally spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome. It, along with most European languages, is a descendant of the ancient Proto-Indo-European language. Although it is considered a dead language, a number of scholars and members of the Christian clergy speak it fluently, and...
, and Hebrew documents from the 16th to 18th centuries concerning the history of the Przemyśl Jewish community, which are added at the end of the book: nearly half of the work. 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
Red Ruthenia
Red Ruthenia is the name used since medieval times to refer to the area known as Eastern Galicia prior to World War I; first mentioned in Polish historic chronicles in the 1321, as Ruthenia Rubra or Ruthenian Voivodeship .Ethnographers explain that the term was applied from the...
: Lviv, Halicz
Halych
Halych is a historic city on the Dniester River in western Ukraine. The town gave its name to the historic province and kingdom of Kingdom of Galicia–Volhynia, of which it was the capital until the early 14th century, when the seat of the local princes was moved to Lviv...
, Przemyśl and Sanok
Sanok
Sanok is a town in south-eastern Poland with 39,110 inhabitants, as of 2 June 2009. It's the capital of Sanok County in the Subcarpathian Voivodeship. Previously, it was in the Krosno Voivodeship and in the Ruthenian Voivodeship , which was part of the Lesser Poland province...
. The first historical mention of Jews in Przemyśl dates from 1466, and Schorr included next a review of the privileges of Sigismund II August (1548–1572); a statute ad bonum ordinem of Stephen Báthory of Poland (king of Poland from 1576 to 1586) and other privileges; contracts; antisemitic assaults; and documents about internal Jewish organisation. The last chapter deals with the Jewish professional brotherhoods, including Jewish artisan and tailor fraternities—their emergence, organisation, and role in society. The author notes Jewish religious societies such as the Society of Psalms Readers (whose task was gathering in synagogue each day before sunrise to recite the psalms) and the Chevra kadisha
Chevra Kadisha
A chevra kadisha is a loosely structured but generally closed organization of Jewish men and women who see to it that the bodies of Jews are prepared for burial according to Halacha and are protected from desecration, willful or not, until burial...
(the holy society responsible for burying the dead). Schorr explores the pinkasim
Pinkasim
Pinkasim were books or journals which were used to coordinate and document organizations in Jewish towns and villages during the early modern period in Europe.-References:...
(books or journals) of the brotherhoods. He was the first to note the existence of Jewish artisan brotherhoods in that period after finding the records of the Przemyśl guild of Jewish artisans from the 17th and 18th centuries, The wide usage of pinkasim for historical studies was innovative at that time.
Among the wide range of sources presented in the second part of the book we find the first fundamental privilege given by king Sigismund II August to the Jews of Przemyśl in 1559, allowing them to live there with the same rights and freedoms as other townsmen (no. 1); the Order of Sigismund II August to the mayor and counselors regarding the attack on the Jews in 1561 (no. 2); the contract of 1595 between the town hall and Jewish elders on the matter of Jewish participation in the fortification of the city (no. 20); the protest of town pharmacists against the Jewish elders for the production of medical items by the Jews in 1677 (no. 121); the order of the governor of Rus' lands Jabłonowski allowing a free election of a rabbi after the ardent requests of "unfaithful" Jewish elders and the whole synagogue of Przemyśl (no. 130). Several Polish sources from 1759 published in this edition (nos. 143 – 144) deal with charges against the Jews of Stupnica in a supposed ritual Easter murder, their tortures and refusal of the charges, and the consequent execution of the accused. A similar Polish document (no. 76) from the year 1646 deals with charges of ritual child murder against twelve Przemyśl Jews, one of whom was punished. Schorr preserves the archaic form of the old Polish language
Old Polish language
Old Polish is a name used to describe the period in the history of the Polish language between 9th and 16th centuries.-History:...
in the documents which gives them a special character.
