Salomon Wininger (; 13 December 1877, Gura Humora,

Bukovina Bukovina or ; ; ; ; , ; see also other languages. is a historical region at the crossroads of Central and Eastern Europe. It is located on the northern slopes of the central Eastern Carpathians and the adjoining plains, today divided betwe ...

– December 1968, in

Ramat Gan Ramat Gan (, ) is a city in the Tel Aviv District of Israel, located east of the municipality of Tel Aviv, and is part of the Gush Dan, Gush Dan metropolitan area. It is home to a Diamond Exchange District (one of the world's major diamond exch ...

Israel Israel, officially the State of Israel, is a country in West Asia. It Borders of Israel, shares borders with Lebanon to the north, Syria to the north-east, Jordan to the east, Egypt to the south-west, and the Mediterranean Sea to the west. Isr ...

) was an

Austria Austria, formally the Republic of Austria, is a landlocked country in Central Europe, lying in the Eastern Alps. It is a federation of nine Federal states of Austria, states, of which the capital Vienna is the List of largest cities in Aust ...

Jewish Jews (, , ), or the Jewish people, are an ethnoreligious group and nation, originating from the Israelites of History of ancient Israel and Judah, ancient Israel and Judah. They also traditionally adhere to Judaism. Jewish ethnicity, rel ...

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 or the First World War (28 July 1914 – 11 November 1918), also known as the Great War, was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War I, Allies (or Entente) and the Central Powers. Fighting to ...

, Wininger lived in

Chernivtsi Chernivtsi (, ; , ;, , see also #Names, other names) is a city in southwestern Ukraine on the upper course of the Prut River. Formerly the capital of the historic region of Bukovina, which is now divided between Romania and Ukraine, Chernivt ...

and moved to

Vienna Vienna ( ; ; ) is the capital city, capital, List of largest cities in Austria, most populous city, and one of Federal states of Austria, nine federal states of Austria. It is Austria's primate city, with just over two million inhabitants. ...

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 in 1903 published the book ''Geschlecht und Charakter'' (''Sex and Character''), which gained popularity after his suicide at the age of 23. Weininger had a stron ...

'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 A lexicon (plural: lexicons, rarely lexica) is the vocabulary of a language or branch of knowledge (such as nautical or medical). In linguistics, a lexicon is a language's inventory of lexemes. The word ''lexicon'' derives from Greek word () ...

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 (, ) 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 Vienna. Since 2005, some of the collection ...

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

External links

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