Salomon Wininger (; 13 December 1877, Gura Humora,

Bukovina Bukovinagerman: Bukowina or ; hu, Bukovina; pl, Bukowina; ro, Bucovina; uk, Буковина, ; see also other languages. is a historical region, variously described as part of either Central or Eastern Europe (or both).Klaus Peter Berge ...

– December 1968, in

Ramat Gan Ramat Gan ( he, רָמַת גַּן or , ) is a city in the Tel Aviv District of Israel, located east of the municipality of Tel Aviv and part of the Tel Aviv metropolitan area. It is home to one of the world's major diamond exchanges, and man ...

Israel Israel (; he, יִשְׂרָאֵל, ; ar, إِسْرَائِيل, ), officially the State of Israel ( he, מְדִינַת יִשְׂרָאֵל, label=none, translit=Medīnat Yīsrāʾēl; ), is a country in Western Asia. It is situated ...

) was an

Austria Austria, , bar, Östareich officially the Republic of Austria, is a country in the southern part of Central Europe, lying in the Eastern Alps. It is a federation of nine states, one of which is the capital, Vienna, the most populous ...

Jewish Jews ( he, יְהוּדִים, , ) or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group and nation originating from the Israelites Israelite origins and kingdom: "The first act in the long drama of Jewish history is the age of the Israelites""The ...

biographer Biographers are authors who write an account of another person's life, while autobiographers are authors who write their own biography. Biographers Countries of working life: Ab=Arabia, AG=Ancient Greece, Al=Australia, Am=Armenian, AR=Ancient Rome ...

. He has been called one of the greatest Jewish biographers of all time. Before

World War I World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was List of wars and anthropogenic disasters by death toll, one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, ...

, Wininger lived in

Chernivtsi Chernivtsi ( uk, Чернівці́}, ; ro, Cernăuți, ; see also #Names, other names) is a city in the historical region of Bukovina, which is now divided along the Romania–Ukraine border, borders of Romania and Ukraine, including this ...

and moved to Vienna during the war years, where he decided to write biographies of famous Jews. This idea was pushed in order to counter the self-hating mood of Jewish youth in the city, created under the influence of

Otto Weininger Otto Weininger (; 3 April 1880 – 4 October 1903) was an Austrian philosopher who lived in the Austro-Hungarian Empire. In 1903, he published the book ''Geschlecht und Charakter'' (''Sex and Character''), which gained popularity after his suici ...

's works. After his return to Chernivtsi in 1921, Shlomo Wininger wrote about 13,000 biographies and published them in seven volumes between 1925 and 1936. He survived the time of World War II in Chernivtsi and emigrated in 1951 to Israel.

Works

* ''Große Jüdische National-Biographie'' (" Lexicon of Jewish National Biographies"). Chernivtsi 1925–1936. * ''Gura Humora: Geschichte einer Kleinstadt in der Südbukovina'' ("Gura Humora: History of a Small Town in South Bukovina").

References

* ''Encyclopaedia Judaica''. Vol. 16. Keter, Jerusalem 1971. * ''Handbuch österreichischer Autorinnen und Autoren jüdischer Herkunft 18. bis 20. Jahrhundert''. Vol. 3, S-Z. Ed.:

Österreichische Nationalbibliothek The Austrian National Library (german: Österreichische Nationalbibliothek) is the largest library in Austria, with more than 12 million items in its various collections. The library is located in the Neue Burg Wing of the Hofburg in center of V ...

Wien. K. G. Saur, München 2002, , p. 1483.

External links

* 1877 births 1968 deaths People from Gura Humorului Bukovina Jews Austrian male writers Israeli people of Austrian-Jewish descent Male biographers 20th-century biographers Austrian biographers Israeli biographers {{Austria-writer-stub