Work on Jewish laws and privileges
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.Schorr is the author of a lengthy article about the Hebrew language
Hebrew language
Hebrew is a Semitic language of the Afroasiatic language family. Culturally, is it considered by Jews and other religious groups as the language of the Jewish people, though other Jewish languages had originated among diaspora Jews, and the Hebrew language is also used by non-Jewish groups, such...
in the Encyklopedja Polska (Polish Encyclopedia, vol. III, 1915). One of his last works in the field of Jewish history in Poland, is Rechtsstellung und innere Verfassung der Juden in Polen ("The Legal Situation and Internal Organisation of Jews in Poland"), published in German in Berlin and Vienna in 1917.
Schorr as Orientalist
The second major stream of Schorr's scientific activity concerns Biblical criticism}Bible studies (in particular research of Biblical Law), AssyriologyAssyriology
Assyriology is the archaeological, historical, and linguistic study of ancient Mesopotamia and the related cultures that used cuneiform writing. The field covers the Akkadian sister-cultures of Assyria and Babylonia, together with their cultural predecessor; Sumer...
, and the history of the Ancient Near East
Ancient Near East
The ancient Near East was the home of early civilizations within a region roughly corresponding to the modern Middle East: Mesopotamia , ancient Egypt, ancient Iran The ancient Near East was the home of early civilizations within a region roughly corresponding to the modern Middle East: Mesopotamia...
in general. Schorr's works were mainly focused on these subjects from 1904. Schorr's switch to Oriental studies was caused partly by professional circumstances: Polish historian Krzysztof Pilarczyk notes that Schorr could not be assured of a professorship in the field of Jewish history in Poland. In 1902 Schorr became interested in the newly discovered Hammurabi Code and thus in the laws of Ancient Babylon and Assyria. Schorr's interest was rooted in his religious beliefs and interest in the Bible and Oriental and Egyptian mythology. His years at the gymnasium and university prepared him to study texts in the Hebrew, Assyrian, and Babylonian languages.
His first works in Oriental studies included a paper on the excavations and discoveries at Amarna
Amarna
Amarna is an extensive Egyptian archaeological site that represents the remains of the capital city newly–established and built by the Pharaoh Akhenaten of the late Eighteenth Dynasty , and abandoned shortly afterwards...
(1900), followed by the investigation of Starożytności biblijne w swietle archiwum egipskiego ("Biblical Antiquities in the Light of the Egyptian Archive"). This was published in the magazine Przewodnik naukowy i literacki in 1901 and separately as well. In 1903 Schorr commented extensively on Babel und Bibel ("Babylon and Bible"), a book by his former German tutor Friedrich Delitzsch
Friedrich Delitzsch
Friedrich Delitzsch was a German Assyriologist. Born in Erlangen, he studied in Leipzig and Berlin, and in 1874 was habilitated as a lecturer of Semitic languages and Assyriology in Leipzig. In 1885 he became a "full professor" at Leipzig, and afterwards a professor at the Universities of Breslau ...
(1902). Schorr's commentary, "Kultura Babilońska a starohebrajska" ("Babylonian and Hebrew Culture"), appeared in Lviv's Kwartalnik historyczny and later in a separate edition. Kwartalnik Historyczny was the major publication for Lviv historians at that time and Schorr was one of its regular contributors.
Some of 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. One such study is Die Kohler-Peiserische Hammurabi Übersetzung ("The Peiser-Kohler Translation of the Hammurabi Code).
