Alexander Marx (1878–1953) was an American

historian A historian is a person who studies and writes about the past and is regarded as an authority on it. Historians are concerned with the continuous, methodical narrative and research of past events as relating to the human race; as well as the st ...

, bibliographer and

librarian A librarian is a person who works professionally in a library providing access to information, and sometimes social or technical programming, or instruction on information literacy to users. The role of the librarian has changed much over time ...

Biography

Born in

Elberfeld Elberfeld is a municipal subdivision of the German city of Wuppertal; it was an independent town until 1929. History The first official mentioning of the geographic area on the banks of today's Wupper River as "''elverfelde''" was in a doc ...

, Germany, son of George Marx, a banker, and Gertrud Marx-Simon, a published poet. Alexander Marx grew up in

Königsberg Königsberg (, ) was the historic Prussian city that is now Kaliningrad, Russia. Königsberg was founded in 1255 on the site of the ancient Old Prussian settlement ''Twangste'' by the Teutonic Knights during the Northern Crusades, and was name ...

( East Prussia). He spent a year in a Prussian artillery regiment where he excelled in horsemanship. Later he studied at the

University of Berlin Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin (german: Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, abbreviated HU Berlin) is a German public research university in the central borough of Mitte in Berlin. It was established by Frederick William III on the initiative ...

and at the Rabbiner-Seminar (Berlin), marrying in 1905 Hannah the daughter of R'

David Zvi Hoffmann David Zvi Hoffmann (November 24, 1843, Verbó, Austrian Empire – November 20, 1921, Berlin) (Hebrew: דוד צבי הופמן), was an Orthodox Rabbi and Torah Scholar. He headed the Yeshiva in Berlin, and published research on the Pent ...

, rector of the Seminar. In 1903, Marx accepted

Solomon Schechter Solomon Schechter ( he, שניאור זלמן הכהן שכטר‎; 7 December 1847 – 19 November 1915) was a Moldavian-born British-American rabbi, academic scholar and educator, most famous for his roles as founder and President of the ...

's invitation to teach history at the Jewish Theological Seminary of America and be its librarian. Marx came to Jerusalem in the 1950s to give Ben Gurion the prize from the J.T.S. His siblings include Moses Marx, another librarian, and Esther Marx, wife of S.Y. Agnon.

Works

Marx published articles in many languages and was at home in both classical and Semitic languages. Marx contributed monographs and articles to journals on a wide variety of subjects, published two volumes of collected essays (''Studies in Jewish History and Booklore'' (1944); ''Essays in Jewish Biography'' (1947)), and with Max L. Margolis wrote ''A History of the Jewish people'' (

Jewish Publication Society of America The Jewish Publication Society (JPS), originally known as the Jewish Publication Society of America, is the oldest nonprofit, nondenominational publisher of Jewish works in English. Founded in Philadelphia in 1888, by reform Rabbi Joseph Krausko ...

, 1927, 1962). This pioneering work, stressed economic and social life, organization and legal status. It offers the reader a soundly researched, authoritative, and objective Jewish history in one volume. In later years he also served as a member of the publications committee of the Jewish Publication Society of America.

As librarian

The Jewish Theological Seminary Library on his arrival in 1903 contained 5,000 volumes and 3 manuscripts. At his death it possessed 165,000 books and over 9,000

Hebrew Hebrew (; ; ) is a Northwest Semitic language of the Afroasiatic language family. Historically, it is one of the spoken languages of the Israelites and their longest-surviving descendants, the Jews and Samaritans. It was largely preserved ...

, Samaritan,

Aramaic The Aramaic languages, short Aramaic ( syc, ܐܪܡܝܐ, Arāmāyā; oar, 𐤀𐤓𐤌𐤉𐤀; arc, 𐡀𐡓𐡌𐡉𐡀; tmr, אֲרָמִית), are a language family containing many varieties (languages and dialects) that originated in ...

, and

Yiddish Yiddish (, or , ''yidish'' or ''idish'', , ; , ''Yidish-Taytsh'', ) is a West Germanic language historically spoken by Ashkenazi Jews. It originated during the 9th century in Central Europe, providing the nascent Ashkenazi community with a ve ...

manuscripts, comprising the largest Judaica collection in the world. Much of Marx's research in early Jewish printing remains unpublished.

References

1878 births 1953 deaths American librarians German emigrants to the United States 19th-century German Jews Historians of Jews and Judaism Jewish Theological Seminary of America faculty Prussian Army personnel Writers from Königsberg Humboldt University of Berlin alumni Fellows of the Medieval Academy of America Hildesheimer Rabbinical Seminary alumni {{Library-bio-stub