Tag Archives: Jewish Knight

Jew of the Week: Victor Goldschmidt

Father of Geochemistry

Victor Moritz Goldschmidt (1888-1947) was born in Switzerland, the son of a Jewish-Austrian chemist. The family moved to Norway in 1901 and Goldschmidt went on to study chemistry and geology at what would become the University of Oslo. He got his Ph.D at just 23 years of age, and won a prestigious award for his dissertation. That same year he became an associate professor. In 1929, Goldschmidt became the chair of minerology at the University of Göttingen, but resigned six years later to protest anti-Semitism, returning to Oslo. One of his key discoveries was the mineralogical phase rule, followed by a longer list of the Geochemical Laws of the Distribution of Elements. For this ground-breaking work (and for literally writing the first textbook on geochemistry), he has been called the “Father of Geochemistry”. By 1942, the Nazis had occupied Norway and arrested Goldschmidt. He was taken to the Berg concentration camp where he fell severely ill. He was about to be deported to Auschwitz when a group of colleagues intervened and convinced the Nazis that his scientific knowledge would be useful to them. Goldschmidt was eventually able to escape to Sweden, and from there he was smuggled to England by a British intelligence unit. He assisted the British war effort, was elected to the Royal Society, and continued his work at the Macaulay Institute for Soil Research. He would return to Norway following the war, but died soon after. Goldschmidt received many awards, including being knighted by the king of Norway. The region of Goldschmidtfjella in Norway is named after him, as is the mineral goldschmidtite (KNbO3).

Words of the Week

The fact that the universe had a beginning, that it obeys orderly laws that can be expressed precisely with mathematics, and the existence of a remarkable series of “coincidences” that allow the laws of nature to support life – do not tell us much about what kind of God must be behind it all, but they do point toward an intelligent mind that could lie behind such precise and elegant principles.
– Renowned biologist Francis CollinsThe Language of God

Jew of the Week: Ludwig Guttman

Founder of the Paralympic Games

Ludwig Guttman (1899-1980) was born to a German-Jewish family in what is now Poland. After serving in World War I, he volunteered at a hospital and first encountered a paraplegic patient. This inspired him to go to medical school and he went on to become a renowned neurosurgeon, specializing in spinal cord injuries and paralysis. He also taught at the University of Freiburg, where he supervised a Jewish fraternity that focused on fitness and physical training to give Jewish students more strength and confidence in the face of rampant anti-Semitism. When the Nuremberg Laws were passed by the Nazis, Guttman was stripped of his job and title. He was given an inferior position at the Breslau Jewish Hospital, where he eventually became the medical director. During Kristallnacht, Guttman witnessed the desecration of his synagogue and the abuse of his fellow congregants. That night, he admitted 64 Jewish patients that took refuge in his hospital, and was able to save 60 of them from deportation by the SS agents that came the next day. The following year, the Nazis gave him a visa and sent him on a medical mission to Portugal. Guttman never returned to Germany, and settled in England instead. He joined the Nuffield Department of Neurosurgery in Oxford. Guttman came up with the idea of turning paraplegic patients over in their beds every two hours to prevent bed sores, a small move that drastically cut the mortality rate. In 1943, the Royal Air Force asked Guttman to found and head the National Spinal Injuries Centre at Stoke Mandeville Hospital to look after injured pilots who commonly had spinal problems. It was here that Guttman realized how sports could be a powerful tool for rehabilitation. In 1948, he organized the first Stoke Mandeville Games for disabled war veterans, a huge success. Four years later, he turned it into an international event, and in 1956 was recognized by the IOC (International Olympic Committee) for his pioneering work. The Stoke Mandeville Games became an official part of the 1960 Rome Olympics, and by 1984 was known as the Paralympic Games. (When host city Mexico refused to hold the games in 1968, Guttman arranged for them to be held in Israel). Guttman founded what would become the English Federation of Disability Sport, as well as the International Spinal Cord Society. He was the first editor of the scientific journal Spinal Cord. The Guttmann Institute in Barcelona is named after him, as is the Ludwig Guttmann Prize awarded by the German Medical Society for Paraplegia. He was the subject of a BBC documentary called The Best of Men, and was knighted by Queen Elizabeth II in 1966. There are currently over 4400 athletes competing at the Tokyo Paralympic Games, the largest ever.

Words of the Week

It might seem bizarre, but in my opinion science offers a surer path to God than religion.
Paul Davies, renowned physicist

Russian commemorative stamp of Ludwig Guttman, in its “Sports Legends” series released before the 2014 Sochi Olympics. 

Jew of the Week: Sammy Ofer

Israel’s Richest Man

Sammy Ofer (Courtesy: www.sammy-ofer.com)

Shmuel Hershkovitz (1922-2011) was born in Romania and raised in Haifa. He grew up by the seashore as his father ran a ship supply shop near the port of Haifa. Hershkovitz himself worked for the Dizengoff shipping company in his youth. When World War II broke out, he enlisted in the British Navy and served on a minesweeper in the Mediterranean. He later fought in Israel’s Independence War serving in what would become the Israeli Navy. Hershkovitz was among Israel’s first naval officers. After the war, he worked for the family business before purchasing his own ship to import goods for the new State. As the business expanded and the fleet of ships grew, Hershkovitz changed the name of the company, and his own last name, to “Ofer”. In 1969, the company partly merged with Israel’s largest shipping company, ZIM. It continued to operate under the management of Ofer’s brother, while Ofer himself moved to Europe to start a new shipping business. By the late 80s, his company had a fleet of over 200 ships, and partly owned Royal Caribbean Cruise Lines. It later expanded into real estate, banking, and other industries. Ofer became Israel’s richest man, with a net worth of several billion dollars. He shared a lot of that wealth, too. In 2007, he donated $25 million to the Rambam Hospital in Haifa, most of which went to build a 2000-bed state-of-the-art underground, bomb-proof hospital. (The facility has now been converted into a coronavirus treatment centre.) The following year, Ofer donated £20 million to London’s National Maritime Museum—the largest private donation to a museum in British history. He gave sizeable gifts to Tel Aviv Medical Center and IDC Herzliya as well, and established the Medicines Foundation to subsidize the cost of cancer treatment for those in need. All in all, Ofer donated over $100 million to hospitals in Israel. He also gave $20 million to build the Sammy Ofer Stadium, the home of Maccabi Haifa and Hapoel Haifa soccer clubs and Israel’s second-largest sports facility with over 30,000 seats. In 2008, Ofer was knighted by Queen Elizabeth. His two sons remain among the richest Israelis in the world (though they live in Monaco). Last week, his son Eyal donated 10 million shekels to three Israeli hospitals to help fight coronavirus. His other son Idan gave the largest ever donation (£25 million) in honour of his father to the London Business School, whose townhall has since been renamed the Sammy Ofer Centre.

Words of the Week

Every Jew is obligated to study Torah, whether he is poor or rich, healthy or ill, young or old. Even if one is destitute or if he has familial obligations, he must still establish fixed times for Torah study.
Rabbi Moshe ben Maimon, the Rambam, 1135-1204 (Mishneh Torah, Hilkhot Talmud Torah 1:8)