Research on Babylonian history
Schorr's main work on the subject of Babylonian history was Państwo i społeczeństwo babilońśke w kresie t.zw. dynastyi Hammurabiego ("The Babylonian State and Society at the Time of the Hammurabi Dynasty); this was published as a separate volume in 1906 in Lviv and later was published in Kwartalnik historyczny. Another work by Schorr in German is Eine Babylonische Seisachtie aus dem Anfang der Kassitenzeit, ende XVIII vorchristl. Jahrhunderts ("The Babylonian Seisachtie of the Times of the Kassites Dynasty, the End of 18th century BC"). In this paper Schorr presents and discusses an ancient Babylonian text newly discovered by the Oxford Assyriologist Stephen Herbert LangdonStephen Herbert Langdon
Stephen Herbert Langdon was an American-born British Assyriologist. Born to George Knowles and Abigail Hassinger Langdon in Monroe, Michigan, Langdon studied at the University of Michigan, participating in Phi Beta Kappa and earning an A. B. in 1898 and an A. M. in 1899...
.
He conducted research on the history of the social and commercial life of the Ancient Orient, and particularly trade in ancient Babylon. The work's title is Ruch handlowy w Satorożytnej Babilonii ("The trade movement in old Babylon"). It was published in 1911 in a commemorative book celebrating the 25th anniversary of the founding of Lviv University.
Schorr translated and systematised old Babylonian legal documents and wrote an extensive commentary entitled Altbabylonische Rechtsurkunden aus der Zeit der I -ste Babylonische Dynastie ("Old Babylonian legal documents from the First Babylonian dynasty"). The legal issues and the legal history of the laws were the main subjects of Schorr's research. He 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.
Kodeks Hammurabiego a ówczesna praktyka prawna ("The Hammurabi Code and Ancient Oriental Legal Practices") first appeared in Rozprawy (Studies) of the historical department of Kraków Academy of Sciences; in 1907 it was published separately.
Schorr's Urkunden des altbabylonische Zivil- und Prozessrechts ("The Documents of the Old Babylonian Civil and Criminal Law) is considered to be his greatest scholarly achievement in the Oriental field. It is a volume of sources with extensive comments by Schorr.
Publications in Zionist daily Chwila
Schorr actively cooperated with the Lviv Zionist newspaper Chwila ("The Wave"), published in the inter-war period. These articles remain unexamined by historians. The newspapers for 1918-1939 are kept in the scientific library of Lviv UniversityLviv University
The Lviv University or officially the Ivan Franko National University of Lviv is the oldest continuously operating university in Ukraine...
. The most important articles are Palestyna a Babylon w świetle najnowszych wykopalisk ("Palestine and Babylon in the Light of Recent Archaeological Excavations", 1923); and Samuel Hirsch Margulies
Samuel Hirsch Margulies
Samuel Hirsch Margulies Dr., Orthodox rabbi and scholar. He was born in Berezhany, western Ukraine , and studied at the Breslau Jewish Theological Seminary and at the...
(1922), which is dedicated to Galicia native Samuel Hirsch Margulies (1858–1922), who became the leader of Italian Jewry
Italian Jews
Italian Jews can be used in a broad sense to mean all Jews living or with roots in Italy or in a narrower sense to mean the ancient community who use the Italian rite, as distinct from the communities dating from medieval or modern times who use the Sephardi or Ashkenazi rite.-Divisions:Italian...
. This article was in commemoration of Margulies, who had died that year. In the obituary, Schorr writes:
Italian Jewry has undergone a great loss in the death of the Rabbi of Florence and rector of local rabbinical seminary Dr. Samuel Hirsch Margulies (died on March 12), who had been the Rabbi for more than three decades leaving a strong footprint on a life and culture of the Jews of whole Italy. Margulies was of Polish origin...In 1890 he was called for the position of the Rabbi of FlorenceFlorenceFlorence is the capital city of the Italian region of Tuscany and of the province of Florence. It is the most populous city in Tuscany, with approximately 370,000 inhabitants, expanding to over 1.5 million in the metropolitan area....
, where he managed to became the leader of whole Italian Jewry. He 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. Thanks to him the indifferent religious life of Italian Jews started to be a live artery filled with strong native Jewish traditions and culture. He also initiated the centralized unification of all Jewish communities which created a new Collegio rabbinico italiano...in Florence...This seminary produced an array of young Rabbis, who started the spiritual renaissance of Italian Jewry."
Schorr's broadest article in Chwila was Prawo Mojżesza na tle poròwnawczem prawodawst Starożytnego Wschodu (The Laws of Moses in Comparative Perspective with the Laws of the Ancient Orient"). This work was a series of articles in several newspaper issues, where Schorr draws comparisons between Biblical and Babylonian laws in the first part of the series, following with a comparison with the Assyrian and Hettite legislatures in the second and third sections. Schorr also refers back to his previous work, The Hettites' Problem, published seven years before in Kwartalnik historyczny.
A few other newly discovered publications of Schorr should be mentioned include Kwestya żydowska w dobie Sejmu Wiekiego ("The Jewish Question at the Time of the Great Sejm"); religious teachings such as Radosna Chwila ("The Joyful Moment"), and Pesach Micarim - Pesach le Atid on the occasion of the Easter celebration.
Publications by M. Schorr
- Prof Dr. M. Schorr na nowej placówce pracy (Prof. Dr. M. Schorr at the new place of work). Chwila, 18 November 1923.
- Schorr, M. Kwestya żydowska w dobie Sejmu Wielkiego, (Jewish question at the time of the Great Seim). Chwila, 13–24 July 1920.
- Schorr, M. Palestyna a Babylon w świetlie najnowszych wykopalisk, (Palestine and Babylon in the light of new archeological excavations,) Chwila, 27, 28, 30 January1922; 1–6 February 1922.
- Schorr, M. Prawo Mojżesza na tle porównawczem prawodawstw Starożytnego Wschodu (Moses' Law in comparative perspective with the legislatures of the Ancient Middle East: Assyrian, Babylonian and Hittite) Chwila, 3-7, 13, 17, 19-22, 24–29 November 1923.
- Schorr, M. Radosna Chwila (Joyful moment,) Chwila, 9 December 1923;
- Schorr, M. Pesach Micraim - Pesach le-atid. Haggadah do użytku Chwili (Haggadah for the use of Chwila) Chwila, 14, 15, 17 April 1922;
- Schorr, M. Samuel Hirsch Margulies, 1858–1922, (Samuel Hirsch Margulies, 1858–1922). Chwila, 13 May 1922.
- Schorr, M. Archiwum żydowskiej kolonii wojskowej w Egipcie z V w. (Archive of Jewish military colony in Egypt of 5 th century). Lwów, 1912.
- Schorr, M. Aus der Geschichte der Juden in Przemyśl (History of Jews in Przemyśl). Vienna: Verlag von R. Lövit, 1915, 28 p.
- Schorr, M. Żydzi w Przemyślu do końca XVIII wieku (Jews in Przemyśl until the end of the 18th century). Lwów, 1903. VIII + 294 pp.
- Schorr, M. Żydzi w Przemyślu do końca XVIII wieku. Jerusalem: Israeli Academy of Sciences – Art-Plus, 1991.
- Schorr, M. Pomnik prawa staroassyryjskiego z XII w. przed Chr. (Monument of Old Assyrian Law of 12 th century B.C.). Lwów: Archiwum Towarzystwa Naukowego we Lwowie, 1922.
- Schorr, M. Problem Chettytów z powodu najnowszego odkrycia lingwistyczno-historycznego (Problem of the Hittites due to the newest linguistic-historical discovery) in Kwartalnik Historyczny, Lwów, 1916.
- Schorr, M. Przyczynki do frazeologii psalmów biblijnych a babilońskich (Articles concerning the phraseology of Biblical and Psalms), in Rocznik Orientalistyczny, Cracow, 1914 -1915.
- Schorr, M. Język hebrajski w Polsce (Hebrew language in Poland), Encycopedya Polska (Polish encyclopaedia), Vol. 3 (1915).
- Schorr, M. Kultura babilońska a starohebrajska (Babylonian and Hebrew culture). Lwów, 1903, 28 pp.
- Schorr, M. Państwo i spoleczeństwo babilońske w okresie t. zw. dynastyi Hamurabiego okoŀo 2500 - 2000 pr. Chr. (Babylonian state and society in times of Hammurabi dynasty of 2500 - 2000 B.C.). Lwów: Drukarnia Ludowa, 1906.
- Schorr, M. Organizacja Żydów w Polsce od najdawniejszych czasów do r. 1772 (Organisation of Jews in Poland since the earliest times till 1772). Kwartalnik Historyczny (1899).
- Schorr M. Kazanie inagauracyjne wygŀoszone w Wielkiej Synagodze na Tŀomackiem dn. 7. 12. 1923. (Inaugurative speech presented at the Great Tlomacka Synagogue on 2.12.1923). Warsaw: Druk. Kupenztocha i Kramaria, 1923, 28 p.
- Schorr M. Kodeks Hamurabiego a ówczesna praktyka prawna (Hammurabi Code and the Ancient Middle Eastern legal practice). Cracow, 1907;
- Schorr, M. Die Kohler-Peisersche Hammurabi Übersetzung (Kohler-Peiser's translation of the Hammurabi Code) Vienna, 1907;
- Schorr, M. Ważniejsze kwestyi z historyi semickiego Wschodu (The Important Issues on the History of the Semitic Orient) Lwów: Druk. Związkowa, 1907, 60 p.
- Schorr, M. Starożytnosci biblijne w świetlie archiwum egipskiego z XIV w. przed Chrystusem (Biblical Antiquities in the Light of Egyptian Archive of 17th cen. B.C.) Lwów: Druk. Związkowa, 1901, 34 pp.
- Schorr, M. Tell-Amarna. in Welt, October,1900.
- Schorr, M. Ruch handlowy w Starożytnej Babilonii (The trade movement in the Ancient Babylon) in "Księga pamiątkowa ku uczczeniu zaŀożenia Uniw. Lwowskiego", Lwów, 1911;
- Schorr, M. Urkunden des albabylonischen Zivil- und Prozessrechts (Documents of Old Babylonian civil and criminal law) Leipzig: Vor der Asiatischen Bibliothek, 1913;
- Schorr, M. Zur Geschichte des Don Josef Nasi in Monatschrift für Geschichte und Wissenschaft des Judenthums, 1897, p. 169 – 237.
- Schorr, M. Krakovskiy Svod evreyskikh statutov i privilegiy (Cracow Collection of Jewish statutes and privileges) in Evreyskaya Starina, 1909, vol. III, No. 1. pp 247 – 264 and No. 2, pp. 76 – 94, 223 – 245.
- Schorr, M. Hauptprivilegien der polnischen Judenschaft in "Festschrift Adolf Schwartz zu siebzigsten Geburtstage 15. Juli 1916", Berlin – Vienna, 1917pp. 519 – 538.
- Schorr, M. Rechtsstellung und innere Verfassung der Juden in Polen – Ein geschichtlicher Rundblick in "Der Jude", 1917, No. II (Reprint), pp. 1 – 36.
- Schorr, M. "Staatsseher und Statslehrer – Ein Beitrag zu Biographie Theodor Herzls" in Festschrift zu Simon Dubnows siebzigsten Geburtstag, Berlin, 1930, pp. 262 – 265.
- Schorr, M. Prof. Dr. Majer Balaban – Z powodu 60-lecia Jego urodzin, 20 lutego 1877 r. (Prof Dr Majer Balaban – on the occasion of the 60th anniversary of his birth) in Nasz Przegląd 21.2.1937.
- Schorr, M. Ideally Zakonu B’nei B’rith, a dostosowanie ich do realnych warunków życia (Ideals of the Order B’nai Brith and their application in real life conditions). Typescript. Archiwum Państwowy w Krakowie / Polish State Archives in Cracow, B’nai Brith 351.